The Customer Success Podcast: Recent Episodes
Gainsight
The Customer Success Podcast aims to uncover the stories, perspectives, and best practices around the leading Customer Success programs. Hosted by Allison Pickens(Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight), she shares those stories alongside an all-star roster of special guests.
Welcome to The Gainsight Gamechanger Podcast, a space where we recognize and celebrate people who change the game of customer success and product experience for their companies, customers, teammates, and partners.
Losing customers to churn is painful, we can’t deny that, but it is key for businesses to make the most out of these situations and learn from their customers’ experiences in order to evolve and better serve others. In today’s episode, we’re joined by Natasha Narayan, CEO and Co-Founder of IcebergIQ, to chat about the hidden value inside businesses and customers’ worst nightmare: churns. When customers decide to leave, it’s for good, and CSM professionals must learn to properly handle these situations. Listen to this episode to learn how to extract the best feedback from your customers for your own improvement, and how to prevent a future churn with the adequate interview in the first place. In this industry, it all comes down to your communication and listening skills, if you want to work on them even further, this episode is definitely for you.
Hosted by Adam Joseph, The Gamechanger Podcast is a show brought to you by Gainsight. For more information about all of our episodes, please visit https://www.gainsight.com/podcasts.
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In this episode, Ruben Rabago(Chief Strategist, Gainsight) sits down with Natasha Narayan(CEO, IcebergIQ) to examine and discuss why Win/Loss Analysis is essential for customer success-driven organizations, why she co-founded IcebergIQ, and more.
In this episode, Ruben Rabago(Chief Strategist, Gainsight) sits down with Jo Massie(VP of Customer Success, Slido) to discuss how Customer Success is at the center of every employee's onboarding, managing global teams, and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with Peter Armaly (Senior Director of Customer Success Business Advisory Services, Oracle) to discuss how Oracle is using advisory services both externally and internally to drive success, how his team approaches CS organization, and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens(COO, Gainsight) sits down with Yamini Rangan (CCO, Dropbox) to discuss why the terms are so important within the customer relationship, how to breakdown silos between teams, and more.
In this episode, Ruben Rabago (Chief Strategist, Pulse Programs) sits down with Catherine Blackmore (Global Vice President of Customer Success, Oracle) to discuss how Oracle's customer success team operates, how to incentivize your customer success team, and what Oracle is doing to increase diversity within their recruiting pipeline.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Marketing Program Manager, Gainsight)sits down with Stefanie Caldwell (VP of CS, NarrativeScience) and Matt Davis (Head of Revenue, AlphaHQ) to discuss why accountability is crucial for success, the importance of discovery for a CSM, and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with Carine Roman (Global Head of Customer Success, Linkedin Talent Solutions) to discuss how to create a diverse customer success team, why the process is important in gathering a diverse recruiting pipeline, and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with David Sakamoto (VP of Customer Success at GitLabs) to discuss a recent study he completed on cultural trends within CSM teams, what it means for the industry, and how to develop a leading CS culture.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with John Gleeson (Head of Customer Success - Upmarket, KeepTruckin) to discuss how KeepTruckin has managed to effectively scale their customer success team while adding a thousand customers a week, and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with Peter Armaly (Senior Director of Customer Success Business Advisory Services, Oracle) to discuss his experience in helping to build Oracle's customer success team, how CSMs can become more efficient, and how to drive effectiveness through process.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with Kristina Shen (Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners) to discuss what she's learned about the most successful customer success teams as a board member, what type of performance indicators the board expects from a customer success team, and more.
