In this episode of Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights, Irina Cismas sits down with Ebba Klementsson, Customer Success Manager at Refapp, a platform that helps companies streamline their reference checking process. Ebba joined Refapp almost seven years ago as the fifth employee, with no CS background and no existing function to inherit. What followed was a journey of building everything from scratch, one client conversation at a time.
She shares what it was like to walk into an empty CS function, why she learned to prioritize client conversations over process-building, how customer segmentation became the next natural step as the company grew, and what traits matter most when hiring for a CS team in a flat, self-led organization.
What You’ll Learn
- How a recruitment and HR background translates into a stronger CS practice
- What it looks like to build a CS function from zero in an early-stage company
- Why getting operational and talking to clients should come before building structure
- How customer segmentation evolves as a company scales from 50 to 1,500 clients
- How to create direction and accountability in a flat team without relying on titles
- What traits are non-negotiable when hiring for a CS role at Refapp
- Where customers typically struggle with behavioral change and how CS helps them through it
- What Ebba would ask if she ran a reference check on her own CS function
Key Insights & Takeaways
- Domain expertise is a genuine advantage. Knowing the recruiter’s world from the inside meant Ebba could speak to clients on their level, understand their daily frustrations, and represent the product with real credibility.
- Get operational before getting structural. The instinct to build processes first is understandable, especially coming from a structured environment. But talking to clients and booking meetings is what creates the foundation everything else is built on.
- Segmentation is the next step after structure. Once the basics are in place, figuring out how to prioritize different types of clients becomes the most important lever for sustainable growth.
- Flat teams work when self-leadership is high. Without hierarchical titles to create direction, clear frameworks, shared team goals, and a culture of personal responsibility fill the gap.
- Behavioral change is the real adoption challenge. Getting recruiters to stop making phone calls and start using a digital tool is not a product problem. It is a change management problem, and CS is at the center of solving it.
- Value realization can be immediate. When a product delivers visible results from the very first use, CS’s job is to get the client over the threshold of trying it, not to convince them of value that takes months to appear.
- Being nice is a hiring criterion. At Refapp, cultural fit matters as much as functional skills. The principle that it’s more important to be nice than to be important shapes who gets hired and how the team operates.
Podcast Transcript
Intro
Irina (0:02 – 0:26)
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 Ebba Klementsson, Customer Success Manager at Refapp, a platform that helps companies streamline their reference checking process. Ebba, I’m really happy to have you here.
Thanks for joining.
Ebba (0:27 – 0:30)
Thank you so much, Irina. Nice to join you!
From Recruitment to Customer Success: What Pulled Ebba In
Irina (0:31 – 0:37)
You started in recruitment and in HR. What pulled you into customer success?
Ebba (0:39 – 2:15)
Yes, exactly. I wanted basically to try something new. I was at that time on maternity leave and I felt, okay, I want to try something new and focus more on the customer relationship part.
Prior to that, I worked as a recruitment consultant. I felt the consultational part and the customer service part were areas I wanted to develop. Then I saw this job ad for a customer success manager at Refapp and I felt, okay, I have the possibility to develop the customer relationship part, but also to start creating something from scratch and build up that function at Refapp as well. I like processes, I like structure, so it felt like I would get both of that in this role.
As you said, we work with digital reference checks. It was a bonus that I could still be in the HR and recruitment segment and use my recruitment knowledge regarding the everyday work of our clients and how they work. I also knew what was important to me besides the role description, which was to work with a product I could relate to. When I worked as a recruiter, I would have loved to have Refapp when making reference calls and to do it digitally instead of chasing referees to get the answers.
Irina (2:15 – 2:45)
It seems like in your case, having domain expertise elevated what you can do in the CS role. I was always curious if industry knowledge is a plus or not. How do you see it?
Because usually I get the answer that it’s not so important, that it’s something you can teach. Do you feel the same way?
Ebba (2:45 – 3:57)
I think you can learn and teach it as well, but for me it was a real benefit going into the role because I felt like I genuinely could represent our product. I knew the challenges in chasing referees and making the calls. It was very time consuming, so I could really relate, and I think it also helped me talk to clients on their level and know how their daily work often looked like.
When I started at Refapp, it was the end of 2019, and in Sweden the digital reference check was quite new. So being able to talk to clients on their level and explain that they would save a lot of time or get more quality by using the tool was really beneficial.
But of course, you can learn it. Not all of us at Refapp have a recruitment background, and that is something you can learn as well.
