In this webinar, Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, sat down once again with Irina Vatafu, Head of Customer Success at Custify, and Steve Finch, Brand Ambassador at Thinqi, to continue the discussion on one of the most defining transitions in a CS career: stepping into leadership for the first time.
This second session focused on the advanced challenges new CS leaders encounter after the initial transition, scaling with limited headcount, prioritizing what truly matters, influencing without authority, strengthening cross-functional visibility, and defining a long-term strategic path inside the business.
Summary Points
In this session, we explored what happens once the basics are in place: the metrics are set, the team is stable, and reality introduces volume, expectations, and strategic pressure.
Key takeaways include:
- Choosing the First Critical Metrics: New CS leaders increase decision accuracy when they track two metrics early: a business metric (retention rate) and an operational metric (adoption rate). This combination clarifies customer health and reveals where to act.
- Identifying Capacity Limits: Capacity strain becomes visible through three signals: reduced proactive work, increased chaos, and negative feedback from customers or team members. These signals appear earlier than any dashboard.
- Scaling with the Same Headcount: Effective scaling relies on four operational levers: documenting hidden work, delegating cross-team tasks, automating repetitive workflows, and eliminating low-impact activities.
- Managing Leadership Expectations: Leaders recognize reality faster when consequences become visible. Data, documentation, and transparent communication make difficult conversations grounded and credible.
- Saying No with Confidence: New leaders experience imposter syndrome and initially try to accept everything. Prioritization eliminates that pattern. Work is evaluated through business impact, customer value, and team sustainability.
- Influencing Without Authority: Trust increases through reciprocity, empathy, domain understanding, reliability, and visible value creation. These behaviors strengthen influence across product, sales, marketing, and enterprise customers.
- Increasing CS Visibility Internally: Documenting wins, milestones, and customer impact corrects the “CS only reports problems” perception. Visibility increases influence, collaboration, and leadership alignment.
- Defining Long-Term Strategy: CS strategy aligns with yearly business goals. Early quick wins build credibility, while long-term direction remains anchored in customer outcomes and the leader’s core strengths.
Podcast transcript
Intro
Irina C (0:00 – 1:03)
Hello everyone, welcome. I’m Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, and I’ll be your host today. This is our last webinar of the year.
I’m really happy we get to close 2025 together. We’re ending with a topic that clearly needed more than one hour. A couple of weeks ago, in part one of this topic, we realized that becoming a first-time Head of CS can’t be unpacked in a single session.
We received many questions, and many touched on deeper challenges new CS leaders face. So today, in part two, we’re picking up right where we left off. I’m joined again by the same great speakers from last time: my colleague Irina Vatafu, Head of CS at Custify, and Steve Finch, Brand Ambassador at Thinqi.
Irina, Steve, welcome.
Steve (1:04 – 1:10)
Yeah, very excited to be here. I really enjoyed the last one. Hope the audience did too.
And it’s great to be back again.
Irina C (1:11 – 4:24)
For sure they did, judging by the number of replies we received afterward. People were clearly looking forward to this session. Before we start, I want to recap what we covered in part one. And for those joining us live who didn’t attend the first session, don’t worry — it’s recorded and available on our Custify blog.
In part one, we discussed the sudden shift from being a hands-on CSM to leading people, how to find your footing in those first chaotic months, how to tell what’s urgent from what’s just loud, where early wins come from, and how structure and data help you move from reactive firefighting to proactive CS.
Today, we’re covering the questions we didn’t get to last time: influence without authority, scaling with limited headcount, managing leadership expectations, visibility, saying no when needed, and defining your long-term strategic lane as a Head of CS.
So if you’re stepping into CS leadership or supporting someone who is, you’re in the right place. And once you have all these takeaways, you need a way to put them into practice, and that’s where Custify comes in. It helps CS teams get full visibility into their customers, automate busy work, and focus on what truly matters: driving customer success.
A couple of quick housekeeping notes before we start: this session is being recorded, so you’ll get the replay. It’s the number one question I get on every webinar. If you have questions, drop them in the chat.
