In this episode of Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas sits down with Christina Cato, Customer Success Director at Kontakt.io, a real-time location platform for hospitals. Christina has spent her entire career in healthcare, first as a hospital analyst and quality program manager on the customer side, and now as the person responsible for making sure large health systems get measurable value from the technology they have invested in.
She shares what adoption really means when your end users are clinical staff, how she builds the business case in front of a CFO, how she balances customer product requests against a fixed roadmap, and why the data never tells the full story without the conversation behind it.
What You’ll Learn
- What Kontakt.io does and what the CS Director role looks like across large health system accounts
- Why adoption in healthcare means more than logging in and what it actually takes to get there
- How Christina builds buy-in from both C-suite leaders and frontline clinical staff
- What makes a compelling business case in front of a CFO in a tight budget environment
- What the CS tool stack looks like at Kontakt.io and how Salesforce and Gong do the heavy lifting
Key Insights & Takeaways
Adoption in healthcare is not a login. It’s a workflow. When clinical staff stop calling support because they forgot their credentials and just naturally reach for the tool every day, that’s when you know adoption is real.
Buy-in starts at the top but lives at the bottom. The CFO writes the check, but clinical staff are the loudest voice in the room. Getting frontline teams to love the product is what protects the renewal.
The ROI conversation starts before the contract is signed. Understanding why a customer bought, what their strategic goals are, and what success looks like for them is what gives you something to measure against at every QBR.
Data is the starting point, not the answer. Trends and dashboards tell you something is happening. The conversation with the person closest to the work tells you why.
Podcast Transcript
Intro
Irina (0:07 – 0:39)
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 Christina Cato, Customer Success Director at Kontakt.io, a real-time location platform for hospitals. Christina, I’m really happy to have you here.
Thanks for joining!
You’ve spent your whole career in healthcare, and now you are Director of Customer Success. What does that all look like day to day?
Christina (0:40 – 1:52)
Yeah, that’s a really good question. My role is really about making sure our largest healthcare customers get meaningful, measurable value from our partnership with Kontakt.io. So I work with national accounts, think large health systems with multiple hospitals, complex operations, and a lot of different stakeholders. So day-to-day can look very different.
It could mean meeting with executive leaders to understand their strategic priorities, working with operational clinical teams to support adoption, reviewing performance data, or coordinating internally to make sure we’re delivering what the customer needs. I’m also their number one advocate for all things Kontakt.io. So I will take their feedback, anything they have about products that they want to evolve, bring it back to our product implementation and leadership teams. I would say because I’ve spent my entire career in healthcare, I understand that technology alone isn’t the answer.
It has to fit real clinical workloads, make life easier for staff, and ultimately contribute to a better patient experience. So my job is really connecting all of those pieces together to help turn technology into sustainable outcomes across the health system.
Irina (1:53 – 2:14)
There are a lot of moving pieces and you described, I would say, very different jobs. And I know that customer success means different things in different companies, in different industries. And honestly, it can mean different things day-to-day from a day to another.
I’m curious, right now, what’s the one thing you are trying to move the most?
Christina (2:16 – 3:01)
The one thing I’m honestly trying to move the most is getting those end users to really adopt the technology. Technology, as you can imagine, the healthcare space, the end user, most of the time clinical, they’re always being pushed something new. So really trying to connect the dots, not just with the C-suite leaders, but even with the end users, those clinical folks, even biomed, et cetera, building that relationship with them to understand what are the barriers that you have right now for adoption?
What other things are on your plates that make this a little bit harder to adopt? So really building those connections, understanding the gaps that maybe you can’t see when you walk in day one and you just want to implement it. So really getting to know them and understand their world a little bit is very helpful.
What Adoption Really Means in a Clinical Environment
Irina (3:03 – 3:18)
Walk me through what do you define by adoption? What needs to happen and why exactly? Let’s start with this, even if there’s onboarding and there’s a renewal.
But since adoption is your main priority, let’s decode this first.
Christina (3:19 – 4:08)
Yeah. Adoption is huge. So I know for others, adoption is, I log into the system, but it’s a little bit different.
We want to see that you’re actually using it on a day-to-day that you’ve taken this software and some of the infrastructure that supports it, and it becomes just part of your day-to-day. It’s a natural flow. It’s not, I’m sitting here calling support because I forgot my credentials because I haven’t logged in two or three weeks.
It’s just become part of my, I log in every day. I’m managing, I’m using this with my day-to-day workflow, finding my assets. I know that I can press my staff duress button in case of an emergency.
And I know what Kontakt.io is. It’s not just another vendor that we have to utilize, but it just becomes part of my day-to-day. So to me, that’s what adoption looks like for us.
Irina (4:09 – 4:45)
And how do you make sure this is actually happening? Because as you said, it’s not only part of your clients need to adopt, need to absorb the Kontakt.io in everything that they do. And this requires at some extent to change their day-to-day habits, to change their way of working.
And as we know, change is not something that people embrace easily. What are the steps that, how are you helping the customer to basically make adopting easier in your case?