Building CS from Zero: What Refapp Looked Like in 2019
Irina (3:57 – 4:09)
You mentioned that you started almost seven years ago. How did that CS function look like at that time? What did you find when you joined the company on the CS side of things?
Ebba (4:09 – 5:20)
It was non-existing. We were around four to five people at that time, so I think I was the fifth person in. We had started to get an increase in clients, around 40 to 50 at that time, and there was no structure to follow up on them. As the clients increased, the risk of churn increased as well. We started to see that we needed some kind of function to follow up on our clients, and that’s where I came in as a customer success manager.
But it was quite a new term in Sweden, or at least for me, when I went into the role. I came in empty-handed with no knowledge of how to work as a customer success manager. I had never heard of the term either. I just liked the role description and thought it would suit me.
I learned a lot during these years, and now we have around 1,500 clients. It’s really been a journey.
Irina (5:21 – 5:30)
What was the very first thing that you focused on when you joined seven years ago? I’m curious. How did you start to get to the pieces?
Ebba (5:31 – 7:29)
It was a challenge, and where to even start? I had worked with client relationships in my role as a recruitment consultant and consultant manager previously. But the first thing I did was to get an overview of the clients. Who are our clients? Who uses the system the most? Where do we have potential to grow? We have quite a good back office view, so it was easy to see who was using the system on a company level, but also on a user level. Are all users using the system? Do we have potential to increase the usage?
So first of all, getting an overview. But then getting operational, getting to know our clients, reaching out, and booking short check-in meetings. In the beginning I also called random users asking what do you think of the product, do you see any areas for improvement, just to get a perspective on what our clients thought. And then it was really a snowball effect, because when you have these meetings, you get the feedback and the requests for product improvements.
So I would say: get operational, reach out, talk to clients, book meetings, and everything else will follow. And at the same time, you need to keep in mind building a process structure for when the number of clients increases, creating an onboarding process and a handover process, and how to handle follow-up. I think those were the main targets.
The Tipping Point: When Structure Becomes Necessary
Irina (7:29 – 7:59)
I’m curious because you were with the team from the very first moment. What was the tipping point when you felt that structure needs to be put in place? Was it when you had more customers or was it when you started to bring people that new CSMs?
What was the trigger to sit down and basically formalize all those things?
Ebba (8:00 – 9:24)
I think what I almost made as a mistake when I came in was that, because I came from a company where you had all the processes ready and a really good structure, coming into Refapp where you didn’t have any of that, my instinct was, okay, I need the structure first. Which I quite soon realized was wrong. I needed, as I said, to focus more on contacting clients and booking meetings.
So I would say after that part, when you’ve done the analysis of the process and the clients and when the increase of clients happens, that’s a good place to start looking at structure. And of course, when you get more account managers, salespersons, or CSMs, those parts are good to have in place as well. But I would say not to start from the very beginning with structure, but to have it a bit later on. Both to guide the CS people in their role, but also to communicate to, for example, account managers on how to handle handovers and how we communicate to customers regarding next steps. I think that’s when it’s good to start having a structure.
Irina (9:25 – 9:48)
I’m curious, what was the process you iterated on the most in those seven years? Which one did you constantly tweak, whether because of internal events like the company growing and the number of clients increasing, or external ones? What forced you to constantly review what you had built?
Ebba (9:48 – 10:27)
I think the next natural step after having a structure is to look at customer segmentation and how to prioritize customers. When you’re a startup or scaling up and don’t have that many clients, it’s quite easy to give everyone the same service. But as you grow, you need some kind of customer segmentation and a way to prioritize. I think that was an important part in how to move forward to the next step.
Leading Without Titles: How Direction Works in a Flat Team
Irina (10:28 – 10:40)
I know that the team is pretty flat at Refapp in terms of customer success. How do you create that direction when you are not relying on titles or architectural structure?
Ebba (10:41 – 12:15)
I would say we have a solid foundation to rely on. We have clear frameworks and it’s quite clear what is expected of you in your role as a CSM and what to do on a daily basis. We have team goals to follow up on as well. But we also have a culture that encourages you to feel that if you want to do something or develop something, you have a high chance of doing it. We have good discussions in our team about what direction we should take as a CS team, and we have meetings and kickoffs to discuss that, both for our Swedish team and our Norwegian team. So we have good collaboration between the two.
