Ep.17- How to Treat Customer Success as a Revenue Growth Lever and Not Post-Sales Babysitting with Ivan Stefanovski

All right. Welcome, welcome. We're running a little bit behind schedule because my computer decided to crash last minute and then update as we were jumping on. So apologies for the delay, but thank you so much for coming back here onto our program.

Welcome back to Presales Unplug, the leadership playbook. I'm Arvi. I'm the founder of Elite Talent and I work with SaaS companies to help uh really build their teams and pre-sales and post-sales talent. But today really isn't about me.

Today is about the leaders and the people behind these teams, the go-to-market teams, you know, the pre-sales and the post-sales that share strategies that actually work in today's market. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. One quick note before we jump in. These conversations are absolutely live and intentionally unedited.

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Um, so today I have a very special guest, and I'm actually very excited about this topic because um, believe it or not, Yvonne, you are the first guest I've had on post sales, uh, specifically customer success. And I've been wanting to do this for a while. So thank you for, I know when I asked, you're like the first to jump in. And then I just wanted to thank you for being willing to share your knowledge with everybody here today.

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for having me. Um definitely humbled to be the first CS guest, uh, but I'll do uh as much as I can to share as much knowledge as I can. Um, we've had plenty of conversations offline, so I'm I'm really excited to jump into questions and just grill you.

No, I'm kidding. I will ask you questions, but I won't grill you. Um cool. Well, obviously, Yvonne, I'd love for the audience to get to know you a little bit.

So why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey, you know, how you got started within SaaS, then post-sales specifically? Yeah, great question. Uh so yeah, you know, uh my name's Ivan Stefanovsky, and I started out in sales, uh moved into partner success and then into customer success. Uh, and I really feel I have kind of have knowledge in all three fields.

Uh, but really, you know, my progression has been, you know, pure sales, door to door. That's really where I cut my teeth in the UAE heat and 50 degrees in a suit, going building to building and having to cool off before each new meeting. Uh, but essentially that's really kind of where I built my resiliency. Um, you know, the the approach to each new customer uh that has to be uh exactly the same, like there was not a no before, or that you never heard a no.

So, really the kind of that grid and resiliency um really came out there. Um, I then moved into account management where I got to feel for the full sales cycle. So kind of from first contact to making the sale to managing the account, to expanding account, to making sure renewals were there, customers were satisfied, and so on. So I really kind of uh got to appreciate that whole life cycle customers go through, especially with their contact person at a company.

Uh, and then partner success is really my first step into success. Um, I was working with partners that I had specialized in working as an account manager. Um, so I was uh chosen for that role. And essentially my deep experience in partnerships, working with partners uh is what motivated it.

And uh I really enjoyed that side because you're essentially working with a partner on kind of joint success. You know, I call that win-win-wins because the partner wins, the company wins, the and client uh wins. Uh and then CS is really where I found my true love. You know, it aligns with my values of helping others, uh, and really um it's it's where I found myself uh to be the most successful and the happiest.

You know, I love what you just said that uh CS aligns with your values of helping others. I think that's probably something that we take a lot for granted, is like our personal values. Um, well, first of all, some sometimes people are not even clear on what their personal values are. So if you're not, I would highly suggest you get clear on those.

And two, um, it's not always that maybe we have the pleasure of working for either a company or within a career that really aligns with your personal values. Was that something that was like intentional for you? Or as you were kind of navigating your own career, you kind of landed into this and you're like, wow, I've kind of been looking for this. This is where my personal values really rely.

Yeah, it was uh, you know, I'd say a mix of both. Um, you know, the account management experience really let me see that post-sales world, you know, the onboarding, the training, the engagement, tracking health metrics, being proactive, making sure clients have everything they need, that they're happy, that they're on track, you know, according to deadlines and certain benchmarks we need to reach. Um, so it really gave me a love for that. And as I said, you know, I I like helping my friends, I like helping my family, I like helping, you know, even strangers on the street if I can.

