Shows
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Customer Journey Transformations with Manoj TadakamallaThis week, my guest and I talk about when he was put in charge of a company that got acquired and led to his CS team being forced to transform from a traditional, human-led model to a data-driven, digital-first approach. We explore how mapping customer journeys with real usage data can dramatically improve retention and long-term success.2025-06-0813 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - AI Agents Primer with Victoria SpencerIn the latest Just One Customer Success Thing episode, I spoke with Victoria Spencer, Senior Director at Oracle, about how AI agents are redefining digital customer experience — especially when supporting thousands of smaller cloud customers. These smart assistants go far beyond ChatGPT-style prompts by pulling real-time, company-specific insights to save time and boost impact.2025-05-1812 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Sales to CS Handovers with Eleni VorvisToday, I’m joined by Eleni Vorvis, a seasoned fractional customer success leader, who shares why the handover from sales to CS is the most crucial—and often overlooked—moment in the customer journey. If you’ve ever struggled with inconsistent onboarding or poor cross-team alignment, this conversation is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.2025-05-1514 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Living Success Plans with Caroline LambieMy guest this week shares her slant on the topic of customer success plans. It’s a simple to implement idea and yet is a really powerful one to maximise the benefit that having these plans generate.2025-05-0809 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - CSM to CSM Handovers with Chinelo DiejomaohWe often hear about the importance of Sales to CSM handovers but just as critical is when customers move from one CSM to another. There are of course many similarities but Chinelo explains where these handovers need to be handled differently.2025-04-2911 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Rise of the Chief GTM Officer? with Thomas VoigtMy guest this week argues the case for late stage start-ups to simplify their revenue organisation. At this point in a company’s evolution, retention revenue will far exceed new business and therefore a new type of leader is needed. Thomas argues that CS leaders are the natural fit for this senior leadership role.2025-04-2109 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Tactics on Steroids! with Madison HallWe all know what tactics are, but my guest this week takes them to the next level! She explains how her and her team spend time every week creatively designing and then executing new measurable tactics which have had stellar results.2025-04-0613 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Bringing Customers Alive with Dean ColegateHave you ever suspected that lesser-known clients are perceived by internal teams to be less important than the well known brands? Well here’s a simple idea that can help to put this right and has some other positive side effects too!
Promoting clients internally will raise their profile, provide more context to people and help to level up all our customers. The added benefit is that by doing this internal client promotion it also demonstrates to the whole company that CS really does understand the important details about our customers.2025-03-2709 min
Just One Customer Success ThingUser Onboarding with Donna WeberIf you don’t have great user adoption when your client goes live you risk the whole project being a failure. My guest this week really drives home the need to overcome the very normal resistance to change and the tactics we can deploy help this. The stakeholders responsible for making the purchasing decision will have gone through the whole sales process and will be excited by the new system but the users have just got to get on and use it. Is it any wonder that they don’t see the benefits they might get from this change.2025-03-2013 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust one CS Thing - Forecasting Rigour with Tome Broome"Being able to accurately forecast revenue is the most important way to identify high performing CS teams". My guest this week really drives home the importance of merging all the great things CS teams are known for and adding the ability, learned from Sales, on how to accurately forecast revenue figures.2025-03-0714 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - How to Choose the Right KPIsNot sure you’re using the right KPIs to motivate your teams and prove value to your organisation? Well, this week’s guest explains ALL about that and in particular describes the framework she uses which is called ALL. ALL stands for Action Lagging and Leading KPIs.2025-02-1712 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Reinvent your QBRs with Sangita RayThe value and purpose of Quarterly Business Reviews has been under scrutiny lately in Customer Success circles. Sangita, my guest today, explains her experience and approach to these strategic customer meetings. She is passionate that they are still relevant and indeed has an example where they have transformed a client relationship and have helped to significantly grow revenues.2025-02-1111 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One Customer Success Thing - CS & PS collaborate to boost ARRIf your product is sufficiently complex, you might have a professional services team to onboard your clients. How customer success and professional services interact is really important for the successful management of the client and, as Steve explains, also potentially great for additional recurring revenues.2025-02-0814 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Change Management - the essential CS skill with Sue Nabeth MooreA large part of what Customer Success is all about is helping customers change what they are currently doing to something that will make them more successful. Helping customers launch a new product or continually helping improve adoption levels are examples of this. Luckily, Change management (and methodologies such as ADKAR) is a mature discipline and we can learn from the experts, one of whom is on this week’s show.2025-01-2613 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Data Science with Victoria SpencerThis week Victoria shares with me, Dean Colegate, the way she uses a dedicated data science resource to enable Oracle to effectively communicate at scale with their tens of thousands of customers.2025-01-1913 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Value Realisation Programs with Emilie DubauHelping customers maximise the value they get from your platform is the core purpose of Customer Success. That said, it’s not always straightforward to define this value and the KPIs to measure it. My guest this week is Emilie Dubau (VP of CS at Sana Commerce), she and her team developed a systematic framework for doing this that was adopted by her whole business and helped their clients achieve great success.2025-01-1912 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Engagement Plans - Keeping it Simple with Stephen O’KeefeAre you ever unsure of the right cadence and method of engaging with your customers?