Christina (4:46 – 6:03)
Yeah, that’s a really good question. It starts at the beginning. So being able to connect with the clinical leaders, if we’re mainly touching clinical folks and also other C-suite leaders.
So most of the time, the COO helps lead initiatives, projects within the hospital, connecting with them to get their buy-in. Hey, can I set up a training for your clinical staff? Can I come to huddle the morning of go live?
And maybe even the day after do some rounding shadowing before go live. Let me take a couple of steps back before go live. It’s training, making sure the staff fully understand how to log in.
What are the main functions? And then who’s going to own reporting, making sure you delegate a leader for every single function. Who’s going to manage the infrastructure?
It’s not just a SAS product. We have infrastructure that goes with it as well. So who’s going to manage that?
What happens if something’s not working? Who’s responsible for that piece? And then making sure that they know they can still come to you.
So for some of my larger customers here in the national space, we have regular touch points with the end users so that they have a safe place that they can come and ask questions and even learn best practices. What’s going well for you at your hospital that I could adopt at my hospital and make it easy to use. So that’s been very beneficial I would say.
Who the Real Internal Customer Is
Irina (6:04 – 6:16)
What’s your internal customer? Is it the end user or is it the executive person who basically has the budget and invest into the platform? Who are you trying to convince to have a successful renewal?
Christina (6:16 – 7:10)
At the end of the day, it’s going to be the CFO. They’re writing the checks. However, the main buy-in that I’m looking for is that end user.
Because if you’ve been around the clinical space at all, you know that they could be very loud. I think whether they like it or don’t like it, they’re going to let you know. So we want them to like it and have really good feedback that then bubbles up to their CFO.
In the healthcare space right now, it can be a little tough based off of budgets, where they want to fund, where they don’t want to fund. So for us, we really do have to prove that ROI and added value, not just to a single hospital, but across their enterprise to say, we are adding value to your overall mission, your company’s strategies on a day-to-day basis. You should keep us and possibly even expand some opportunities there to further help what their goals are.
Building the Business Case in Front of the CFO
Irina (7:11 – 7:30)
And you are not the first head of CS that needs to prove the ROI in front of the CFO. How do you actually work that out? What are the elements, the ingredients that make a successful business case in front of the CFO?
Christina (7:31 – 8:26)
Absolutely. So that comes at the very beginning. Sometimes even before they sign working very closely with our account executives to understand why did they come to us?
What was the reason that they bought? And then typically during a discovery meeting with my customer, it sometimes has maybe not the C-suite because they’re the ones that bought it. They don’t always use the product or leading the implementation efforts, but really building that relationship with the key players to understand what are your organization’s goals right now?
What are you driving towards? And then working with our internal team, whether that be product who’s building some engines that can do some calculations for us on the fly, using some tools to understand how are we providing that value to them and being able to show that every time we have a QBR. So those I would say are some of the steps that we take to be able to actually relay that information back to them.
The Tool Stack and Operational Infrastructure Behind CS
Irina (8:26 – 8:56)
Speaking of the tools that you use, I’m curious what’s the infrastructure and the foundation that the CS team needs to have so that they properly prepare for the QBRs, for the adoption, for awarding adoption and renewal to making sure that the accounts that you are managing are remaining in the green zone, to say so. What do you have in place?
Christina (8:57 – 10:41)
For us, it’s probably a little surprising to others. We don’t have as many tools available that maybe some do. So we rely heavily on Salesforce.
There’s a lot of information in there. So we built some custom fields and dashboards that show us what color is the customer right now? What risks do you have?
Do you have high C-suite turnover? We now have to get new buy-in for this customer and there’s a renewal coming up. It shows us renewal data.
So we need to know who to focus on from that point of view. And then we also have access to our support tickets. So understanding is there, are there themes that are coming in that provide it?
We need to provide some education opportunities, or is there something truly broken that we need to take to the product team to say, we really need to fix this because it’s affecting customers across the board. We also have some recordings. So think about, you have so many moving pieces throughout the day.
It’s hard to sit and just even do the simple note-taking. So having something like Gong, where it records your calls, you can go back and listen to, and also you can tag. If there’s certain things that you want to hear about a new product we have going, how’s it going for other customers?
You can actually listen to those recordings and get some feedback as well. So while our, I would say product suite is a little bit bare bones, it’s been beneficial with us, but also just leaning into our internal teams, support, the account executive and products, having regularly scheduled meetings with them to understand what’s coming out that’s new. This is what would solve some of the problems that a lot of the customers are experiencing today.
That kind of gets us excited and put that out in front of them. So it’s a little bit of mix of tools and then actual conversations, relationships with people internally.
How the Team Leverages AI Day to Day
Irina (10:41 – 10:54)
Where has AI landed in your own work and across the team? How do you leverage it in your day-to-day CS work rather than the AI that sits into your…
Christina (10:54 – 11:36)
That’s really good. We do leverage tools like Chachi, BT, and Cloud, but we’re not just using them to make templates. As we’re building out the team, we’ve used them to help build out some playbooks and some necessary tools like that.