In this episode, Courtney Hauser (Senior Global Customer Outcomes Manager, Gainsight) sits down with IBM's Executive Customer Success team including David Sawatzky (Vice President, SaaS & Customer Success, Cognitive Solutions at IBM), Beth Ann Vaughn (Vice President, Worldwide Sales Leader, IBM), and Sanders Slavens (VP - Customer Success, Professional Services and Product Support, IBM)to discuss how IBM is leading with Customer Success, how they manage their customer success teams, and more. David, Sanders and Beth Ann's views are their own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (COO, Gainsight) sits down with Jon Herstein (Chief Customer Officer, Box) to discuss his rise from Head of Customer Success to Chief Customer Officer, how Box approaches customer success, presenting customer success metrics to the board, and more.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Jane Bossert (CSM, IBM) to discuss how her team is streamlining time-to-value by creating data-backed journey maps, enabling customers with self-assisting content, and more.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Lada Gorlenko (Director of Experience Research, Smartsheet) to discuss how Smartsheet is developing new programs to help product teams and customer success teams work closer than ever.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Jessica Bobbitt(Senior Program Manager, Customer Success at Blackbaud) to discuss how Blackbaud is developing cutting edge content programs to help enable their customers to achieve their desired outcomes.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Rachel Jennings (Customer Success Manager, Domo) to discuss her journey as a customer success manager, how to prevent burn out as a CSM, when to tell you customers "no", and more.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Corey Pudhorodsky (Director, Customer Success, Khoros) to discuss how Khoros is using Product Coaches to learn side-by-side with their customers, lower time-to-improvement with product teams, and more.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight)sits down with investor Skip Glass (Managing Director, Union Square Advisors) to discuss why he believes customer success is the key for companies looking to produce next-generation revenue growth, what he looks for when advising companies on customer-centricity, and more. Disclaimer: All views expressed by Skip Glass are his own and should not be taken as investment advice.
In this episode, Brian Brannon (Corporate Marketing Manager, Gainsight) sits down with Mike Davis (VP of Sales and CS, TaskRay) to discuss their playbook for bootstrapping your customer success team, specializing existing functions within your team, and more!
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Mickey Alon, Chief Executive Officer, and Founder at Aptrinsic to discuss why a product experience focused approach to customer success is necessary to future-proof your endeavors
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Jamey Jeff, Managing Director of Customer Success at Coastal Cloud to discuss why creating a career development program may be the single most important ingredient to attracting and retaining the best customer success teams.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Christina Kosmowski, Global Head of Customer Success & Services at Slack to discuss how Slack has effectively scaled it's customer success team throughout it's hyper-growth, why tech-touch is essential for every mature customer success organization and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Ray Mitra, Global Head of Customer Success & Services at GEDigital to discuss how he and his team are driving innovation through cutting-edge customer success programs, why finding purpose outside of work is crucial to driving customer outcomes and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Krista Anderson, Chief Customer Officer at Okta to discuss how she's approaching compensating her customer success team, key KPI's for bonus plans and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Patrick Lawler, Director of Customer Success and Services at Azuqua to discuss how Azuqua is adopting a prescriptive approach to customer success and what is means for their customer base.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Alaa Badr, VP of Cloud Services at VMware to discuss how his team is creating valuable customer insights across their portfolio, managing an at-scale customer success team and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Howard Tarnoff, (Managing Director, Customer Success LLC) to discuss how advocacy is changing the way companies grow revenue and get new customers.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Dennis Fois, Chief Executive Officer at NewVoiceMedia to discuss how NVM is driving customer outcomes through company success and more.
In this episode, Nick Mehta (CEO, Gainsight) sits down with acclaimed Author and Futurist Geoffrey Moore to discuss the transformative nature of customer success and
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Emilia D'Anzica (Vice President of Customer Success, Qordoba) to discuss how find your next job in customer success, what questions to ask a potential employer and how to establish trust with your new team early on.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Somit Goyal (Global Head of Customer Success at Microsoft Dynamics) to discuss how to deliver customer success in the partner channel, how to create a post-sales value engine and more!
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Somit Goyal (Global Head of Customer Success at Microsoft Dynamics) to discuss how to deliver customer success in the partner channel, how to create a post-sales value engine and more!
