In this episode of Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas sits down with Jonny Davies, Head of Customer Success at Vixio.
In this conversation, Jonny unpacks how he is reshaping CS at Vixio, from redefining roles, rebuilding health scores, and implementing automation to balancing commercial growth with genuine customer partnership. He also shares what true CS maturity looks like, how to scale teams under pressure, and why a growth mindset is the non-negotiable skill for CS leaders entering 2026.
What You’ll Learn
- How to evolve CS from a support function into a proactive, revenue-driving partner
- How Jonny rebuilt Vixio’s customer health score to reflect real behaviors, not misleading trend data
- What CS maturity actually looks like—and how to recognize when your org is getting there
- When to standardize processes vs. when to stay flexible and encourage creativity
- How to balance helping and selling to drive expansion without eroding trust
- Practical examples of where AI and automation actually add value in CS
- How to build resilient teams that thrive under pressure and change
- The leadership principles Jonny uses when coaching new heads of CS
Key Insights & Takeaways
- Customer success is proactive, not reactive. True CS happens when teams look beyond the current quarter and actively shape outcomes through early signals.
- Trend data alone does not tell the truth. Health scores must reflect real usage patterns, meaningful engagement, and multiple data signals, not just logins.
- Mature CS = repeatable processes + customer perception of value. Not documentation for documentation’s sake, but consistent patterns that drive real outcomes.
- Helping is selling. Expansion becomes natural, not pushy, when the value has already been proven repeatedly.
- AI + automation create capacity before hiring. Tools like call summaries, automated triggers, and email drafting help teams focus on high-leverage work.
- Resilient teams need clarity and autonomy. Motivation comes from strong culture, recognition, and leaders who stay close to customer realities.
- Growth mindset is the No. 1 skill for CS in 2026. Skills can be taught, mindset drives adaptability, resilience, and performance.
- Internal networking is critical for new CS leaders. Early cross-functional alignment prevents silos and accelerates internal influence.
Podcast transcript
Intro
Irina (0:01)
This is Candid Leader Insights, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of customer success with industry leaders. I’m your host, Irina Cismas, and today I’m joined by Jonny Davies, Head of Customer Success at Vixio, a company that helps businesses navigate global regulatory changes with reliable insights and data-driven intelligence. Jonny, I’m really happy to have you here.
Thanks for joining.
Jonny (0:29)
Thank you, Irina. Very good to be here. Nice positioning of Vixio there, so thank you for that.
And yeah, great to be talking with you today. I’m looking forward to exploring some customer success topics.
From contract management to customer-centric growth
Irina (0:41)
Speaking of this, let’s start from the very beginning because I know that you’ve been in customer success roles long before CS was even a big thing. How has your view of managing customers changed over these years?
Jonny (1:00 – 3:54)
Yeah, I have. It’s been the best part of 20 years, if not longer. So it was about seven or eight years before customer success became customer success, thanks to subscription revenue and Marc Benioff and that whole movement around the kind of 2009 – 2010 period.
Really before then, I’m from a world just about, I’m showing my age here, where when you bought products and services, they were typically installed in your offices. And I used to sell telephone systems and things which were hard-coded in and churn and retention weren’t really the thing. I think what you have to do is be there as a service agent.
There was a lot of what I call tea and biscuits account management. Hey, how’re you doing? How’s the wife?
How are things? There wasn’t really an agenda necessarily. And it was very much about the renewal of the contract.
And it was very much about how can we grow your revenue. So it was more contract management. There were some relationship there as well, but I think it kind of stopped there really.
And as I say, the main mark was around retention and growth. As the technology changed, as we became subscription-led and cloud-based, the ability for customers to leave was increased. All of the timeframes were shortened in terms of the contract buying cycle.
Customers would come in for 12 months. That was short in a subscription industry, right? You typically were longer.
And therefore I think the expectations were quite high from customers that you in that 12-month period where the expectation from management and customers was you better come in, you better onboard me well, you better say the right things. You’ve got to help me use this thing by the way, because this is a new technology in my business. And I think that paved the way for customer success, right?
Which is now a fully fledged industry with its own set of best practices and principles and everything else. I’ve been in that industry now as well. And yeah, I think that’s really what we’re seeing.
So how is that different to account management and kind of contract management? I think it’s proactive. As I say, it’s got its own industries and best practices.
We try and place the customer at the heart of everything that we do rather than the revenue or the rep. And I think customer success has a big part to play in helping businesses become more customer-centric. Folks that are able to achieve that typically have very successful businesses.
