In this episode of Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas speaks with Catalin Petre, Customer Success Manager at Severalnines, the company helping teams deploy, manage, and operate open-source databases in production.
Catalin shares why he left a 7-year corporate career to join a scale-up where CS is a lean function, how his role blends sales and post-sales, and what “good CS” looks like when you manage ~100 accounts with tight collaboration across Account Executives, Support, and Solutions Architects.
He also breaks down the practical mechanics of his workflow: onboarding that starts immediately after booking, refresher sessions every ~3 months, renewal conversations near the end of a 12-month subscription, and the health signals he tracks without over-engineering the process.
What You’ll Learn
- What changed for Catalin after 7 years in corporate and why he moved to a scale-up
- How CS works when every account is shared across CS + AE + Solutions Architect
- Catalin’s end-to-end operating rhythm: onboarding, checklists, refreshers, and renewals
- How relationship-building speeds up problem resolution and influences expansion
- The 3 health signals he trusts most: ticket patterns, refresher conversations, and renewal intent
- What he keeps “scrappy” versus what he documents tightly when managing ~100 clients
- The 5 metrics leadership tracks: renewal rate, churn, upsells, new business, and value
- What Catalin says qualifies someone for CS: experience, communication, networking, and timing
Key Insights & Takeaways
CS and Sales blend when the team stays small: At Several Nines, post-sales ownership is shared. Catalin works directly with Account Executives, and many customer conversations include a Support Engineer or Solutions Architect.
Fast support reduces friction, but follow-up creates trust: Catalin credits the support team’s responsiveness (median response time of roughly 4–5 minutes) as a baseline advantage.
Relationship building works even with technical audiences: Catalin estimates that roughly 60% of customer stakeholders are technical and 40% are non-technical.
Organization is a survival skill at ~100 accounts: Catalin uses a mix of customer tools, personal tracking (Excel), and short-term notes.
Onboarding speed drives time-to-value and renewal readiness: Catalin starts onboarding immediately after booking: welcome email, scheduling request, follow-ups every few days if needed.
Podcast transcript
Intro
Irina (0:00 – 0:25)
Welcome to Mastering CS, Candid Leader Insights, the podcast where we dive into the world of customer success with industry leaders.
I’m your host, Irina Cismas, and today I’m joined by Catalin Petre, Customer Success Manager at SeveralNines, a company that helps teams deploy, manage, and operate open source databases in production. Catalin, I’m really happy to have you here. Thanks for joining!
Catalin (0:25 – 0:27)
Thank you for your invite! Hello everyone!
Why Catalin left corporate for a scale-up
Irina (0:27 – 0:48)
Okay, before we get into the work itself, I want to remind that you’ve spent years in very structured environments, and now you are doing CS in a scale-up. What made you say yes to that move?
Catalin (0:50 – 1:47)
Well, I’m going to be completely honest. After seven years in a corporate environment, and I know this might sound like a cliché, I really felt the need for a change.
In my previous company, I moved across various departments and even handled after-hours projects, but I didn’t feel that things were moving in the right direction, professionally or financially.
At the end of the day, corporate spirit and team spirit do not pay the bills. That’s why I felt the need for a change, and I ended up at Severalnines, which was a huge shift in my professional development and a major improvement overall.
What Catalin actually does week to week
Irina (1:48 – 1:58)
Let’s talk about your setup today. If I sat next to you for a week at Severalnines, what would I actually see you doing across customers?
Catalin (2:00 – 4:46)
Let’s just say that at Severalnines, it’s not the usual CS setup. By that, I mean I work in direct conjunction with the Account Executives on basically every account. We all do some degree of prospecting, and we all handle customers, so each customer typically has at least two people managing their account, and in some cases even three. Our Solutions Architect is also part of that equation.
We work together to ensure customers are happy and that their support tickets are handled on time. Not that the support team would ever slack. On the contrary, Severalnines has one of the best support teams I’ve seen. Their median response time is around four to five minutes, so they’re highly responsive. On top of that, we follow up to ensure everything moves quickly toward full resolution, and we check back with clients to confirm everything is in good shape.
We also handle onboarding. By “we,” I mean myself and a Support Engineer from the technical team. After the deal is closed, we run onboarding sessions, typically within a day per week in most cases. There’s also a post-onboarding checklist that I conduct after a couple of weeks to make sure what we discussed has been implemented and actively used.
Roughly every three months, I run refresher sessions to confirm everything is working well, bring clients up to speed with product developments, and check their overall satisfaction. Toward the end of their 12-month subscription, we begin renewal conversations. From time to time, we also run webinars, which I actively encourage customers to attend.
In a nutshell, that covers most of my activity.
Building CS when you’re the first (and only) CS hire
Irina (4:47 – 5:17)
You know what I’m curious about? Your role is blended between sales and post-sales activities, and I wouldn’t say that it’s the traditional form of customer service. Were you the first one to wear this hat?
So, were you brought into the team dedicated to handle that area, and maybe post-sales?
Catalin (5:18 – 5:39)
Yes, that was the plan back in 2022. Severalnines was looking for a customer success manager to handle small and medium-sized accounts, and they found me, and I was the first and currently still the only customer success person in Severalnines.