So, you know, that really aligned with me in terms of taking care of customers post-sale. Uh, and my first step into it was taking care of partners post-sale and essentially making sure that their customers are on board and happy uh and uh growing. So that was kind of my first foray, although it is a little bit more tied to revenue, partner success versus uh customer success. And uh customer success, again, that was a little bit more intentional just because that fully I would say aligns with my values because you're really, you know, you are the friend of the customer, you are their contact, you are their internal voice uh within the company, and I want to do the best for my customer, same as I would want to do the best for anyone else that I know or I'm helping.

Um so it really kind of was that part was intentional to move specifically into customer success. But I think account management gave me the viewpoint of what it looks like with post-sales. Yeah, no, I love, I love that you mentioned that. And I kind of want to jump right in into some questions on that end.

Like obviously, when we were talking offline, you said that you mostly handle enterprise like managing or it in the CS side, like managing accounts with 50 plus stakeholders. I'd love to know what does kind that kind of complex complexity really teach you about like relationship building that maybe smaller accounts just can't do? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, great question.

You know, I've uh worked with mom and pop shops or just a mom or just a pop shop where it's just one person. Um, so I know what that's like. You know, they're their their contact point for everything. So, you know, it's just that one relationship.

But with you know, 50 plus stakeholders in a multinational global enterprise, um, you know, you really have to get to know all the important stakeholders. Uh and by that I mean, you know, there's both gonna be executive level or C-level stakeholders that are decision makers that need to be consulted on specific topics or decisions, uh, but also there's gonna be the implementers, the people on the technical side. Then there's gonna be the daily users. So you kind of have to really uh understand what each is cares about, what each needs, what each values, what each person's goals are.

So, really to have an individual and custom relationship per stakeholder, you know, with the C levels and executives, you're talking more high-level metrics and kind of the ROI from the platform, um, because I've generally worked in SaaS or from a service, as I've been in an e-commerce uh agency as well. But essentially, you're kind of relating to them the value that they're getting out of the tool through metrics, ideally. Uh, and with you know, implementers, you're helping them implement, you're helping them connect to the tech team, you're helping them get support questions answered.

Uh day-to-day users are the ones that you'll speak with most often. You know, they're the ones that you have you know interactions with on Slack and answer quick uh uh Slack messages or even quick emails. Maybe they have your phone number or WhatsApp. Um, it all depends on you know the roles that I've been in.

Yeah. But essentially, you know, you have to treat everyone individually. And it's not bad sometimes to have the phone number of a C level or executive when things go wrong to be able to step in. So I think you know, there's a lot more cross-functional coordination there.

You know, different teams have to work with different stakeholders, and when you're coordinating that as a CS, you're kind of like a project manager. Uh, and then there's also kind of you know more expectations. Each team or each stakeholder has their own expectations, they're different. Uh, they might have their own processes in working um with others and internally with each other.

Um, more procedures need to be put in place so that things are more clear, kind of more structured, and they know where they're headed uh because it does get very complex with that many stakeholders. Yeah, that is very true. And there's a lot to unpack there, uh, which I'm really excited on like the next few questions. However, before I get into that, I wanted to start a little bit with the basics.

Um, typically, I've heard from a lot of CS leaders, and you've probably been in the same spot before, where they say that the biggest problems start before they even get the customer, like on the pre-sale side. And there is a lot of talk about like when should a customer success um, you know, individual be involved in the sales process. What is that, or I mean, what's your opinion on that, first of all? And what do you feel like should be is the best way to involve a CS like pre-sales um before they get to you on the post-sale side?

Yeah, and I'll kind of give you two scenarios there, kind of both that I've been through. Uh it's either that sales and CS are on the same page. And I'm a generally a fan of this solution uh because then everyone is really, you know, sales is selling what the product offers. Customer success then takes over and is able to deliver on what the product offers.

So it's kind of all aligned. Um, you know, the marketing is aligned in terms of saying what we offer and what the goals and and and um value props are. Uh and really through all that, everyone's on the same page. Uh, and then the handoff is a little bit smoother.

Where I've seen issues is when sales tends to oversell or overpromise. Um, sometimes I've even seen it throughout my career, people out like outright lying. I like to say I'm an ethical salesman, I will won't sell something that's not there, I won't promise something that I know is not coming, but I've seen people do it. So it does happen, and I get the reasons why.

