Customer Success as a Product Problem: A VP's Insight

Why most support teams fail to scale (and the hidden price you’re paying). The truth is, most support leaders—myself included—fall for the same traps when the ticket queue explodes. 1. Chasing Quick Hires Instead Of Fixing The Root Cause I once responded to a surge in tickets by pushing through a hiring spree, believing more hands would solve everything. All it did was inflate costs and amplify confusion, without any real improvement in resolution times. 2. Relying On Heroics Over Systems For months, I leaned on my best agents to pick up the slack, rewarding burnout with praise. Eventually, even my top performers started slipping and morale tanked—nobody can sustain that pace. 3. Ignoring Data Until It’s A Crisis I waited until backlog hit a breaking point before I even looked at our metrics. By then, customers were already leaving and I was left scrambling for answers that should have been obvious. 4. Treating CSAT As A Vanity Metric I celebrated positive CSAT blips but ignored the root causes behind customer churn. My blind spot cost us loyal accounts, and I felt that loss keenly in our renewals. 5. Assuming Tools Alone Would Save Us I invested in shiny new platforms thinking automation would fix our processes. Without the right workflows and change management, all I got was expensive shelfware and a frustrated team. I made these same mistakes, and I see this pattern with nearly every Customer Support Leader I work with before they realize the importance of building a truly scalable support system that does more with less. If you’re a Customer Support Leader who wants to cut backlogs, lower costs, and raise CSAT without adding headcount—and avoid the hidden pitfalls that stall most teams—grab my 5-Step Guide to Scaling Support Without Scaling Headcount. Follow the link in the comments below to get your complimentary copy 👇

To the Head of Support who has a hiring freeze but a ticket queue on fire: This is for you. 1. Ignoring the Data In the early days, I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tickets. I assumed more bodies were the only solution, completely overlooking the goldmine of data at my fingertips. It was a harsh awakening when I realized that patterns in the data could have preempted many of the issues, saving hours and dollars. 2. Overcomplicating Processes I thought adding layers of process would streamline operations. Instead, it created bottlenecks that frustrated both the team and our customers. It was only when I stripped everything back to basics that efficiency began to improve. 3. Neglecting Customer Feedback For too long, I viewed customer feedback as a secondary concern. It wasn't until I started treating it as a priority that I noticed a dramatic shift in customer satisfaction and ticket volume. 4. Underestimating Self-Service I assumed customers wanted personal interaction for every issue. By not investing in self-service options, we missed out on a significant opportunity to empower customers and reduce ticket load. 5. Failing to Empower the Team I micromanaged every decision, thinking it would ensure quality. Instead, it led to burnout and disengagement. It was a painful lesson that trusting my team with autonomy resulted in higher morale and better service. Reflecting on these experiences, I learned that growth doesn't always mean expanding the team. It's about making smarter decisions, leveraging the tools at hand, and empowering those around you. This realization is what fuels my passion for helping others build scalable support systems that thrive under pressure. If you're a Customer Support Leader and you'd like to cut backlogs, lower costs, and raise CSAT without adding headcount, then grab your copy of my 5-Step Guide to Scaling Support Without Scaling Headcount. Follow the link in the comments below to grab your complimentary copy 👇

47% of CS professionals report experiencing burnout at work! (source: Vitally) I'm not one of them. Here's why! I don't hustle for quotas or renewals. I hustle because customer success is my natural wiring. Whether I'm running million-dollar deployments for enterprise or other clients or helping a stranger troubleshoot their phone at random place, the work feels the same to me. Both scenarios give me satisfaction. It's all the same dopamine hit. I solve problems. Period. The best customer success leaders go beyond merely focusing on their metrics. They actively contribute to the entire ecosystem: → Building thought leadership content that moves the industry forward → Creating pathways for emerging CS talent in public-tech → Turning every DM into a mentorship opportunity Because your best customers are not paying for your product. They're investing in your problem-solving obsession. When you're genuinely wired to help, revenue becomes a byproduct, not the goal. What drives your daily hustle in CS? I would love to hear your real reason below (no corporate speak allowed)! P.S. Churn Is Dead is your weekly roadmap to a better way with battle-tested frameworks, bold plays, and no-BS execution tactics that work. Subscribe to it now! (link in the comments)