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Dean Robison, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at ServiceNow to discuss his approach to organizing his customer success department, how to incentivize top-tier customer success managers and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Wayne Berkowitz (Vice President of Partner Success at Continuum Managed Services) to discuss how to deliver customer success in the partner channel, what matters when setting up a Voice of the Customer program and more
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Evan Klein (Founder & President at Satrix Solutions) to discuss what customer organizations should watch for when setting up customer surveys, how to eliminate gaming and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Chris O’Neill, Chief Executive Officer at Evernote to discuss how Evernote has been going above and beyond in delighting customers, how they’ve created a personal relationship between end-user and their product and more
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Dhaval Moogimane (Partner at Waterstone Management Group) to discuss how you should approach charging for customer success, his take on customer success maturity and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Dayton Semerjian (GM, Global Customer Success, CA Technologies) to discuss how CA Technologies is driving exceptional outcomes through their CX2020 program, optimized NPS surveys and more
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Lynn Nemiccolo (SVP of Customer Success, MCG Health) to discuss what Lynn looks for in outcome-driven CSMs, How MCG drives success based on end-user experiences and how to track customer health and deliver success in the ever-evolving world of healthcare.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Simon Tucker (CCO, Anaplan) discuss his journey to the Chief Customer office, why transparency should be a guiding principle for every customer success organization and how to drive success in the partner channel.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Jennifer Tejada (CEO, PagerDuty) to discuss how she leads her customer-centric company like an orchestra, how to have effective meetings with customers and more.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Helen Yu (CCO, Sprinklr) to discuss what VoC programs are and why Customer Success is crucial in building them, how Customer Success plays into Customer Experience and the future of Customer Success.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Leyla Seka (EVP of AppExchange, Salesforce) to discuss Leyla's top lessons from her time at Desk.com, why Customer Success will continue to revolutionize the support function and how artificial intelligence will forever change the landscape of support.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Greg Stivers ( Sr. Vice President of Sales, Avalara) to discuss how Customer Success drives revenue for public and private companies, why sales and customer success should be best friends, and how to create cohesion between departments.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Roger Lee (General Partner, Battery Ventures) to discuss why Customer Success is the inevitable outcome for every business within the subscription economy, trends he sees across his portfolio and why investors consider winning customer success strategies.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Catherine Blackmore to discuss the key tactics she uses to accelerate her team's growth, gain executive buy-in, and deliver successful outcomes at scale.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Rob Castaneda (CEO, ServiceRocket)to discuss the importance of customer training in customer success initiatives, why you need to implement a cross-functional training program and how cutting-edge technologies are transforming the future of customer training.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Andy Mowat (Head of Growth, Culture Amp)to discuss his experiences in scaling Customer Success operations, insights from challenges his team faced, and why growing your customer success operations team is essential for future growth.
In this episode, Allison Pickens(Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Jennifer Dearman (Vice President of Global Customer Success, Kronos Incorporated) to understand the mechanics of delivering enterprise-level customer success. Jennifer has run several global customer success teams at enterprise organizations with wild success during her career. Prior to her position at Kronos, Jennifer served as Director of Customer Experience and Engagement at RedHat, where she led the development and implementation of RedHat’s Global Customer Success organization.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Anthony Reynolds (CEO, Altify) to uncover why he thinks Customer Success is a pathway to the CEO's office, Anthony's Journey from CCO to CEO, and why customer-centricity starts at the heart of an organization.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight) sits down with Nicolle Paradise (Sr. Director of Client Experience, ADP) to discuss how ADP is being transformed by Customer Success, how to translate customer data into meaningful action and why customer success needs to be an intentional organism to survive.
In this episode, Allison Pickens (Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight)sits down with Byron Deeter (Partner, Bessemer Venture Partners) to get his thoughts on the rise of Customer Success over the years and what it means for the future of business. Byron Deeter is one of the most well-known faces in venture capital, having led numerous investments and exits in companies like Box, Cornerstone on Demand, Twilio, and more. A fundamental part of his current position at Bessemer Venture Partners is to foretell how markets and industries will adapt to new technologies and economic changes.
Throughout his professional journey, Byron has repeatedly witnessed how every level and function of a business can benefit from being more customer centric. As an operator, Byron regularly meets with clients to learn their use cases and their definitions of a successful outcome. Leveraging those experiences, Byron focuses on how companies in his portfolio are managing their client base, operationalizing ARR, and delivering success outcomes at scale.
Why has Byron decided to invest in companies that put Customer Success at the forefront? What does he think the Customer Success movement means for the future of post-sales business strategy? Listen to the full episode to find out!