In this episode of Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas sits down with Daniel Hyre, Customer Success Manager at ScreenCloud, a digital signage platform for managing screens across offices and locations. Daniel’s path into CS is anything but conventional: fine wine, estate planning, carbon trading, and now digital signage. That background in industries where you can never push a sale shapes everything about how he builds trust with customers.
He shares what the CSM role looks like at a platform serving everyone from coffee shops to global enterprises, how ScreenCloud uses Hook and AI signals to stay proactive before customers even ask, what good onboarding looks like when success means moving from IT to HR adoption, how he thinks about win-back conversations when an account goes quiet, and why slowing down is the best advice he gives to anyone new to CS.
What You’ll Learn
- What ScreenCloud does and what the CSM role looks like across enterprise, mid-market, and scaled segments
- How ScreenCloud uses AI to eliminate admin and be proactive rather than reactive
- What tools sit at the center of the CS operation: Hook, Salesforce, Notion, Slack, and Zapier
- What good onboarding looks like and why the real milestone is when IT hands the platform to HR
- How the renewal process is structured and why 90 to 60 days is the sweet spot
Key Insights & Takeaways
Proactive CS means knowing what’s happening before the customer tells you. An AI signal that flags a customer’s expansion into a new market before you even knew it happened changes the entire nature of the conversation.
Time to first screen is necessary but not sufficient. The real onboarding milestone at ScreenCloud is when non-technical users like HR and internal comms start using the platform confidently. Until then, you’re only scratching the surface.
90 to 60 days is the renewal sweet spot. Too early feels like pressure. Too late creates panic. Starting the conversation in that window gives you time to align on roadmaps and get the renewal done before the deadline arrives.
Before you chase a quiet account, check if your contact still works there. People move on quickly and don’t always send a goodbye email. Chasing a ghost wastes everyone’s time.
Podcast Transcript
Intro
Irina (0:06 – 0:28)
Welcome to answering 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 Daniel Hyre, Customer Success Manager at ScreenCloud, a digital signage platform for managing screens across offices and locations.
Daniel (0:29 – 0:30)
Thank you for having me!
Irina (0:31 – 0:49)
Before we dive in, you came into CS from different worlds. Fine wine, estate planning, even carbon trading, and you are now at ScreenCloud.
Paint us a picture of your day-to-day there, who are your customers, and what does the work look like?
Daniel (0:49 – 1:44)
It’s a bit of a strategic mix of strategy and tactical elements of customer work. One hour I’m helping a global logistics company figure out how to stream dashboards and real-time data, and then the next hour I’m helping an IT team ensure their media players are secure and updated. So it’s a bit of a varied role.
I think what really stands out as the main thing that I’ve always had within those roles is probably relationship building and making sure that we can achieve goals together. I found that a lot more achievable in CS. We are obviously working with internal communications, HR directors, IT directors, things of that nature. So it’s all varied. It’s nothing too crazy, but it’s really about making sure that everything’s managed and everyone is as green as possible instead of red.
Irina (1:45 – 2:04)
I’m super curious because a lot of things can end up on the CS plate and you mentioned earlier a few of them. How do you, what takes most of your time in a normal day? Is it the relationship-building part or the admin part of things?
Daniel (2:05 – 3:08)
At ScreenCloud, one of the really cool things we’ve tried to do is eliminate admin as much as possible with the help of AI. Compared to a lot of companies I’ve been at before, it’s been really AI-first, trying to cut down on admin time to make sure that we are there, visible, and helping our customers rather than spending a whole day doing admin. There is obviously still some admin that you can’t take away, but AI really allows us to spend a lot more time with customers and also helps us understand where our time goes.
I’d say most of my time is focused on making sure that we do things like QBRs, quarterly business reviews, and managing the renewal process. Making sure that we are not necessarily there every single day saying hello, but at least making ourselves known once a quarter and making sure that the strategic goals we had last quarter are still the same and we are pushing in the right direction.
How ScreenCloud Uses AI to Stay Proactive
Irina (3:10 – 3:25)
You mentioned AI and I have to ask, what are the use cases and how do you leverage it? Because it seems like everyone is speaking about AI and everyone has different use cases. So now I’m wondering which ones are yours?
Daniel (3:26 – 4:47)
We are using quite a few different softwares and platform integrations. One of our main ones is Hook, and that’s allowed us to be more proactive. Everyone talks about being proactive, right? But with AI, this actually becomes possible. One of the things we set up recently, probably three weeks ago, is a signal within Hook that pops up and talks about external news.
So I’ll give you an example. One of my customers had recently branched out to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai. Before I even knew that was happening, the signal let me know, giving me dates and rough estimations around that. It allows me to be proactive and say congratulations on how things are going, and have a more positive conversation rather than a reactive one where it’s like, oh, we’ve got this issue and we need this by then.
So it allows us to be a lot more proactive and get data quicker. Flagging churn risks, contraction risks, and expansion opportunities is probably where we use a lot of our AI. We don’t replace ourselves with AI, we just use it to accelerate and allow us to get more done during the day.