Irina (5:40 – 6:00)
Is it correct to assume that when you first joined the team, there were no standardized processes on the CS side, particularly around handling post-sale activities? And if so, how did you build that structure?
Catalin (6:01 – 8:05)
Yes, you are right. When I came in, and this still applies to some degree, each Account Executive handled their clients along the guidelines, but with small variations. So I could see differences between territories.
When I came in, I tried to harmonize things so clients were more or less on the same page in terms of deal sizes, discounts, and subscription timeframes, and to put everything in order. In my opinion, this can be done by building rapport and keeping in contact with clients. Not spamming them or calling them every few days, but making sure they do not go cold.
This is a huge improvement compared to the colder way of doing things when I was at Oracle. At Oracle, I had a different territory every year with different people. Here, I get to speak to the same people, as long as they do not change positions.
We stay in constant contact throughout their subscription timeframe and after renewal as well. With some of them, we have a very good relationship. We talk about families, how things are going, and similar topics, so it becomes more than just a cold business interaction.
By having a better understanding of these people and maintaining consistent contact, things tend to run much more smoothly.
Technical customers and relationship-building
Irina (8:07 – 8:47)
I’m surprised because I think I might be incorrect in assuming that you are managing a highly technical product with a mostly technical audience. When we talk about your customers, I wouldn’t have expected engineers or technical people to appreciate the human or relationship-building aspect. I imagined them being very transactional.
Catalin (8:48 – 9:21)
You’d be surprised. In some cases, we don’t necessarily speak to the technical people. We often speak to procurement or whoever is directly responsible for renewing those licenses.
I would say that roughly 60% of them are technical. In general, about 40% are non-technical, but they are responsible for renewing those subscriptions. And yes, even technical people have a human side.
Irina (9:22 – 9:44)
And they value it. Based on what you shared, it seems this also helps develop the relationship over time. Does this relationship help you secure renewals more easily?
Catalin (9:45 – 10:25)
I tend to think so, yes. But at the end of the day, if the product is no longer necessary, they will drop it. They may be very apologetic, but if there is no need, they will drop it.
However, if you maintain constant contact with that person, they are more inclined to recommend the product to other departments within their organization, in the hope that the licenses can be repurposed. And yes, this does happen.
Prioritization when you’re a team of one
Irina (10:28 – 10:57)
You being the only person handling Customer Success, at least up until now, I assume you have a lot on your plate, from onboarding to support signals and renewals. How do you decide what deserves immediate attention and what can wait?
How do you prioritize your workload on a day-to-day basis?
Catalin (10:59 – 11:47)
Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m swamped. As I mentioned earlier, I have a team working with me, including the support team, and we can rely on each other.
There are times, though rarely, when I have a call with the U.S. at 11 a.m. our time and another call with Australia at five in the morning. These situations do happen, and sometimes they cannot be avoided.
But in most cases, I have the flexibility to arrange things according to my time zone. And as I mentioned, I have people who help me deal with larger volumes. So it’s definitely manageable, at least from my perspective.
Scrappy vs structured: where process matters
Irina (11:47 – 12:56)
Mm-hmm. I assume that some startup-like dynamics apply in your case as well. So you probably don’t formalize a lot.
In some situations, you can go scrappy, while in others you need more structure because things do not work otherwise.
So I’m curious. What are the things that, up until now, did not need to be formalized, where you didn’t have to over-engineer processes because they worked? And what are the areas where you felt the need to be more procedural or to do things differently?
Catalin (12:56 – 14:27)
Well, to be completely honest, I’ve been quite fortunate because I’ve been given complete flexibility in how I approach clients. My manager has been highly supportive, and so have my colleagues. This allows me to organize my duties and interactions according to my own preferences.
Of course, my background helps. I’m not going to interact inappropriately with high-ranking stakeholders at customer companies. I know how to keep things formal or slightly informal, depending on the situation.
When it comes to being scrappy, on higher-volume days I sometimes keep multiple notepad tabs open where I write down key points about what I handled that day. Every three or four days, I clean things up and log the right information. I try to stay as tidy as possible because I manage roughly one hundred clients.
If I’m not organized and tidy, it becomes very difficult to remember important details for each account.
Irina (14:28 – 14:36)
What helps you stay so organized in the day-to-day work?
Catalin (14:36 – 15:11)
The need to be organized, as I mentioned, comes from the volume. It’s not huge, but it’s not small either. If I don’t keep a clear record of every activity for each customer in the tools we use, as well as in my own Excel or notepad, it becomes very easy to lose momentum and forget important details. And that will eventually come back to bite me.
So it’s a necessity, definitely a necessity.
Account health signals: what tells him something is off
Irina (15:12 – 15:25)
Speaking about tools and Excel, how do you know when an account is healthy and when something feels off? What are the signals that you are searching for in the tools that you have?
Catalin (15:28 – 16:35)
Well, again, it depends on the communication with these people. I can spot yellow flags, or even red flags, during our refresher sessions. When I see a high number of recurring support tickets from a customer, that is definitely a yellow flag.