You have to have a good product and a good market fit and you have to be evolving your product to meet changing needs. But I think if you’re doing that in a customer-centric way, you will have a good business for a long time.
How CS and AM work together in a regtech transformation
Irina (3:55)
It’s an interesting perspective and it actually ties perfectly into where you are now. You recently joined Vixio as the head of CS. So I’m curious, what does the setup look like?
Team size, structure, type of customers? Tell us a bit about your current organization.
Jonny (4:15)
Absolutely. Vixio is the world leader in regulatory compliance intelligence. It provides compliance and growth teams across gambling, e-gaming, payments, and now financial services with the most up-to-date and comprehensive regulatory intelligence available for their roles.
Today, it’s an information business, but we are becoming a regtech provider. We’re building tools and technologies to position ourselves as a greater partner to compliance professionals. It’s a very interesting time in our lifecycle and development.
I’ve inherited a team of five customer success managers, mainly in the UK, with one in the US, plus around eight account managers, again with one in the US and the rest in the UK.
We work with small individual compliance consultants all the way up to some of the biggest global brands with very busy compliance teams. Regarding the team makeup, the customer success team I inherited functioned more like a support group. They were called client value specialists and supported the account management team by booking meetings, providing data, demoing and training customers on the product, and raising product cases. It felt more like a support function overall.
In the seven or eight months I’ve been here, I’ve worked to make their role more vital by placing greater emphasis on the customer journey and owning that process, not every step, but ensuring customers onboard successfully. The team now acts as a periscope, looking beyond the quarter we’re in to help pave the way for the account management team, who are the commercial owners of the relationship.
We focus on spotting opportunities and risks and being as proactive as possible with customer outreach. More recently, we’ve been consistently mapping customer goals and outcomes and feeding that back. We’re definitely on a maturity curve, and it’s been a really interesting journey so far.
First 100 days: Jonny’s priorities as Head of Customer Success
Irina (7:07)
We’re going to speak about this maturity curve immediately. And you basically tapped into my next question. And you started mentioning the priorities and the things that you focus on.
Besides this, what other things did you try to solve, fix, arrange in the first months of your mandate as the head of CS?
Jonny (7:48)
Yeah, well, I was just looking after the customer success team. Initially, that role has expanded to include account management as well.
That’s quite important to mention. Focusing purely on CS with a team of five gave me a real opportunity to get in and build some things quickly, which was nice. I hadn’t managed a team of that size for a while, so I had a bit of a window to get some things done.
They had a customer success platform in place, which was semi-implemented, maybe 60% of the way there. That became a natural place to start. I’ve got experience with that product, among others, so I wanted to ensure the implementation was more complete. I had to do a lot of reverse engineering of what had already been built, and that takes time.
Part of that included building onboarding journeys and having those flow visually with automations tied to them, with defined end dates and next steps. I’m a logical person, and starting with the onboarding journey of what happens when a customer signs with us made sense, especially because we’re growing. That was a natural place to begin. We now have a second version of that in place, and it’s actually great—nice and visual.
Customer health and all of the associated triggers were next. It’s obvious, but the version we had wasn’t great. It was built in a way that wasn’t very useful. It has now been redeveloped and is more useful, though it still has room to improve, which I’ll be tackling as we enter the new year.
All the associated triggers tie into that—how the customer success manager becomes more proactive and how they do this periscope view of looking out beyond the current quarter. We can automate things and tap them on the shoulder when something changes so they know to take a look.
Then there’s the other part I’ve already mentioned: developing the CS function, raising their importance and visibility within the business, and preparing for regtech readiness. This is where I’m at now. We’re developing new tools and solutions that bring us closer to our customers’ workflows, making all of this regulatory intelligence actionable.
That’s my specialism. My background at AppFollow and Brandwatch was about taking huge data sets and turning those insights into actions that create business value. I’m at the beginning of that new journey here now that the basics are in place. It’s really exciting.
And there will be much more. There will be a version three of onboarding, and we’ll introduce more usage-based health metrics as the nature of our product evolves.
Rebuilding the customer health score: when to change and what to measure
Irina (10:57)
I want to deep dive into something you mentioned earlier. You said you revamped or rebuilt the customer health scoreboard because it wasn’t actually supporting the behavior of the CS team or the CS organization. I’m curious: what were the signals you reviewed that led you to the conclusion that you needed to change it? What made you say, “What we have now may have helped in the past, but moving forward, it won’t help us”?