The Tool Stack Behind CS at ScreenCloud
Irina (4:47 – 5:04)
And besides Hook, because you already mentioned, and indeed I had it planned for later on in the conversation, but it goes smoothly now. What else besides Hook do you rely on in order to keep the foundational, the operational part of CS up and running?
Daniel (5:05 – 6:36)
Our main two platforms are Salesforce and Hook. Salesforce is for entities and keeping everything aligned, and Hook is basically our CRM. They really balance each other out in terms of what you can and can’t do.
I haven’t used a platform that actively and proactively tells you there might be a risk based on a conversation that support had, one you might not have been looped into. Hook allows you to go deeper and actually take that conversation and mark it as a potential risk. So we’re never on the back foot when it comes to Hook.
There are also other platforms we use, like Cluster for our pipeline, which has AI embedded in it, maybe not as much as Hook. And we also use Notion. Notion is a huge part of what we do, maybe not every single day from a CS point of view, but it’s definitely third on the list. Now that they’ve released Notion AI, it’s so much easier to use for anyone who isn’t particularly technical. So those are the three main ones: Salesforce, Hook, and Notion, and they’re all infused with AI.
Does ScreenCloud Also Use an In-House AI Layer?
Irina (6:37 – 7:01)
Do you also add an in-house AI layer setup that you bring on top of Salesforce? Do you, for instance, leverage your dedicated Claude Code subscription or OpenAI one that basically helps you with customer analysis or help you cluster the client to help you basically build proactive communication?
Daniel (7:01 – 8:14)
Most of that’s done in Hook. We’ve also got Slack and Zapier linked up to that as well, which allows us to get proactive NPS scores, for example. Customer feedback is a really good one. Customers can go onto the website or within the platform and say, this is what I would like to have, and that shoots out to a lot of people with a lot of visibility.
Our developers and app builders are great. They always take it on as a challenge, which is really helpful from a CS point of view, because some companies say yeah, it’s a great idea, but we’re not going to do it. With ScreenCloud, we are quite lucky that people try and figure stuff out.
I’ll give you an example. We built a World Cup app over the summer. It was an internal app that gave real-time information based on scores and everything like that. Of course, for rights reasons we can’t stream the actual physical thing, but that’s where the app came in. And that was really cool.
That’s what we’re trying to do: build different apps and different integrations to make sure that everything is connected and their tech stack is as automated as they want it to be.
What Good Onboarding Looks Like at ScreenCloud
Irina (8:15 – 8:31)
Super. Let’s go back to processes. You mentioned the renewal, but before discussing and touching on renewal, I want to understand what does good onboarding look like at ScreenCloud?
What are you aiming for in the first few months and how do you know when you got there?
Daniel (8:31 – 10:29)
We focus on time to first screen, essentially. But it isn’t just about being installed. It’s about being used, because anyone can install ScreenCloud. You can have a couple of screens up, but if people don’t really know what they’re doing or don’t have a strategy, you’re going to find that non-technical users like HR switch off quite quickly. Then you might have a situation where the IT team are managing it and only using 20% of its capabilities. It’s a bit like when you buy an iPhone and you don’t actually know what the full capabilities are. You might only use 50% of it.
The real pinnacle for us at ScreenCloud is when it moves from IT to HR or internal communications. That’s when we’re like, okay, now it’s becoming a fully fledged product for this company, because IT will only use it for certain things, whereas HR is really where things sit in terms of internal communication, workforces, and people. So when non-technical users start using it and building their confidence, that’s what really good onboarding looks like for us.
From a metrics standpoint, we track how many apps they’re using, among other things. We also do one-to-one onboarding, and we have different layers of onboarding. Someone with one screen who owns a coffee shop might not want to be onboarded, so that might be digital. We give them all the resources, and we have ScreenCloud University which allows people to learn at their own time and pace. For larger enterprise customers, we give them a much more hands-on approach when it comes to onboarding.
How CS Is Segmented at ScreenCloud
Irina (10:29 – 10:39)
And do you also have the CS team split it between digital CS where low touch versus high touch or how do you do the segmentation?
Daniel (10:39 – 11:10)
The segmentation is pretty standard: enterprise, mid-market, and scaled. We call scale digital. What someone in digital does compared to a CSM in enterprise is completely different, and the same goes for mid-market. There are different strategies and different ways of going about it. We obviously all share ideas, but a strategy for a coffee shop with two screens is going to be completely different from someone with 50 plus screens or our ICP.
How the Renewal Process Works and Why It Needed Tweaking
Irina (11:11 – 11:25)
You mentioned earlier that you tackled the renewal process. I’m curious, how does your renewal process look like and why did it need tweaked or what told you that it needs tweaked?