Most companies get one thing seriously wrong about Customer Success. Are you one of them? You might think Customer Success is all about hiring more CSMs and “owning” the success function. But real customer success happens when your entire company works together. If your customers only succeed when they talk to your CS team, you’ve already lost. That’s not scalable. That’s not sustainable. Here’s what real Customer Success looks like: ✓ Your product builds value into every feature ✓ Sales sets honest expectations ✓ Marketing guides customers through their journey ✓ Support spots expansion opportunities CSMs amplify this strategy. They don’t replace it. The best companies ask themselves: “How would we grow revenue if we couldn’t hire a single CSM?” This mindset forces success to be built into every part of your business, not just one team. Look at the data: Companies keep spending more on CS, but retention rates aren’t improving. Something’s broken. The problem? We’re adding headcount instead of fixing systems. Treating symptoms, not root causes. Customer Success needs to be part of how your company operates every day. In the product, sales, marketing and leadership. If you’re new to CS, your role isn’t to own customer success alone. It’s to drive it across the org. Be the voice of the customer. Push product to build better experiences. Help sales understand real needs. Partner with marketing and support. Make Customer Success everyone’s responsibility, not just yours. I'm curious to know what’s one way you’ve seen customer success thrive outside the CS team. Share below 👇 #CustomerSuccess #VOC #Collaboration

Most outbound teams chase quantity. More messages, more sequences, more sends. The best teams don’t ask how many prospects to contact. They ask when to contact them. Because timing, not volume, decides if a message lands or gets ignored. Look out for these signals before you reach out- 1. Funding Rounds When a company raises new money, everything moves. They’re hiring, buying, and under pressure to show ROI. That 30–60 day window after an announcement is the sweet spot for outreach. 2. Team Expansion Hiring spikes show where pain is growing. If a company is hiring 10 new AEs or 5 engineers, they’re scaling something that’s breaking. That’s when they’re open to solutions, not before. 3. Tech Stack Changes Switching tools means internal friction. New workflows, migrations, onboarding. Perfect time to message with relevance: “Noticed you moved from X → Y. Teams usually hit [pain] at this stage.” Good timing isn’t luck. It’s pattern recognition. You don’t need to send more. You just need to send when the prospect is already in motion. Outbound that moves with the market → gets replies.

To the Head of Support who has a hiring freeze but a ticket queue on fire: This is for you.. It’s brutal how often this happens: headcount is frozen, but the ticket queue keeps growing and leadership expects a miracle. This is the moment where the gap between what we wish we could do and what’s actually possible feels most painful. 1. Chasing Tools Instead of Fixing Process I once spent months trialing shiny new support tools, convinced that the next platform would save us. All it did was add complexity to broken workflows and buy us zero relief on backlog. 2. Ignoring Self-Service Automation I thought self-service was just a bandaid, so I delayed investing in automation. The result? My team was crushed under repetitive tickets that could have been solved faster by a simple help center article. 3. Treating Metrics as a Report Card, Not a Diagnostic I fixated on CSAT and handle time as performance grades, not as clues for improvement. By the time I realized metrics are a flashlight, not a scoreboard, customer frustration had already boiled over. 4. Underestimating the Power of Internal Knowledge Sharing I assumed tribal knowledge would trickle down naturally. Instead, every new hire struggled for weeks, and even the veterans were duplicating effort because no one had a clear playbook. 5. Failing to Empower Agents to Solve Problems Autonomously I micromanaged escalations, thinking it showed I cared. In reality, it slowed everything down and my best agents felt untrusted, leading to higher attrition right when I needed everyone at their best. I made these same mistakes and I see this pattern with nearly every Customer Support Leader I work with before they realize the only way to scale is to rethink the entire system, not just throw bodies at the fire. If you’re a Customer Support Leader determined to build a scalable support system that handles more tickets, keeps customers happy, and actually hits cost targets—without adding a single headcount—my 5-Step Guide to Scaling Support Without Scaling Headcount is for you. Grab the guide using the link in the comments below to start cutting your backlog, lowering costs, and raising CSAT—all with your current team.👇

A SaaS founder told me last week: “When we stopped selling features and started selling certainty, our deals doubled.” It hit me. They didn’t change the product. They changed the story. In B2B, we obsess over demos, pricing, pipelines…But customers aren’t buying software. They are buying confidence that their team won’t fail, that leadership won’t panic, that the rollout just works. Great sales isn’t about what you built. It’s about solving the anxieties your customer carries every day. That’s the mindset that turns a product that sells into a product that scales. The future is being written by people like you and me, what will you add to it?