We’ll review them and allocate time at the end.
Without further ado, let’s jump into the topic. In part one, we wrapped up just as we were getting into one of the trickier parts of CS leadership: data. When you step into the role, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by dashboards and reports because everything looks important.
So Irina, let me start with you. What were the first metrics or signals you paid attention to when you took over the CS team?
Choosing the first critical metrics
Irina V (4:26 – 7:13)
Yes, so let’s kick off. Data is a sensitive topic for any CS team, and there is so much more behind the numbers. That’s why it’s challenging to look at metrics and make decisions. CS is complex, and CS teams are diverse. It’s very hard to pick a single metric to follow.
What I chose to do in the beginning was focus on two metrics. First, a business metric, something that showed the big picture and helped me track the impact of my decisions. That was the retention rate. I set a baseline, set a goal, and reviewed retention every quarter.
Second, because I needed a plan and a way to guide short-term actions, I created an adoption rate metric. It combined several product usage indicators into one rate based on our needs at that time. These metrics helped me understand how customers were using the product and which categories needed attention.
We had customers with high adoption, and the temptation was to deprioritize them because everything looked healthy. But I didn’t want to fall into that trap. I focused on healthy customers too, building processes to ensure they received attention, became advocates, and continued succeeding.
On the other side, for customers who were struggling, we built processes to help them succeed and get value from the product. These two metrics dictated my short-term actions, while I continued monitoring the business impact through retention.
These were the starting metrics. After that, I iterated and developed the plan further.
Irina C (7:14 – 7:20)
Steve, what were your first metrics? Were they different? How did you tackle this topic?
Steve (7:21 – 10:39)
Yeah, well, the first thing we did for our customers was take an unusual journey because we were a contract services company. We then built our own product, started small, and eventually shifted to that model. This was about 10 years ago. First, we wanted to make sure we had regular contact with customers.
We needed visibility into where they were because we’d taken customers on board without any structures or processes in place to manage them. There wasn’t much maturity in the market around customer success, methods, or standard practices, so we were working it out as we went along.
The first thing I wanted to do was set up regular contact and find out where they were, get visibility into how they were doing, and see whether they were still using our software. I set up a minimal monthly check-in to get that visibility and turn it into something I could communicate to the business.
The first stats we used were CSAT and NPS because leadership already understood them. It gave us a way to say, here’s the health of our customers in terms of satisfaction and likelihood to recommend. I had also pitched customer success as a way to create successful customers who could advocate for us and generate marketing content.
We were working on our website at the time, so getting testimonials from successful customers was important. Identifying healthy customers through those metrics helped us see who the “greens” were and who we could approach for stories. I collected social proof from those suitable candidates and passed it to marketing to improve the website’s performance.
Internally, I needed a way to demonstrate the team’s success beyond narrative and storytelling. I needed hard metrics that aligned with what other departments were using because we were still very early in our CS maturity. I wanted to pick something that resonated with the business. I mentioned before that we implemented OKRs. Once we had those logged in our product management tool, I could demonstrate successful achievement of our objectives and report that quarterly. It showed we were achieving results, even if the rest of the business didn’t yet understand what customer success was or what we were doing with our time. I needed something they could relate to so I could show we were working effectively.
So that was it. Those were the first metrics we measured.
Irina C (10:40 – 11:45)
I love the fact that we have two different perspectives at the table. This is why I enjoy having at least two guests in every webinar I run. It’s always helpful to hear what matters when everything feels important.
This ties into the next big challenge. You get the structure in place, the data flowing, the processes set, you have a stable foundation, and then the good problem hits: volume. Volume means more customers and more expectations with the same number of people. So Irina, I think every CS leader reaches that point where you are expected to do more with the same headcount.
How did you approach that reality? What helped you stay effective without burning everyone out?
Irina V (11:45 – 16:23)
Yeah, that’s a real challenge. I talked to many CS leaders who had the same issue, and we joked that accepting the job offer for Head of CS is like accepting cookies on a website; you will definitely face this challenge. Everyone listening should prepare for that.