I would say one of the main reasons why it works is that we all have a high level of self-leadership. Even though we have similar titles, it’s mostly driven by personal responsibility, and having those clear frameworks to work within helps. So I think it’s a combination of the personality traits of our colleagues and the structure and culture at Refapp. We’re a group of responsible people with a high level of self-leadership.
What Refapp Looks for When Hiring CS
Irina (12:16 – 12:43)
I’m curious, given your HR and recruitment background, what are the traits that are non-negotiable when someone joins the team? And let’s do a sneak preview of the recruitment process. What are the steps? How do you bring a new CSM onto the team? You mentioned self-leadership and some other traits, and I’m curious to hear more.
Ebba (12:45 – 14:17)
If we look at a good CSM or a good fit at Refapp, you of course have the core skills: being service-minded, customer-oriented, problem-solving, and all of those. But when we recruit, we also need a good cultural fit. Partly what you mentioned about self-leadership and liking to work in an entrepreneurial environment and culture.
We talk a lot about being nice, and our CEO has a saying: it’s nice to be important, but more important to be nice. I think that really summarizes the culture at Refapp. You have the formal traits, the service-minded and problem-solving core skills, but also being responsible, driving your own work forward, planning the next step, following up, and knowing how to prioritize. I think that’s what we look for in a CS person and a good fit at Refapp.
Value Realization: Where Customers Struggle and Where They See Results
Irina (14:18 – 14:39)
We often talk in CS about value realization. What does it look like in the Refapp case? Where do customers typically struggle and how do they see the value of what the CS team does?
Ebba (14:39 – 17:33)
Overall, we have a really easy product to get started with. This is something we get a lot of comments on during onboarding, that it’s pretty straightforward and user-friendly. That helps a lot. But we have struggles as well.
One of the main struggles is getting the behavioral change. A lot of recruiters and recruitment managers make reference phone calls, if they even take references at all. It’s something they have always done. And as humans, we don’t always want to change something we’re already comfortable with, even if there’s a better way. So one of the main challenges is getting recruiters and recruitment managers to switch to Refapp and do reference checks digitally instead of still making phone calls.
Getting them over that threshold and starting to test and use Refapp is the challenge. And often we’re reliant on our contact person from the onboarding meeting to drive that forward with the recruitment managers, because we’re not always in direct contact with those people ourselves. Sometimes we can see that on a certain account, nobody is using Refapp, and when we dig into it, we find that they still want to make phone calls. Then of course you have to make a plan.
But in terms of value realization, as soon as you make your first reference check through Refapp, you see the value. It takes around two to three minutes to administrate. A reference call, on the other hand, takes at least an hour, between booking the call, having it, and writing everything down. As soon as you use the system and trigger the reference check, you have the value directly. And it’s also GDPR compliant, which is an added benefit. You see results from the very first use.
The Hardest Part of Seven Years of Building
Irina (17:34 – 17:55)
You mentioned some of the struggles your customers face from a business perspective. I’m curious what has been the hardest thing for you personally, as someone who joined and built everything from scratch. What felt the hardest in those seven years?
Ebba (17:58 – 19:19)
There are of course different challenges at different steps of the journey. But in the beginning, the hardest thing was just knowing where to start. And not having a colleague in the same role to discuss things with was a challenge as well.
But then later on, every phase has had its own challenges. Now it’s more about how do we handle a large amount of customers in a scalable way. Having a good onboarding process, looking more into digital onboarding, and having system support to support the CS daily work really helps a lot. That’s a challenge we have had and are constantly looking into: how to make that flow easier while still maintaining a high level of customer service towards our clients.
If You Ran a Reference Check on Your Own CS Function
Irina (19:19 – 19:28)
And the last question, if you had to run a reference check on your own CS function, what would you ask?
Ebba (19:29 – 20:14)
I think one of the main things I would be interested in is how integrated Refapp is in your daily work or the team’s work. Do you use Refapp for all recruitments? And has our customer success function helped you achieve your goals with the product? I think those are the main three. And then of course the NPS question is always nice, whether you would recommend us to others. And your experience regarding our communication and availability would also be something I would ask our clients.
Irina (20:15 – 20:43)
Thank you for the conversation. It was great exploring what it really means to build CS from zero and how the recruitment and the HR industry specifically the ground shapes the way you think about customers, accountability, structure, and everything that you put in place. And to everyone listening, thanks for tuning in.
Until next time, stay curious, keep learning and mastering customer success.