Daniel (11:26 – 12:40)
When I joined ScreenCloud, we did have a process, but it wasn’t as clear as what it is now. We are trying to be proactive. You don’t want to let people know half a year before the renewal because it feels a bit like come on guys, but equally you don’t want to let them know 30 days before. So we find the sweet spot is around 90 to 60 days. That’s roughly when we try to engage and start the conversation, managed through things like AI and goals in our CRM process.
It allows us to have good conversations about roadmaps, current alignment, screen usage, ratios, things like that. And nine times out of 10, we’ll get the renewal done well before the renewal date. That’s what our customers want and it’s really what we want as well. It just allows things to get done a lot more easily. Obviously sometimes things take slightly longer, but that’s our strategy: starting the conversation around 90 to 60 days before.
Irina (12:42 – 13:02)
You’ve spent your whole career in relationships you couldn’t push. Estate planning, investment advice, where you had to earn the call.
In CS, when an account goes quiet, how do you win them back without it feeling like a chase?
Daniel (13:03 – 14:50)
It can be difficult. It depends. What I would always urge people to do in CS is, before they even start writing an email, check whether that contact still works there. If we’re chasing a ghost, we’re never going to get anywhere. People move on quite quickly and you don’t always get an email saying it’s been a pleasure working with you. Sometimes it’s quite abrupt, especially in the States.
So I would always check: does that contact still work there? Let’s do a landscape review and find out exactly who the contacts are.
Sometimes they’re just busy. I’ve got a customer who, through my signal generator, I recently found out had been bought out by another company. That acquisition took my champion’s focus completely away from ScreenCloud and the rollout took a bit of a backseat. I didn’t know that until I gave him a call on his mobile and found out the situation.
So if we’re doing the same thing and sending three or four emails with no response, that’s maybe not the wisest move. Try different avenues: a LinkedIn message, a call. It depends how comfortable you feel with that customer. If you’ve worked with them for a year or more, I can’t imagine a phone call is going to cause any grief.
Try different avenues, but also don’t take it personally. Some people are just busy. It’s not necessarily about how bad a job we’ve done. Give them some time.
What Daniel Looks for When Hiring for CS
Irina (14:52 – 15:03)
You know what I’m curious, what would you prioritize in terms of skills and traits whenever you are bringing a new person on in the CS team?
Daniel (15:04 – 16:19)
So if we had a new person join the CS team, I would say relationship building is huge, as we’ve already mentioned. But I also think empathy is quite a valuable skill. And also making sure that people are not pussyfooting around the question. If we’ve got a relationship with somebody, being willing to question why they’ve made a certain decision is a really good thing. As a CSM, don’t be a yes person and say, oh, that’s fine, not a problem. Question it, not in a rude way, not in a horrible way, but actually question why they’ve made that decision. Because sometimes they don’t know. And sometimes they actually think, yeah, that’s a very good point. And then you try and build that strategy with things that you’ve already done and implemented with other customers.
So I’d say having empathy, relationship building, but also being quite stubborn sometimes in terms of questioning why they’ve made that decision. I think that’s the perfect balance of what makes a good CSM.
Irina (16:20 – 16:28)
Is there a habit, a way of thinking or something you learned the hard way early on in your career that still shows up in how you run accounts today?
Daniel (16:29 – 17:12)
Probably there was a time when I first left university and went to my first job, I wasn’t making enough calls or doing enough emails and I had quite a talking to when I was young. And I think from there, I’ve always tried to be quite on it in terms of having a mindset where we are here to work. I think that’s probably it. It’s difficult to say habits, really, if I’m being perfectly honest. I find that quite a difficult question to answer, to be fair.
The Advice Daniel Would Give to Anyone New to CS
Irina (17:13 – 17:34)
Let me try to end our conversation with another one. If you were to give an advice to someone who will just enter the CS role, what would you tell him? What would he or she need to learn or be prepared to in order to do a great job or to exceed expectations?
Daniel (17:34 – 18:47)
I would say making sure that we’re building trust with the customer. If you don’t have trust in any sort of world, doesn’t matter if it’s fine wine, carbon trading, whatever that looks like, you still need to build trust. A lot of people rush and push without having that trust. So actually do what’s best for the customer, especially at the start of your relationship and forever, and make sure that they realize that you’re not just a salesperson. You are here to add value and actually be a trusted advisor to them.
I think it’s very easy for people to say that, and a lot of people have said that in the past without really having the customer’s best interest at heart. But when you prove it and have a relationship over a year, two, three years, that’s where you can really show things. When down the line they trust you and you say, I’ve got an idea, it’s going to land a lot more, a lot deeper, than if you said that in the first two weeks of your relationship.
So yeah, I think slow down and make sure that we’re focusing on the human side of things and not just the sale or the outcome.
Irina (18:49 – 19:00)
Dan, thank you so much for joining me! It was an interesting conversation. It was a pleasure finding out more about what you and the ScreenCloud team is doing.
Daniel (19:00 – 19:02)
Thank you so much. Pleasure speaking with you.
Irina (19:03 – 19:10)
To everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious, keep learning and mastering customer success.