It is a challenge because you are in between. You understand your team’s challenges, you see what leadership does not see, and you know you are already doing more than what is requested, but you cannot fully prove it. You have the numbers and everything else, but there are also the late-night calls or the emails you answer after your shift because you want to help the customer. The team does a lot to accommodate customers and avoid churn or escalations.
When you are asked to do more with less or with the same resources, you need to understand how that will impact your team and approach it wisely. You must consider leadership feedback and be data-driven to have a productive conversation. From what we’ve seen in our case and in conversations with others, there is something that works: documenting everything your CS team does, even the small things.
Besides the main processes like QBRs, renewals, and conversations, you need to document the other tasks your team handles. Are they analyzing tickets? Are they helping product understand feature adoption? Keep that list updated. You will need it.
When the time comes, sit with your team. Involving them is important because they need to stay motivated and avoid burnout. Involving them helps you make the best decisions for the team and the business. Recognize that you don’t have all the answers, and you need their input.
When you review the list together, you realize that today everything feels important, but under pressure, you clearly see what actually makes an impact. You gain a different perspective and understand what can be removed. You start prioritizing.
Some tasks you are doing can be handled by other teams, but you only realize that under pressure. You can decide what to delegate to sales, marketing, or product. Some tasks can be removed entirely. Some can be automated. You need to evaluate your tools and see which repetitive flows can be improved and made more efficient.
And then there is the part of saying no completely to certain things. It is a tricky and sensitive topic, and we will elaborate on it, but yes, there are things that can be cut out entirely.
Another important part is setting expectations. If you speak openly about your challenges and everything your team does, and leadership understands it, you will find solutions together to stay productive. Collaboration between teams is key, along with automation and learning to say no.
Irina C (16:26 – 16:34)
Steve, wanna add on what Irina was saying? Do you have a different view? How is it in your case?
Steve (16:35 – 22:37)
Yeah, I think listening to Irina, she’s in a more advanced state. I started in a much more basic and raw position. It took me a good few years before I was even in a position to start analyzing how efficient we were and which jobs should have been the responsibility of others.
Maybe I learned some of those things a bit too late. Irina was more scientific in her approach from the start. But the idea of reaching a point where you think, okay, this isn’t sustainable, we need more resourcing or different tools, wasn’t a single moment. I was mindful of that from the beginning.
I introduced customer success here. We were transitioning from contract services to a software-as-a-service model. I introduced customer success as a more modern way of managing customers compared to account managers. By proposing it, I had to pilot it and test it myself. We were working things out as we went along, while I was also managing marketing. I had two hats to wear during this transition.
At the time, we only had a handful of customers licensing our software, so covering them was fairly easy. I wanted to start by seeing how much care I could give them and let them feel the benefit of customer success, so they could see how it differed from account management, which was more focused on revenue extraction. This was something they received as part of their license.
I always knew that at some point this needed to scale, so I had to think about what that would look like. We looked at different models, like the 11-star experience from Airbnb, as a way to model how much care to give customers and then work backward to what actually scales with the resources we had.
When I started this, it was before COVID, when almost everything shifted online. We rarely used Zoom or Teams. I would get on a train or in a car to visit customers in person. That obviously didn’t scale, because there were only so many meetings I could do in a week. But with four or five customers, it worked.
As the customer base grew, I handed marketing over and focused fully on customer success. It aligned with my skill set, and I wanted to own it and take it as far as possible. It was a step-by-step process. As the customer base increased, I learned to be more efficient in how I delivered value and found a cadence for meetings—dialing back the intensity without reducing the quality of the experience.
Eventually, I could plot out my week as a CSM. I was still doing other things like designing processes, working on the interface, communicating with the business, and thinking about strategy. But as a CSM, I monitored how much time was spent on meetings, administrative work, and other activities. From that, we could model at what point I would hit capacity and need another person. We aligned that with the sales forecast to know how many customers of a certain type a CSM could handle before requiring another hire.