💡 THE WIIFY 💡 What's in it for you? One of my favorite and most used acronyms over the last decade. In 2015, I was in a room with Jeff Lawson Lee Kirkpatrick Roy Ng and Patrick Malatack preparing for Twilio's IPO with a wonderful coach Jerry Weissman. We had worked a TON on our materials, but I remember Jerry asking at each slide - what do you want an investor to understand from this specific data or slide title? We realized a lot of our materials weren't telling the right story to investors. It's pretty easy to tell stories about things that are important to yourself. It's harder to think about what's relevant, unique and educational for the specific audience in mind 🤨. I talk to customers, employees and investors. Even within those categories, each type of person and each specific individual tends to care about something slightly different. > Some of my sales reps just want to know how changes impact their commissions. Others care most about how to navigate tough customer convos. > Managers often want to understand how they should explain things to their team, what it means for their ability to hire and retain their leads > My peers want to know how their specific functional area ties into what we're doing (or want to look around corners to see what problems I'm about to cause for them 😜) Bottom Line: Everyone wants to know how new information helps them win, personally and professionally. It always pays off to cut to the punch line and give folks the information they want. Plus, I think my colleagues would agree, it's REALLY fun to keep saying "WIIFY"

You don’t need more leads. You need better signals. Here are 45+ of them (free). We used to send emails that looked like everyone else’s. Then we built a signal-led playbook. Now we reach out to companies when the context makes most sense and the correct time to maximize the possibility of closing the client. Example: Before: “Hey, saw you’re in SaaS. We help SaaS companies grow revenue.” → ignored. After: “Noticed you’re hiring 3 AEs. Need tools to ramp them faster?” → conversation. We put together 47 intent signals you can use for your own outreach, along with examples of how to apply each one. If you want it, comment “Intent” and I’ll DM you the doc.

Here's something I never thought I'd hear myself say. Customer Success is the MOST misunderstood and brutal role in tech. One quarter, you’re a quiet hero. The next, you’re blamed for churn you couldn’t control. Usually unfairly. Before hiring (or firing) another CSM, read this 👇🏽 Twice. You can’t hide in CS. Net retention, adoption metrics, renewal dates, yea...they’re all staring leadership in the face. Don’t just measure CSMs on logo churn. Track product adoption, usage expansion, customer health, and advocacy creation. CSMs absorb more customer frustration in a month than most execs do in a year. It’s not just feature gaps, it’s angry CFOs, burned-out admins, failed rollouts. They don’t need “more accountability” in your QBRs. They need air cover and resources. One bad churn event and your job might be at risk even if it was caused by product gaps or a bad-fit customer. Everyone loves you when NRR is high, but when it dips? They panic. What CSMs actually need is your partnership, not your panic. Get them quick wins (exec sponsor calls, roadmap commitments) to help rebuild momentum. Impostor syndrome runs deep in CS. Even top CSMs wonder: “Am I just babysitting accounts?” or “Do I actually add business value?” Poor leadership can make rockstars doubt their worth. Manage their mindset. Remind them: they’re revenue protectors and growth drivers, not glorified support reps. CS doesn’t live in a vacuum. Weak onboarding, sloppy handoffs, missing integrations and yet CS gets blamed when the renewal doesn’t land? You can’t hire a “magical” CSM and expect retention to fix itself. Fix onboarding. Fix product gaps. Align Sales → CS → Product → Execs around one customer journey. When expansion flows, people assume “CS is easy.” When churn spikes, they blame the CSM. Stop the superficial judgments. Look deeper: Is adoption stalling at onboarding? Is product usage low in one segment? Are they managing 100 accounts when they should have 30? CS leaders carry enormous pressure quietly. Boardrooms don’t celebrate net retention the way they celebrate net-new. But it’s the lifeblood of your business. One slip, one bad hiring cycle, one market downturn and they’re at risk. Instead of pointing fingers, roll up your sleeves and help them fix systemic problems. We [foolishly imo] judge resumes by big logos (Salesforce, Oracle, Zoom) instead of by trench work: mid-market expansions, rescuing high-risk accounts, navigating broken onboarding, building renewal motions from scratch. Figure out the exact CSM profile you need. Stop chasing “shiny” logos. ——— Customer Success is brutal. Wildly misunderstood. Great CSMs aren’t miracle workers. Don’t punish their struggles. Support their fight. Watch them thrive. Make it work. Powerful discussions from The Surf & Sales Summit in Portugal.