For example, if a client submits three support tickets within a week, I check with the engineer who handled them to understand how critical the issues are.
Then I follow up with the customer to confirm whether the problem was resolved, how things are going, and whether there is anything we can do to improve the situation. This is usually when we can see if something is changing and whether the product is becoming less relevant for their organization.
Irina (16:37 – 17:36)
I’d like to dive into data and the metrics that are important in your organization. I’m going to ask you to name some of the metrics you look at, but also to explain why they are important for your setup. Different organizations choose different metrics depending on their business model, their stage, and where they are in their journey.
So I’d like you to make that thinking visible for our audience. Why did you pick those metrics, and what do they mean for you? I’m not interested in numbers, only in the metrics themselves.
Catalin (17:37 – 18:17)
I understand. These metrics are defined by our management team and established every year.
We look at renewal rate, churn rate, upsells, new business, and the value associated with each of them. I think these are relevant for any company, regardless of where they are in their journey.
These are the main metrics we focus on.
Irina (18:18 – 18:20)
And what does value mean? Providing value.
Catalin (18:21 – 18:23)
Value as in the exact amount.
Irina (18:24 – 19:14)
Because I can interpret value differently. I was under the impression that you might be looking at how you provide value to customers beyond financial impact, meaning value along the journey between you and them.
Okay, understood. So you are measuring the traditional metrics. How important is it for you that onboarding happens within a specific timeframe?
And how important is it to demonstrate value within a shortened timeframe?
Catalin (19:15 – 19:52)
It’s very important. Right after the booking takes place, I send a welcome letter to the new client and ask them for an available slot to conduct onboarding as soon as possible. It’s in both their interest and ours for them to make the most of their purchase and use it to its full capabilities. This is handled right away.
If they don’t respond for any reason, I follow up after a couple of days, and then again a few days later. It’s a must.
Corporate friction vs direct access: Slack over ticket chains
Irina (19:53 – 20:09)
Coming from much bigger companies, we’re speaking about the corporate backgrounds that you have. What’s one habit that you had to unlearn once you moved into scale-ups?
Catalin (20:11 – 21:37)
Going to the office, to be honest, that was the first one. It wasn’t hard to unlearn the lack of flexibility in many processes, especially internal ones. This applies not just to my previous employer, but to corporate environments in general.
When I needed something done internally, it often required submitting tickets, doing multiple follow-ups, and going from person to person to get things moving. Now, it’s much easier. I can directly contact people, from the support team to upper management.
In my opinion, this is a clear advantage of working in a smaller company. Communication across departments is simpler, and things move faster, as long as the necessary resources are available.
Other than that, the work itself is quite similar.
Cross-functional alignment in a startup environment
Irina (21:39 – 22:09)
How easy is it in your case to reach alignment, not only between Sales and Customer Success, but also in discussions with the Product team?
Across Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, and Product, how do you leverage the advantages of the startup environment?
Catalin (22:12 – 23:05)
Well, by maintaining close contact and presenting a unified voice when we interact with customers. As I mentioned, we work in conjunction. My refresher sessions, for example, are in most cases conducted together with the Account Executive and a Support Engineer or Solutions Architect. This creates a unified interface when we engage with the customer.
The Marketing team is also closely aligned. Our VP of Sales stays in constant contact with them to share what we see in the market, what we need, and where they can focus to support our work.
So it really comes down to constant contact and communication, which is highly important.
Career advice: who qualifies for CS and what drives growth
Irina (23:07 – 23:18)
And for someone listening and thinking, I don’t even qualify as a customer success person, what would you tell them after leaving the setup yourself?
Catalin (23:21 – 26:21)
Well, in my opinion, if you have at least two or three years of experience in a corporate environment, a strong command of English, both written and spoken, and you are a good communicator with attention to detail, which is very important, you can definitely secure a non-technical position in a corporation or in a company that aspires to reach that level. That is my opinion based on my experience.
Of course, experience is subjective, but this is what I’ve learned. Do what you’re paid for responsibly, be a pleasant colleague to work with, and be helpful whenever needed. Networking is extremely important. It’s key, and it works best when you are a pleasant person to work with.
If people see that you get the job done, aim to be an overachiever when it is in your advantage, whether financial, professional, or related to growth opportunities. Remember that the people you work with today are the ones who may recommend you to your next employer tomorrow.
After you gain the necessary experience and grow in your role, do not undervalue your time. This is one of the factors that pushes companies to raise salaries.
There is also another component which you cannot control, and that is chance. Throughout my career, I’ve had situations where the right recruiter contacted me at the right time, and those opportunities led to the next step. In other cases, people I met through previous roles recommended me further.
So chance plays a very important role, alongside experience, work, and networking.
Irina (26:22 – 26:35)
Catalin, this was such a grounded and honest conversation, and I really loved the way you broke down what customer success looks like in your case without hiding behind processes or titles.
Catalin (26:36 – 26:37)
Thank you.
Irina (26:38 – 26:48)
Thank you so much for sharing your story and insights, and to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious, keep learning, and mastering customer success.