Processes became more refined. As Irina said, you start asking, what is my responsibility? What am I doing that someone else should be doing? That leads to conversations with other teams about what belongs to them. Processes evolve quickly, and people adjust their practices.
When we finally reached the point where we knew we needed more resources, we brought in another CSM. Our first hires had false starts. We thought we were at capacity, hired someone, trained them, handed over part of the portfolio, and then it didn’t work out. Their portfolio would come back to me, plus the overall portfolio had grown. I ended up with even more to do while trying to step out of operations. That created tension.
So yes, we monitored everything as we went. There was no magic moment. You prepare, you plan, but you must be ready to pivot and sometimes go back to square one. It’s not a smooth process of abstracting yourself from operations. You get pulled back in, and you need to be ready for that. And as Irina said, you don’t just clock off at 5 p.m. When you have responsibility, you see it through.
Irina V (22:39 – 23:37)
Yes, I think Steve mentioned something important, and that’s the maturity of the team and the business. My method will not apply to a team with three members, and it’s normal in that stage to do whatever is needed to grow. Part of the responsibility is handling customers, but you may also need to do cold emailing or other tasks.
It can help, but you have to start with baby steps. Even if you are a team of three, you can still document everything your team is doing because you are only one team member. Document everything. You never know when your team will grow and when you will need to prove what you’re doing.
Documenting everything from the start is a good practice.
Steve (23:37 – 24:07)
Yeah, we went from having no processes at all to identifying and modeling out what would happen if I got hit by a bus, so someone could pick this up and carry on. There’s the implementation or onboarding phase and then the business-as-usual phase, and documenting everything so someone else can replicate it. And when you’re onboarding a new CSM, you have to train them in the method.
Handing over your practice, which you’ve been doing almost by instinct, is a challenge.
Identifying capacity limits
Irina C (24:08 – 24:34)
Yeah. Irina, I wanted to ask you, we talked about what to do and how you can prepare for the scaling phase, but I didn’t specifically ask, what are the signs that tell you that you reached capacity? When do you know?
What tells you I have an issue?
Irina V (24:37 – 24:41)
I think when things are more chaotic than they used to be.
Irina C (24:42 – 24:48)
In CS, I feel like you are the team that has the most chaos.
Irina V (24:49 – 26:22)
Yeah, leaving jokes aside, there are signs. I think when you feel that your customers could be supported better and your team could have more time for proactive activities and for spending time with customers during onboarding, there is already a question mark.
You have the data, and you can estimate from the beginning how many customers to assign per CSM. You can see how many customers your CS team is handling and whether they are close to being over capacity. But you also have to keep in mind the part that numbers don’t show: the hidden workload.
This can only be sensed and confirmed through team feedback and customer feedback, because they will also feel when things are getting out of control and they will tell you. It’s a combination of numbers and the reactions you get from the team and from customers. If you hear many complaints and a lot of negativity, you are probably over capacity, and you need to think about a plan to improve the situation or do more with the same headcount by applying different methods.
Managing leadership expectations
Irina C (26:24 – 26:43)
This basically leads us straight into another challenge that comes with growth, and this is leadership expectations. Steve, when targets keep climbing, how do you push back or manage that conversation without sounding negative?
Steve (26:45 – 28:24)
Yeah, it is difficult. This is what I’ve found. We ran into resource and capacity challenges before we could implement remedies.
I’d propose something like forecasting and saying, okay, we’re going to need someone here. I would do that, but by the time we got to that point and the signals were clear, the process of finding someone, hiring, onboarding, and implementing meant we were already facing difficulties by the time they were operational.
Another example: I proposed a different team configuration. We had enterprise customers who needed a technical manager for integrations and a project manager because they had custom development work, and it was too much for a customer success manager to handle alone. So I proposed a new team structure for enterprise customers because that level of service was much higher than for regular customers. But by the time the proposal went through, and we appointed people, we were already struggling with those enterprise accounts, and it was negatively affecting the scores.
It felt like you proposed something in time, but by the time it was implemented, the trouble had already arrived.
