This is Growth!

In this episode, learn why charging for services, not giving them away, is how customers actually see value, and how this bold bet cut costs by 70% (without reducing headcount).

Join Daphne Costa Lopes as she sits down with Jim Richmond, CCO of Smartling, to unpack 15 years of scaling Customer Success.

Jim shares why picking one trusted AI partner and going all in beats spreading bets thin, why charging for services can deepen a customer's sense of value, and how his team cut cost to serve by 70%. He also gets back to first principles: understanding why people buy, using AI to connect data into one full picture of the customer, and helping your team find purpose as you scale.

Whether you're rethinking how CS delivers value, betting on an AI partner, or building a team for growth, this episode is packed with practical thinking.

Tune in to learn what it takes to deliver real value at scale, without giving it away.

Most B2B companies treat customers as an audience. The best ones treat them as a growth channel.

In this episode, I'm joined by Gal Biran, Founder & CEO of Base to unpack what it looks like when customers become your most powerful GTM lever, helping you market, sell, and onboard at scale.

We go deep on:

• Why the walls between CS, sales, and marketing are collapsing, and what fills the gap.
• How Base's acquisition of Everafter shaped their vision for AI-powered customer programs.
• Why your customers are your most underutilised influencers, and how to activate them.
• What "scaled intimacy" actually means in the age of AI agents

If you run a CS team, lead revenue, or are thinking about how AI reshapes the customer relationship, this one is worth your full attention.

Customer journey orchestration is everywhere right now. Slides. Demos. Board decks. But most CS teams are trying to force customers through a neat journey that doesn’t exist.

In this Growth Pill, I break down:

• Why rigid customer journeys fail in the real world
• What “journey orchestration” actually means in practice
• Why AI is exciting, but also dangerous, without the right data
• Why you need both structured and unstructured data
• And the one move CS leaders should make in 2026 if they want to move fast

If you’re a Customer Success leader experimenting with AI, journeys, or orchestration, this is a reality check worth watching.

When a customer complains, most people rush to explain, defend, or panic.

That’s how small issues turn into big frustrations and even churn.

Here’s the framework I teach every customer-facing professional to turn these situations around: L.A.Y.E.R.

- Listen (don’t interrupt)

- Acknowledge (name the pain and the impact)

- Explore (ask what “success” looks like)

- Respond (take ownership, set an update time, and advocate internally)

Next time a customer is in front of you and things have gone wrong: use L.A.Y.E.R. and watch the whole conversation change.

In this episode of Growth Pills, I unpack three shifts that are quietly breaking the old CS model.1 - Products are no longer selling features. They are delivering outcomes, fast. AI sets a new bar for time-to-value and customers expect results, not potential.2- Pricing is moving from access to usage. Consumption models force proof, not promises, and make renewals evidence-led in a world where switching is easy.3- And customers are no longer learning from your team. They are learning from AI, arriving smarter, faster, and expecting deeply relevant guidance.Ignore these shifts and CS becomes irrelevant.Master them and it becomes your strongest growth engine.

Measuring customer value is hard. That’s exactly why 56% of companies still avoid it.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: not measuring value is even harder.

No evidence at renewal.

No clear signal on how your customer is really tracking.

No way to onboard a new decision maker with confidence.

In Customer Success, there’s no easy path. There’s only a choice between two types of hard.

In this Growth Pill, I break down why the teams that win long term choose the hard that compounds.

Hope is not a strategy. Data is.

Too many CSMs fall into the same trap. They build a brilliant relationship with one person inside the customer’s organisation, only to see everything fall apart the moment that person leaves. I’ve watched this play out for a decade and it still catches teams off guard.

In this Growth Pill, I break down how to turn a fragile single-threaded relationship into a strong multi-threaded one that protects your renewal and strengthens your influence inside the account.

You’ll learn:
• Why one strong relationship is never enough• How to use your existing champion to expand your reach• How to elevate conversations from tasks to value• Why a ready-to-run value story is your insurance policy

Follow for more fast, practical guidance to grow, retain and scale.

Most CS teams aren’t failing at AI because the tech is bad.

They’re failing because their data is a mess.

For years, CSMs held everything together.

Missing fields? Call someone.

Conflicting info? Chase three teams.

Weird behaviour? Dig through five systems.

Humans could patch it. AI cannot.

AI uses the data you have, as is.Messy data means messy outcomes.

The twist?

AI is also the fastest way to clean the chaos. If your AI isn’t delivering value, the first thing to fix is your data.

Most companies say they want to scale Customer Success.What they actually do is strip it of impact.In this Growth Pill, I call out the real reason scaled CS lags high touch by 5 to 10 retention points.Most teams still have no idea what their customers are trying to achieve.No goals. No progress tracking. No ability to tailor anything that moves the needle.The fix is straightforward:• Know the goal• Track it in product• Use AI to guide every customer individuallyIf CS is going to scale without bleeding retention, this is how we need to do it.

I used to believe success came from getting others to change — their mindset, their behaviour, their way of working.

But here’s the truth: you can’t change anyone. You can only change yourself.

How you show up.

How you communicate.

How you collaborate.

In this Growth Pill, I share why the quickest path to better results starts with changing you.