I’m asking because many CS leaders don’t know when to change something, what to change, or where to start. They often don’t realize that their existing framework isn’t helping them move the needle or make the right decisions. So I’m curious—how was this process for you?
Jonny (11:58)
Yeah, so I would say that the customer health score was okay, but it was mainly trend data led. For example, if we saw downtrends in people logging in, then I wanted to be alerted to it.
On paper, that sounds sensible. A negative downturn in usage marks the score down, and I can investigate. That is fine in principle.
However, it’s not always representative of how the product is used. It’s not a regtech product today, so you have to be careful with trend data. If there is no change in behavior, meaning the product isn’t being used in a way where you would expect weekly or daily usage, some customers will never show trend changes. But that does not necessarily mean something is wrong.
We were also looking at customer engagement, which was only tracking whether we had done something in the past 60 days. I thought that wasn’t enough, so I increased the metric to look at all meaningful activity. Not customer demos, but renewal calls, QBRs, analyst services, and situations where we are consulting with the business. These all fall under meaningful calls.
Instead of the last 60 days, I changed it to the last 90 days and the next 30 days. Anything booked in the future counts toward it. This created a four month rolling window, which is a more practical way to understand near and far engagement on an account. These changes have improved the score.
I also included email opens in the trend data mix because that can be an interesting proxy. I had to map all of that data because if a customer is more of a newsletter or information consumer by email, it is important to see that trend as well.
Then I looked at customers who haven’t logged in more than 10 days over the last 40. That results in a harsher score because it is important to note. It could be use case, but I want visibility into every customer who has logged in 10 times or less over the last 40 days, around 25 percent or less. That is likely something to investigate.
So that is how we changed it.
What CS maturity really looks like
Irina (14:52)
It’s a topic I want to develop with you in a dedicated, separate initiative. Now, I want to switch from data and signals to the team behind the data and signals. I know that you’ve led CS teams across EMEA and APAC, and now you are split between the UK and the US.
Jonny (15:25)
Yeah.
Irina (15:26)
In your opinion, what shows that the CS organisation has really matured? Speaking about the maturity that you mentioned earlier?
Jonny (15:38)
Yeah, I did mention maturity. Businesses are always maturing their processes, and CS is no different.
I don’t think that curve ever stops. You should always be looking to evolve and change what you do, because the industry changes, technology changes, and customer needs change. But I would say, very practically, and this is reductive, that when you have clear, repeatable processes that lead to healthy outcomes, that is one sign of a mature business. You don’t need lots of processes or lots of playbooks with everything documented. I don’t think you need that to be mature. That is typically when you’re big and have more resources and more time.
I’ve not worked in big corporates. I typically work in successful scale-up businesses. They care less about having everything documented in a referenceable PDF. We have some of that for critical things, but as long as you have clear, repeatable processes documented somewhere that the team can follow, that is important.
You also want to be finding efficiencies, automating things, and starting to think about or implement things at scale. It doesn’t have to be too technical. Starting to implement some AI into your workflows is definitely a sign of a maturing function. That could be around data analysis, automated follow-ups, or email writing. Start simple.
Customers also start to see you as a valuable partner. When you mature your focus and your team to the point where they show up differently and are perceived differently by customers, that is a big sign. It is hard, but when you can shake off the perception of being just another account manager from another vendor, and elevate your position, that is important. Customers like us, they don’t miss meetings, they speak to us in forums like this, they come to events, they advocate. There are many signs you can look for.
Finally, cultural alignment within the team is key. Everyone feels connected, everyone is clear on their mission, and people are motivated to do a good job when you’re not in the room or when the customer isn’t in the room. That takes time. It definitely takes time, that last piece. So yes, those are the answers.
Finding the balance: what to standardize vs. where to stay flexible
Irina (18:41)
I have to follow up, how do you decide what to standardize, and where to stay flexible with with customers? That’s my first follow-up. And then I’ll do another one.
Jonny (18:56)
Okay, so where to standardize and where to remove flexible?
Irina (18:59)
Yes, where to, what does it require having a process? And what not?
Jonny (19:10)
Yeah. I would say you just need to stay aware and alert in your business to how customers, products, and the market develop. As long as you are disciplined enough to zoom out mentally from what you’re doing, and not just churn through data, contracts, and conversations with customers and staff, you will see patterns emerge that eventually form a decision.