So I think what I actually learned was to sometimes let things fail and then do the “I told you so” dance. That was the only thing that managed leadership expectations.
Irina C (28:26 – 28:50)
I love this perspective and I love the honesty with which you delivered it. Yeah, I totally rely on this. At some point, you just let it b,e and we’ll all suffer the consequences.
We are in this together for good and for the worst.
Steve (28:51 – 29:52)
Yeah, and if the culture is not punishing people for failure, it’s fine. If it’s repeated failure and you keep making the same mistakes, then accept the punishment. But if you’re growing, learning, and developing, you’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes it needs that sharp shock, and people need to feel the consequence, because you can hypothesize or speculate about it.
If you haven’t experienced it before, it’s just conjecture. Until you have the data and evidence of something going wrong, you can’t work out why it happened or what should have been done differently. You need to learn those hard lessons, and leadership needs to learn them too.
They need to fall out of the tree. As long as it doesn’t collapse the business, those lessons help you grow and learn, and they make the situation real. You take action more promptly and more seriously afterward.
Saying No with confidence
Irina C (29:54 – 30:18)
That’s a great perspective. And building up on this, there’s one more piece to this puzzle, one that almost every new CS leader struggles with. So Irina, how do you decide what’s not worth the time from a client perspective?
How do you say no when you genuinely want to help everyone?
Irina V (30:20 – 32:47)
Yes, you mentioned clients. There are two situations where you must be very good at saying no: to internal teams and to customers.
It is a challenge, but we have to admit that we cannot do everything we want to do. In both situations, at the beginning, it’s normal to avoid saying no. At least for myself, in the first months I dealt with imposter syndrome, trying to build good relationships with everyone, gain trust, and show that I was capable and knew what I was doing. I wanted to do everything.
Then I realized I was sabotaging myself. If I did that too often, I would end up not knowing anything and not helping anyone. That is the moment when you learn how to say no.
In the beginning, you try to do as much as possible. Then you realize you’re not superhuman. You need others to help you achieve what can be achieved. You become better at saying no.
It’s about priorities. What will be important in one year from now? For example, I can start my day with hundreds of requests from customers, leadership, my team, or items already planned on my to-do list. You cannot complete everything. You have to ask yourself what will matter in one quarter from now. Which topics will have an impact on the business, your team, and customer relationships?
You start with those. Anything that is not urgent can be postponed so you focus on what matters. It’s an exercise, it takes practice.
Sometimes you will say no to things that were actually important. And as Steve said, sometimes you have to accept that you failed, learn from it, and know better next time. You cannot master everything.
Influencing without authority
Irina C (32:48 – 33:23)
Hot topic. So we’ve covered mindset, priorities, capacity, and how to handle the chaos that comes with the role. But leadership isn’t only about what’s in your job description.
Sometimes it’s also about influencing people you don’t manage or driving change without that formal authority. Steve, you’ve worked across several teams and client environments. How do you build influence and trust with people you don’t directly manage?
Steve (33:25 – 39:06)
Yeah, it’s a really good question. There has been a lot of trial and error. Up until the point where I had to introduce a new concept into the business and get people behind it, everyone already understood the value of sales, business development, and marketing.
Trying to help people recognize the value of customer success when they had no concept of it was a challenge. Until then, I had worked very much like a lone wolf. I could go out and do things, and there were measures and metrics against what I did. Everyone could see the evidence, so there was already an association of “Steve is doing that, and that’s good for us.”
With customer success, I was introducing the concept and also trying to show that I couldn’t do it alone. Our organization then started becoming more culturally aligned, more collaborative. Any business or team only succeeds when everyone is pushing in the same direction.
It took us a while to get there. You had development over here and sales over there, separate and disconnected. That worked to a point, but it wasn’t enough to unlock real progress. With software as a service, it isn’t about fixed deliverables. It’s a constantly evolving machine where everyone plays a part.
I had to win people over. The same applied to customers. I was stepping in with the assumption that I had the main knowledge of the subject matter they worked with every day. And who is this guy from the software company telling them how to do their job? You can’t walk in like that.