It’s easy to think there is a ‘best practice’ methodology you should use and stick to come what may. My guest this week is Stephen O’Keefe (Senior Director of Customer Success at HubSpot )who describes his decision to revert to simplicity and how it made significant improvements - not just for his key client metrics but also for his team as well.2025-01-1110 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - The Power of Story Telling with Elena CoccoThere’s a skill that every great customer success person has that is often not fully appreciated. This relates to having to present complex datasets and explain what various dashboards mean. What my guest Elena Cocco explains is that in order to bring the data alive, CSMs need to be able to paint a compelling narrative around this data.2025-01-0312 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Return of the Trusted Advisor with Aileen BrownThe title of this episode is a little misleading. My guest, Aileen Brown from Workday, isn’t talking about the return of CSMs being the clients trusted advisor, she is saying this role has never gone away.
The trend in many CS organisations might be to have CS be the people who also own upsell and renewal revenue however this is not the case everywhere. Aileen explains why in her organisation, the account executive owns those numbers and has those commercial conversations assisted by the CSMs.2024-12-1711 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - The power of use-cases with Adrian BeckIf you have a particularly technical or involved product or platform, you might find it challenging to discuss what your product does in a uniform way with people within your company and with your clients. My guest today, Adrian Beck (VP of Customer First at OKTA), shares with me how he instigated a project to define a product taxonomy based on use-cases that simplified what the product does and also led to many unexpected benefits.2024-12-0711 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - KPIs right from the start with Mary Ann BiancoIt might seem obvious but really understanding the business value drivers that your new customer wants to achieve is fundamental to the overall success of the partnership. Customers have a dream to improve efficiency or reduce costs, etc. but if you don’t know the specifics of their dream, how are you going to make their dream come true?2024-11-3009 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - CS as a company ethos with Nicole BaxbyOn this week’s ‘Just One CS Thing’ Podcast, Nicole Baxby (VP of Customer Success at Quantifind) explains that having customers who are achieving success with your product and who therefore grow and renew is not the responsibility of just the CS team. The whole company from the top down needs to really understand that everyone has their part to play.2024-11-2114 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Train AI with the right data with Mohammed AlqaqOn this week’s ‘Just One CS Thing’ Podcast, Mohammed Alqaq (Strategic Customer Success Leader at Oracle) explains that those organisations that take the time now to deeply consider what data we feed AI, will achieve the greatest benefits.2024-11-1613 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Simple Expectations with Chris BraleyOn this week’s 14 min ‘Just One CS Thing’ Podcast, Chris Braley (Director of CS at Workiva) explains how tempting it is for CS teams to get carried away working on many customer related tasks and lose sight of what's really important. Keeping objectives simple will help move the overall needle the furthest.2024-11-0714 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Engaged Stakeholders with Valerie FockeIn this week’s 8 min ‘Just One CS Thing’ podcast, Valerie Focke explains an important way she keeps client onboardings on track is to ensure the main stakeholder engaged. Particularly with large enterprise clients, the main stakeholder might pass off the implementation to their team and step away - if they do this there is a risk that momentum might be lost.2024-10-3008 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Account Planning with Michelle GarnhamIf you don't have a plan, how are you going to make a plan come true? - to mis quote Oscar Hammerstein. The same is true in Customer Success - you need to know what success looks like for your customer and then create a plan that will help you and them get there2024-10-2413 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Change Management with Sue Nabeth MooreThis week, Sue shares the way she uses Change Management Sponsor Kits to help drive adoption2024-10-1514 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - CS Retrospectives with Aimé Louise StokesThis week, Aimé shares the way she uses retrospective meetings with her team and customers to deepen trust and accountability with her client partnerships.2024-10-0909 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Celebrate Small Wins with Deborah KnightThis week I discuss with Deborah Knight the importance of keeping the morale of your team high by celebrating small wins.2024-09-2614 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Join a CS Community with Mike MarshallThis week, Mike Marshall describes to me, Dean Colegate, why he set up a CS leaders networking group in London and the benefits he thinks it offers.2024-09-0910 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Deep Questioning with Danielle MartinDanielle describes to me, Dean Colegate, how she maximises renewal and upsell revenue by combining classic Customer Success skills with deep questioning techniques she learned when she was in Sales.2024-09-0311 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Sales Methodologies with David BrownThis week David Brown describes to me, Dean Colegate, the learning he had from a Sales colleague that change the way he has subsequently treated renewals in his CS organisations.2024-08-2812 min
Just One Customer Success ThingJust One CS Thing - Customer Centricity with Lara BarnesThis week I'm delighted to be joined by Lara Barnes who shares her Customer Lifecycle Project which transformed customer centricity in her company.
After several acquisitions, Lara realised there was so much mis alignment within her company that it was having a detrimental impact on their customers . As Senior VP of Customer Success she embarked on a project to change that which made big improvements in NPS, retention and the internal profile of CS.2024-08-1313 min