You hear something here and there, you triangulate it, and you think there is something we need to make into a process or formalize. It is a vague answer, but it comes down to having the discipline to step back and see the big picture. I am not a fan of making everything a playbook or putting overly complex processes in place. I prefer to keep things simple.
At the same time, I have worked in businesses where flexibility and creativity are encouraged, and I really encourage that. There is a balance where you want processes for things that are emergent and important, where patterns are clear, but you also want some flexibility for creative thought and autonomy. I want my team to say they have seen a pattern and want to try something. I will say, excellent, let’s do that.
We have had great processes come from this, like office hours, initiatives, and one-to-many webinar ideas. Then we build, we trial it for a quarter, we measure it, and ask how it went and whether it led to better outcomes. After that, we can build a process. A quarter is always a good length of time.
Using AI and automation the right way in CS
Irina (21:16)
The second follow up I want to do is around AI, because I cannot ignore it, and after you answer the AI part, I will go back and dive into the balance you mentioned. When it comes to AI, I’m curious, because you said you have to embrace it and incorporate it into the daily routine. Can you share some examples or give the audience an idea of how you personally or your team use it?
Because I know we all try to use it, but we don’t always know how to use it or adopt it. Does AI only mean summarizing the calls after the transcript? Or do you try to do more?
And how much do you rely on predictive analytics and the AI part? Because as we know, if you have the wrong data, the wrong conclusions come in.
Jonny (22:23)
Absolutely.
Irina (22:23)
It can hallucinate. So curious, how do you strike the balance when you are using the AI part?
Jonny (22:31)
Yeah. And look, for full disclosure, I wouldn’t say we’re using AI that much today, simply because it’s a fairly straightforward business and we are not overwhelmed by tasks. However, it makes sense to use AI email editors to help summarize the meeting you just had and what the follow up needs to be. You can edit that and then send it through.
That is definitely an area where we are using AI. We use call recording software as well, which is growing in sophistication. We also have a number of AI tools coming down the pipeline.
Automated CRM filling is a huge win, and automated call coaching or call goals is another. We are also exploring, but not live yet, the ability to assess all of our textual data around the customer, whether that is a survey, a call recording, or opportunity notes. We get a lot of data from customers. We have data from the sales team. We have other inputs. So the ability to assess that and provide a relationship score, almost like sentiment analysis, against harder usage metrics is a really interesting dynamic. It can help you catch things you might miss or validate something you are already thinking.
These are the ways we are using AI today, but a lot of what we do is actually automation. Something has or has not happened, or something has reached a certain point, and a trigger is met. That sends an email to someone, either a reminder or an email directly to an account. Done in the right way, that can be powerful. And when you combine AI and automation, which is where I hope to get to, we will have a much more powerful operation.
Irina (25:02)
But I feel like we’re wandering into the territory of a different topic. Automation is something I want to explore with you in a bigger, deeper way, but not today.
Jonny (25:14)
Yeah, exactly.
How to drive expansion without eroding trust
Irina (25:15)
I want to go back to the balance part. I know that by striking the right balance between helping and selling at previous companies you worked for, you managed to transform the CS organization into a growth engine. I also know that you hit the revenue objective through expansion.
I want to ask you how you did that. I want to share that story with the audience about how you transformed the organization, not at your current company but in the past. How did you push expansion without making it feel like obvious selling?
Jonny (26:05)
Yeah, it’s a great question. And you said something right at the beginning of this question, which was selling and helping.
Irina (26:11)
Exactly.
Jonny (26:12)
And they are the key words here, because helping is selling, right? I am of the school of thought that I am in business, you are in business, we have products to service and sell. Our customers are in business too, and they have products and services to sell, but theirs may be different.
So from the outset, we should be clear with customers. Once we have helped you enough and demonstrated value, and we are essentially best friends because you are getting massive value from our products and services, we are going to come and talk to you about other things. We want to increase the value we deliver to you.
We are innovating and building products our customers are asking us to build. We are not just making things up. So let’s make that clear. Let’s set our intentions clearly at the start of the relationship. You don’t have to sell to them, but you can tell them that these conversations will happen.
That brings me back to the customer success role. If you are doing the CS part well, you are doing a good job for your customer. You are putting them first, genuinely listening to them, helping, delivering, and doing things for them when they are not in the room.
That is very powerful. I always encourage my teams to do things for customers when they are not in the room, then tell them and show them what you did. It goes a long way. They think, you have thought about me, you have done something for me, rather than thinking, I have a call, what is happening, when is my renewal?