It took time and a lot of iteration to work out how to build trust. One key element was reciprocity, doing things for people. If you want them to do something for you, they need to see you doing something for them first.
If you understand what makes people tick and what challenges they face day to day, and you step in early to help them in their domain, you break down trust barriers. You don’t expect things from people immediately. You have humility, you set aside your own agenda, and you genuinely offer help.
Demonstrating understanding of their domain is important. What are they measured against? What does good look like for them? How can you show empathy and awareness?
It becomes human. How do you gain trust with a human being, colleague or customer? Through humility, empathy, and genuine support. Those traits build trust and relationships.
Then you grow that trust by demonstrating real value. You show the part you and your team are playing in helping the business grow. People see how you contribute.
For example, we’ve seen huge growth in how closely our product design team works with customers. We invited them into that space because customers love being heard directly, not through multiple intermediaries. The design team loves it because they get direct data from end users. That relationship builds, and you find more opportunities to introduce them to customers. It grows naturally.
With customers, some of the strongest trust has been built in times of adversity. Relationships aren’t always smooth, especially with enterprise clients. They come in with expectations of what your product can do. Then reality sets in. They realize, “I thought it would do this.”
And you respond, “It might not do it like that now, but we can work toward it.” If you deliver on your promises, stay true to your word, show commitment, and genuinely care about their success, not just whether they will renew, they feel it.
For us, our customers are learning and development practitioners. Understanding what makes them tick and what they’re measured against is important.
So internally and externally, the principles are the same: empathy, humility, genuine value, reciprocity, and giving more than you take.
These behaviors build trust.
Increasing CS visibility internally
Irina C (39:07 – 39:30)
I love your answer, Steve. And I think it ties directly into the next challenge you see as leaders face and that’s visibility. Because we hear this a lot, we are doing the work, but nobody sees it.
Irina, how do you make your team’s impact visible without feeling like you were just trying to get attention?
Irina V (39:32 – 41:57)
Sometimes attention is good. I encourage everybody to speak out and be loud about their achievements because it’s needed. Attention means you are seen, you are heard, and you have a voice, so that’s good.
Leaving the jokes aside, this is something Steve and I discussed in the past. I had an aha moment in my first year during management meetings. It was my turn to talk about customers and CS progress, and someone said, okay, let’s start the complaints part. I realized that what I was doing wrong was always talking about the support I needed from the team. I kept bringing up challenging situations, where I needed help, or the negative things happening.
Of course, I presented the numbers, but then I jumped directly into the negatives. That moment in the meeting changed my approach. I started focusing on the unseen work of my team.
From that experience, I learned that documenting all milestones, customer feedback, and everything exceptional we do for customers must be written down and presented alongside the numbers. Beyond achievements, revenue saved, and upsells, you need to show the other important things, because every small action from the team impacts company revenue, even if it is not tied to a specific number.
From that point on, the approach changed, and the team’s effort became more visible. Others received this feedback differently. So start positively and get that attention, because you deserve it, and your team deserves to be seen and heard.
Defining long-term strategy
Irina C (42:00 – 42:23)
That’s great. And it actually sets up the last piece of our conversation for today because at some point, every CS leader realizes you can’t fix everything and you need to choose your lane and own it. So Steve, I wanna ask you, how did you figure out what your strategic focus should be as head of CS?
Steve (42:26 – 45:47)
Well, I guess that changes. You don’t have one strategy and then stick to it. It’s about identifying what is a priority for the team at that particular time and showing how that contributes to business goals. It was important for me to get visibility into our business strategy for the coming year to understand where we fit into it.
How do we help the business achieve its goals? And something really important is how you align your strategy and objectives with what the business is trying to do and the phase the business is in. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter.
We say the same thing to our customers. Learning and development and training are great, but how do you prove they have an impact on the organization? Until you prove that, you sit in a silo as a cost center. You have to go beyond that. Instead of being an order taker, you have to show how you contribute to the business.
