The Customer UnSuccess Podcast

We explore how to build customer success from scratch and make it visible to executives by speaking in outcomes, not activities. We lean on psychology to drive adoption, create champions, and pre‑pave ethical expansions while AI takes the busywork. • CS built in stages with outcome targets appropriate to company maturity • Why executives don’t “get” CS and how to lead with numbers and loss avoidan...

We unpack why generic 30-60-90 plans fall flat and how to turn them into customer coauthored blueprints tied to KPIs. Jess shares therapist-grade discovery tactics, persona-aware messaging, and how data plus boundaries create real influence and sustainable results. • shifting from templated onboarding to coauthored success plans • using layered why questions and silence to deepen discovery • mappi...

We compare enterprise customer success with early-stage startup CS and get honest about chaos tolerance, ambiguity, politics, and fit. Maranda shares hiring exercises, interview tactics, and career moves that protect your story and mental health. • defining your threshold for chaos and ambiguity • differences between regulated enterprise and scrappy startup CS • interview questions that reveal rea...

We unpack a “sure thing” renewal that fell apart, the hidden decision makers who swung the outcome, and why quiet QBRs signal danger. We also break down a high-stakes implementation sold ahead of product readiness and how disciplined alignment turned risk into long-term trust. • mapping influence beyond the budget owner • spotting engagement drop-offs as churn signals • asking hard questions in QB...

We trace a marquee deal that imploded at handoff, then rebuild the path from close to value with practical fixes for alignment, multithreading, and fit. Along the way, we count the real cost to serve and explain why some logos deserve a respectful no. • sales and CS alignment around goals, metrics, and roles • lean handoffs with internal kickoff and joint success plans • multithreading the retenti...

We unpack how saying yes too fast derails outcomes and how visible boundaries make better teams. Lindsey LeFaivre shares hard-won lessons from a 1,500-branching workflow misfire to a delivery-room out-of-office, turning mistakes into practical leadership habits. • discovery before commitment on complex requests • validation of true customer needs and success metrics • small-team pressure, imposter...

We trade war stories from diner counters and real estate closings to show how psychology, better playbooks, and value-add concessions defuse escalations and protect renewals. Rob shares Feel–Felt–Found, digital cancellation flows, and why discounts can backfire. • reframing escalations as signals of product importance • teaching teams Feel–Felt–Found to de-escalate • avoiding discount reflex in re...

We dig into how moving 70% of SMB customers from named CSMs to a pooled digital model exposed misaligned expectations created during sales and trial. We reframe scaled CS to start at acquisition, tie product to retention, and use enrichment and scoring to focus human effort. • abrupt shift from named CSMs to pooled model for SMBs • misaligned sales promises creating a broken handoff • product-led...

We trace how a CS leader uncovered a flood of fake leads, rebuilt guardrails under investor pressure, and chose ethics over easy money—then connect those lessons to hiring, tooling, and scaling without losing the plot. The stories move from legal lead ops to cannabis lab testing, all through the lens of trust and customer value. • discovering affiliate-driven fake leads and broken credit policies...

Stephanie Blair, founder and CEO of Know and Flourish, shares profound insights from her experience leading sales and customer success teams across the US and UK. Her stories reveal how understanding each team member's unique motivations and adapting leadership styles across different cultural contexts can transform team performance. 🎙️ Guest: Stephanie Blair  📣 Find Stephanie:  LinkedIn: ht...

The competitive landscape in SaaS is ruthless, with rivals actively targeting your existing customers who already have budget allocated and pain points identified. Customer Success teams must develop competitive awareness to avoid being blindsided at renewal time. • Competitors view your customers as prime targets since they've already secured budget and demonstrated willingness to invest • C...

Brad Davis shares how your professional network directly correlates with career success in customer success, emphasizing that careers are team sports requiring consistent engagement rather than last-minute networking. • Brad's entrepreneurial journey began with Cincinnati Farmhouse Tables, teaching him valuable business lessons • Success Panda was born from identifying the need for centralize...