However, we actually plug in our OKRs, like our yearly OKRs that we are given and actively plan out each quarter. This is where we need to be with this set of customers next quarter. Are we on track?
What do we need to do to perform better for next quarter? So really trying to plug in some of that revenue data, which a company of our size, we’re looking to scale and expand. So how do we do that in the CS function?
So that I would say is one of the biggest driving factors of using AI for our group today.
The Best Vendor Christina Ever Worked With and What She Copied
Irina (11:38 – 11:50)
You’ve been describing a lot of this from the vendor side, but before this, you were the customer. What is the best vendor you worked with that you’ve copied ever since?
Christina (11:52 – 12:56)
Oh, that’s a good one. Thinking about one of our vendors, even when I would say times were tough or they had to deliver some bad news, they were always present and consistent. So even if, let’s just say we were not going to move forward with them, they were still interested in having that relationship with us to understand what’s new in your world.
What are some of your company’s goals and strategies that you’re trying to work for? And they, in the background, would try and figure out how can we still salvage this partnership with this particular group in order to work for them in the future, even if they didn’t renew this year. So that consistent conversation and just being present and then owning, I would say mistakes.
Anytime there was something maybe that they didn’t have available or ready for us on a certain time deadline, owning that and saying, just being, I would say, respectful and saying, we own this, but we’re going to do better moving forward. And here are the steps that we are going to take. I’d say that’s probably my best interaction that I’ve had with a vendor in the past.
Balancing Customer Requests Against the Product Roadmap
Irina (12:56 – 13:48)
You’ve been speaking of vendors. In some cases, their objectives are, well, not in every case, their objectives are the same. And some, a vendor can have its own roadmap.
A client can have different, I would say, expectations. And you said that at the beginning of this conversation, that you are an advocate for the customers that you are managing. How do you align both words?
And how do you make sure that, because you cannot accommodate every customer on the product roadmap because then it’s basically the product becomes a catch up all. But on the other thing, some of the things are important. So how do you balance between the two?
And what does it help in order to pick up the right conversations with the product team?
Christina (13:49 – 13:50)
That can be tough.
Irina (13:50 – 13:51)
I know.
Christina (13:53 – 15:30)
Having those, I would say definitely touch points. So we have strategic touch points with the customer just in relation to enhancements or requests. So what are the enhancements that are coming out?
And then what are some new requests that you have? For each customer, we do have like their wishlist, but then you have the ultimate product roadmap where we have insight into see what’s coming. What are some enhancements that are coming maybe in another sprints later on and really understanding from the customer too, they also need to prioritize their requests that they have.
I understand that you asked for three new requests this month, but based off of what we’re currently working off of, where does this fit priority wise with what your goals are now? Because we understand sometimes those are shifting. What may have been important three months ago may not be important now.
So being able to understand that from the customer, if anything has changed, what has, and then collectively going in with the CS team. So sometimes a particular request might get a vote because another customer is requesting the same thing. And that internally can help prioritize the product’s teamwork.
Okay. We’re hearing that 50 customers want this. We probably should prioritize this to be a quick win for us.
So even when we can’t fulfill all of the enhancement requests, the customer has being able to show those wins continually. We couldn’t quite fit this into the roadmap this quarter. However, we did release these six features that you did ask for.
So being able to spin it in a positive attitude and let them know that we still may be considering it, but it may be further along due to other initiatives that are happening.
The Habit That Has Carried Christina Through Every Role
Irina (15:31 – 15:45)
You’ve been a hospital analyst, a quality program manager, and now a CS lead. Is there a habit or a way of thinking or something you learned the hard way early on that still shows up in how you run CS today?
Christina (15:47 – 17:03)
Oh, goodness. I would say one lesson that I learned early and sometimes is the hard way is that the data doesn’t always tell the story. As an analyst, I could identify trends, performance gap, but I learned that I couldn’t fully understand it without talking to the people, the closest to the work that you can sit and read charts all day, but it’s different when you sit down next to the person that’s involved and understand what’s really going on.
So that created a habit that I rely on today, which is start by listening and staying curious before jumping to a conclusion or a solution. I like to ask a lot of questions. So what’s really getting in the way?
How does this affect the frontline team? And then what’s a success look like for this customer? I would say that all of that has really shaped how I lead customer success.
So we don’t necessarily want to simply respond to what a customer asked for, kind of going back to what you had just asked. We really want to understand what’s underneath that request, what’s really driving the need or their want for something. So when you combine data with human experience, I would say that you make much better decisions and you can build better partnerships from that.
Irina (17:05 – 17:20)
Christina, this was a really interesting conversation. Not many people in CS have spent years inside the hospital system before selling into one. And I think that showed in how you talked about the work today.
Thank you for taking the time.
Christina (17:21 – 17:24)
Thank you so much. I greatly enjoyed this.
Irina (17:24 – 17:31)
To everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious, keep learning and mastering customer success.