This changes each year. In the early days, our focus was baselining metrics like CSAT and NPS, understanding industry standards, and aiming toward those. At the same time, we were managing scale. How do we scale the operation without scaling cost? That’s when we realized we needed customer success software to manage data more efficiently rather than me spending hours with spreadsheets.
When you step into the role, there are big expectations. You need to make an impact. You have to take on something that matters to the business. As Irina mentioned about visibility and impact, when you step into the Head of CS role, there are extra eyes on you. People expect you to show results.
We always recommend to customers to pick an easy, quick win that delivers clear value. People are waiting to see evidence of your impact. If you choose a 12-month plan as your first visible initiative, it takes too long to show results. Choose early wins that show progress.
But always tie everything back to the business objectives or the business plan for that year. Get visibility into those early and show how your work contributes and impacts them. That positions you as invaluable and focused on the business, not just working in a CS silo.
Irina C (45:51 – 45:56)
Irina, do you wanna add on or what the- Yeah, I wanted to continue.
Irina V (45:56 – 48:02)
I was just waiting to see if you had any follow-up questions for Steve. I wanted to say that on the strategic part, I totally resonate with what Steve said. You need adaptability. It’s necessary to change your strategy from year to year and adapt to trends, company challenges, customer expectations, leadership expectations, and so on.
However, I think it’s important to have an anchor, something you always come back to, a strength that guides you through the chaos. You need to understand what qualifies you for that position. What is your strength in this process?
For example, for me, I realized that when I don’t know what to do or when things become chaotic and we need to adapt, I go back to the thing I consider my strength: I like working with people and helping people succeed. Keeping that in mind helps me set my strategy. I know that whatever decision I make, my team has to succeed and my customers have to succeed.
Being driven by that helps me find answers when I don’t know what to do. I want the person behind the business to be successful. I’m working with people, and as Steve mentioned, it’s simple: you help them succeed, and they become happy customers.
You always have to ask yourself what drives you and what motivates you, and you will find the answer when you don’t know what to do.
Irina C (48:05 – 48:42)
Taking a look at the time, and we promised our audience that we would take their questions. I want to start with Stefan, not sure if I pronounced it correctly. I’m working on getting decision makers to constantly join QBRs and other AMCS meetings.
QBRs are new for us, so I’m testing different approaches. Any tips or experience on driving better stakeholder engagement for these sessions?
Irina V (48:44 – 48:46)
I can take it.
Irina C (48:48 – 48:52)
Because the other question is assigned to Steve.
Irina V (48:53 – 50:33)
Yes, okay. First of all, especially if it’s a new process for you, you have to admit that you will not be the master in the beginning. Allow yourself to experiment a bit before being successful with it.
You have to keep in mind that the interaction you’re trying to get must be valuable for the customer. It’s important to reiterate on the proposition of the QBR meeting. You have to make it valuable for the customer. You need to frame it in a way that makes them attend because they have something to gain, not just because you want to present numbers or hit a target.
If you do that and find a way to make them join because they’ll get something out of the meeting. For example, a presentation they can use with leadership to justify keeping your tool or securing more budget, they will attend. Sometimes customers simply don’t want to join these meetings. You need a backup solution to still help them get the value they would receive from the call.
Maybe you send the presentation directly, or send specific numbers, and find another way to support them without a live meeting. There are many creative solutions, but it’s a common issue. You have to iterate until it works. Don’t be scared.
Irina C (50:34 – 51:18)
I encourage you guys to connect with Irina and either on LinkedIn and I know for sure that she can follow up or she can give you more best practices tips if you need. So connect with her and actually connect with her and Steve and I know that they are more than willing to help and please reach out. And the next question is for you, Steve.
You said that there were no processes at first. How long did it take to build you your first solid one? Did it work right away or did it evolve over time showing it’s okay to start imperfect or to improve and improve later?
Steve (51:20 – 53:27)
Yeah, I think the first process I worked on was the onboarding process. It took a long time to put together because I overcomplicated it. I wanted to spell out every single thing you could do, what you needed to do, the inputs, and the outputs. In hindsight, I probably would have gone for something simpler and lighter because as soon as you write it, it’s out of date. You constantly evolve and iterate your processes. Every time you run them, you see a better way of doing things, or there’s a slight change, a different configuration, or a more efficient approach.