Greg Daines, CEO of ChurnRx, exposes why heroic customer rescues are actually disaster stories and how focusing on customer satisfaction is often counterproductive to retention. • Rescue stories are often celebrated in CS culture but indicate systemic failures and rarely result in long-term retention • Data shows zero correlation between customer satisfaction and retention—happy customers leave at...

Kat Brigham shares how SalesLoft's daily office hours program evolved from themed sessions to open forums, revealing that customers prefer flexibility over structure when seeking help. • Started with daily office hours open to all customers regardless of size or segment • Themed office hours failed because customers joined whichever session was happening soonest • Scaled to 13 weekly sessions...

Tiffany Parks shares her soul-crushing experience of having her carefully prepared loyalty program presentation dismissed as "boilerplate" by a CEO after working for three weeks on what she thought was a bespoke strategy. The conversation explores the challenging journey of transitioning from mid-market to strategic CSM roles and the importance of navigating different personality types....

Marie Lunney shares insights from her experience building digital customer success programs, highlighting the pitfalls of focusing only on renewals rather than designing a complete customer journey. She discusses the importance of aligning executives around customer success, creating internal workflows before customer-facing automation, and remembering that meaningful engagement requires multiple...

Anthony DeShazer shares how his protective approach to customer management earned him the reputation as "The VP of No" and how he transformed his leadership style to foster cross-functional collaboration. He reveals the journey from gatekeeping to enabling teams through a mindset shift from "No" to "Yes, and" thinking. • Taking customer ownership to harmful extremes c...

Communication in customer success hinges not on what you say, but what your customer hears, as Kevin Metzger discovered when a casual comment about contractual obligations spiraled into a three-month recovery process with an enterprise client. • Customer's SSL certificate expired causing application issues • According to contracts, certificate renewal was customer's responsibility • Kevi...

Sri Ganesan shares how bringing intensity and professionalism to implementation projects can dramatically improve customer partnerships and outcomes. The RocketLane CEO details specific strategies for setting expectations, improving communication, and catching issues before they become dealbreakers. • Intensity means the ball is always in your court - never waiting on customers without following u...

Aaron Hatton, digital CS program builder at PV Case, shares how parent-child account relationships in data infrastructure nearly derailed a customer success platform rollout. His experience reveals the critical importance of cross-functional collaboration when establishing digital customer success programs and the challenges of defining who your customer truly is. • Working with complex data struc...

Camela Thompson, Head of Marketing at RevOps Co-op and co-host of the RevOps AF podcast, shares how a major analytics implementation nearly collapsed when the focus shifted from customer value to delivery timelines. • Different definitions of attribution lead to misalignment in go-to-market analytics implementations • Standard onboarding metrics often focus on internal KPIs rather than achieving c...

Data access is the fuel for customer experience initiatives and was a three-year battle at Cisco, requiring persistent effort to overcome departmental silos. Andrew Carruthers shares insights from his 17 years at Cisco, where he led digital CX strategy during their transition from hardware to software. • Lack of corporate mandate for the CS function created alignment challenges • Getting access to...

Sally from Customer Obsessing Consulting shares insights on why CS technology implementations fail despite good intentions and how teams can better prepare for new tools. • Every tech company uses between 57-110 tools, creating significant tech sprawl challenges • Project management capabilities are crucial but undervalued skills for CSMs handling customer journeys • Many organizations purchase to...

Customer satisfaction doesn't guarantee retention, and challenging conversations are often essential for genuine success. Strategic CSM from Outreach.io, Alex Glick shares his experiences losing an enterprise account just months into a role and how it reshaped his entire approach to customer success. • Happy customers still churn when they don't see ROI, while frustrated customers might...

Marlee Wagner, Head of Customer Success Programs & Strategy at EverHealth, shares a cautionary tale about a failed CS platform implementation due to overlooked data infrastructure incompatibilities, and provides crucial advice for evaluating customer success platforms. • Carefully examine your data infrastructure compatibility when evaluating new platforms • Involve RevOps early in platform ev...