As long as you are doing all of that good work, then yes, you can sell to your customer. But you must pay attention to the signals. If the data is unhealthy, or you have not mapped a goal, or you have mapped a goal but they have not achieved anything, or you cannot evidence progress, think twice. You do not want to sell your way out of a potential problem.
I have seen that happen before, and you can lose a customer quickly if they think you are just there to sell to them. So yes, CS is a great enabler for growth. That is how I would finish that question.
Leading under pressure: How to build resilient teams
Irina (28:34)
I think we did not talk enough about the team and the people. I see them as an enabler of all these things, because even if you have the data, the perfect data, and the knowledge, you do not have the bandwidth to implement everything if you are running it alone. You always need a team behind you. So I am curious, what is your secret to keeping people motivated and growing, especially under pressure?
Because CS can involve a lot of pressure at different moments in time.
Jonny (29:15)
Absolutely, and pressure is everywhere. Every month and every quarter, there are pressure points. Every new product launch, every big customer churn, every major onboarding, every merger or acquisition, and every new investor brings pressure.
But that is normal, and I think it is important to normalize that for your team. The reality is that some people work better with ambiguity than others. Some people hate pressure and dislike too much change and uncertainty.
I quite like it. Maybe I have just gotten used to it. But I tell my teams that it is really important to remain adaptive.
You have to get used to ambiguity. As a leader, you also have a responsibility to bring as much clarity as possible. Even in chaotic moments, you need to lead with vision, purpose, and clarity.
That means using clear language, synthesizing what is happening, and translating it into what we are doing this week and next. It means using consistent language, showing consistent behaviors, rolling up your sleeves, and getting involved in customer situations and outcomes. You do not want to disappear and become just an operations person. That makes your words mean less.
Creating a healthy culture of feedback is also important. Give feedback, both good and bad, and encourage people to give it to each other. Recognition matters too. And the obvious one is hiring the right people in the first place. It may be obvious, but it is important that you have the right people on your team, because that is what makes your team. In a small team of five or even ten, having one or two people who do not want to be there or do not buy in can be really tricky.
The non-negotiable for CS leaders in 2026: A growth mindset
Irina (31:26)
Besides hiring the right people,it’s hiring the right people and hiring them at the right time. And also, putting them to do the right things in the right order.
Jonny (31:49)
Yeah, absolutely.
Irina (31:51)
Hiring and building a team. If you had to pick one non-negotiable principle for building a resilient CS function in 2026, what would it be?
Jonny (32:06)
For building, honestly, a growth mindset. I can teach you anything. I can teach you different skills, different products, and different methodologies and approaches.
But having a growth mindset is something you can cultivate and develop, and it is something you have to bring with you and maintain. It is a small thing, almost invisible. It sits within us. But if you have the right mindset, anything can be possible. It sounds philosophical, but it is true.
I have seen people with growth mindsets develop into fantastic career professionals and go on to do great things because they allowed themselves to grow. They were able to take some ambiguity, adapt well, take a breath, not take things too seriously, and perform. That is a big part of resilience.
Irina (33:23)
This brings us to the perfect wrap-up question.
Jonny (33:27)
Okay.
Irina (33:28)
Someone’s just stepping into their first head of CS role. What’s the one piece of advice you’d give them? And I know that you also mentor people.
So that’s a perfect one for you.
Jonny (33:43)
I do, yes. But I think the advice I would give is to network, externally for sure.
It is really important to stay connected to others in your industry, peers, and to find yourself a mentor. That way you can stay connected and informed. It is also great for future prospects.
Internally, make it your mission to meet all the other leaders of all the other departments, not just as part of an HR onboarding plan. Really make it your mission to understand others, what they are working on, what is keeping them up at night, and how you could work together in the future, because opportunities will come.
It is also great for your brand to get yourself out there. You get to stress test what you are observing and thinking. It is important to do that early because you will get busy very quickly. You will get pulled into the vacuum of work, pressure, and requests.
The earlier you can build those relationships, the better, because then you start building long-term connections and help break down silos. I would say it is your mission not just to make your business customer centric, but to build a culture of sharing and collaboration too. Many businesses stay in their own lanes because they are so busy. You have greater opportunities if you connect cross-functionally. Do that early, before you get too busy.
Irina (35:28)
This was such a great conversation. And I really loved how you connected growth, people and customer value so naturally. Thanks again for joining and for sharing your story with us.
And to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay curious and keep learning and mastering customer success.