Every time you commit a process to a document, it will need to be updated.
So don’t lock yourself in or include too much detail on the first go. Keep it simple, then fill in the detail and adjust as you go. Writing the process doesn’t mean it will be followed exactly. You also have to consider how you’re going to police it, train it, implement it, and monitor whether it’s being followed. You need consistency in following the process to determine whether it works. If everyone is freestyling and getting different results, you can’t know whether the process itself is effective.
So keep it simple, keep it light, because it will change. Don’t be afraid to change it and iterate. Let the quality of the outputs determine the approach and don’t be too attached to anything.
You might spend all weekend writing a process and think it’s the best process in the world, but it might turn out to be useless. Don’t get too attached to it. Be ready to give it up, trust the quality of output, and leave your ego at the door.
Irina C (53:29 – 54:01)
We are almost at the end. So I wanna finish this conversation with something as practical as the whole session was and also forward-looking. So I wanna ask both of you, for anyone stepping into the CS leadership for the first time, what’s one thing to tell them to do as they go into 2026?
Where should they start? What’s your piece of advice for new CS leaders?
Steve (54:01 – 54:07)
Do you wanna go first, Irina?
Irina V (54:08 – 54:10)
I can let you, I have no problem.
Steve (54:12 – 56:22)
I have something that springs to mind. We’re doing something a little different at the moment. It came from recognizing that the ultimate expression of success for our customers isn’t just metrics showing they are successful. Sometimes the higher-level social proof outputs are the real epitome, like winning an award together after you’ve led the award entry for them and supported everything that led up to it.
That has pushed us to work more strategically with our customers. When awards nomination season comes around, we already have the story and the evidence. Demonstrating impact requires metrics, numbers, data, and evidence to satisfy the judging criteria. If you set that up in advance, it becomes easy. You’re not scrambling to make things up for the judging process.
We’re learning to work more strategically with our customers. Always think about, and care about, their success. Think of them as people. Think about what will make them a hero and a champion in their organization, and work backward from there.
If there’s something you’re not doing, don’t be reactive and fall into a support role. What does true success look like? How can you add value and bring value to your customers so they become heroes and champions? Model out the 11-star experience of celebrating winning an award together. You’re there, dressed up, having a great time, dancing; that’s the ultimate expression of success.
Work backward from that vision and always think about how you can bring extra value and work more strategically with your customers. That’s my advice.
Irina V (56:24 – 57:18)
When Irina asked the question, the first thing that came to mind was: don’t be afraid that you will be replaced by AIs. That’s the trend, but we are far from that.
One advice for next year is to stay updated, follow the trends, and be informed about what’s happening in the industry. At the same time, as Steve said, stay genuine. Create exceptional experiences for your customers, put yourself in their shoes, and you will know what to do and how to help them succeed. Be as authentic as possible because everyone has a great person inside who adds value to their customers’ experiences.
Irina C (57:21 – 59:08)
I know there are two more questions in the chat. We will take them offline because last time I wasn’t mindful of the time, I was kicked off, and the event interrupted. I want to avoid that.
No worries. Irina and Steve will receive the questions, and you will have the chance to get them answered. Now I want to wrap up and officially say thank you to both of you, Irina and Steve, because last time I didn’t have the chance for another round of insights.
And of course, thank you to all of you for taking the time to join us today. You will get the recording in your inbox soon, plus the answers to the questions we didn’t manage to take today. If you want more inspiration, all past webinars are available in the Custify webinar series on our website.
And don’t forget that everything we built at Custify is meant to help CSMs work smarter, not harder, to spend less time in spreadsheets and more time driving real customer outcomes. Since this is our last session of the year, I want to say thank you for showing up, for learning with us, and for being part of this growing CS community. Wishing you a restful break and a smooth start to 2026.
Thanks again for being here! Happy holidays!