You know, it might not be to up to the person, you know, that there's pressure in sales, there's kind of investors, top-down kind of pressure. So I get why, uh, but essentially, uh, you know, when that happens, CS has a problem later. And that means the company has a problem later because of churn, because of, you know, uh reductions, um, you know, going to lower plans, having less users. So it's a problem for the overall company.

This is happening. So uh in an ideal world, you're on the same page and sales knows exactly what they're selling, and CS knows exactly what they're selling, uh, and basically it's aligned with what you can provide. And then uh ideally you want to just hand over to CS, maybe not to have to spend as much time, you know, for the CS person to be on sales calls and so on, um and vice versa. Uh, but also I think, you know, if there's a discovery phase, if there's a discovery fall, um, if it's especially a complex product, uh, a complex enterprise client, lots of stakeholders, it might help for CS to be there even on the sales calls.

Um, you know, if it's a priority account for the sales team, just to kind of get some of that context right before uh to potentially you know set some expectations uh before they come on board. Or at least, you know, we're we're in a day of AI note takers and video recorders, at least to have watched those um some meetings with the sales team, those discovery calls to understand, you know, where they're at, what they're expecting, and how to best uh take over. And then it's you know a warm handoff.

Um sales is introducing CS and uh CSD. So yeah, that's a very good point. Maybe it doesn't make sense for a company, depending on where they're at in their process, to always include CS, like on the pre-sale side. And of course, you know, you guys also have wearing all these different types of hats.

But to your point, I do think maybe on those key accounts or an account that would be really important for the company, um, you know, to be able to include CS and then really kind of help it give them the entire vision of what it would look like from you know pre-sales to sales to implementation side and customer success and all that. So that's a really good point, yeah. Um, have you seen that being done successfully? Um, the handoff, you know, when it comes to like sales closing a deal, the CS inherits a customer, maybe sometimes with with no context.

You know, what is in your ideal opinion, like what does an ideal handoff look like? And I guess where does I know we mentioned that you know sometimes we we we oversell on the sales side. So is that where the breakup like happens most of the time? Yeah, I think that's just you know, in general, a problem for a company if they have that type of sales team and then they're kind of passing on those types of customers that have those expectations to CS who can't deliver if a feature is not there or you know, whatever the thing that the salesperson said was.

Uh, but essentially I think that is a big part of the problem. But I have seen it done successfully. Um, you know, lots of companies are that I've been part of have been ethical companies that really were where the sales team and I was part of the account management team in one of them uh where the sales team is selling exactly what we provide. You know, we're not dream selling, we're not, you know, it's actually possible, it's doable.

And some expectation settings that we're doing even at that time was that hey, this is complex, it's tough, but it's doable. Um, and we sometimes offered managed services to say, hey, if it's something that you don't want to do, then we can essentially help you build it. Uh, you know, again, setting that expectation of this is gonna be tough to build yourselves. You can do it absolutely.

We have a help desk, we have a support team that will answer questions, uh, but it is complex. Would you like to do it yourself or do you need managed services? So I think I've been in companies where you know that's done totally properly, and then customer success takes over and you're just continuing the journey. Uh, but I've also been in kind of the opposite side.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's true. And then I I don't want to just blame, you know, the sales people or the CS side. But I also think that sometimes customers have could have unrealistic expectations coming in, you know, from the sales side, like, oh, I need the can't wait to see the immediate ROI or my 30-day results, especially on, I would assume what counts at our enterprise level.

So, how would you reset your expectations, you know, without damaging the relationship right out the gate? Yeah, if if I'm given this exact scenario, then um, you know, I would say you need to realign, you know, bring in the main stakeholders, have a meeting, um, you know, really speak to what you can actually provide, speak to their actual goals and what they were looking to get out of the platform, uh, and then tie the two together. So you're essentially realigning on here, this is what we can provide, this is what you need.

Let's do this to, you know, let's do X to achieve Y, uh, so that we can have the results of Z. And really you're kind of aligning, you're getting to know the stakeholders, you're building that trusted relationship, which is super important, you know, just kind of letting them know, uh, trust me, if these are your goals, once you've learned about them, uh, then we can make it work if we do these things. Uh, you know, let me help you and you know, give it a bit of time, uh, we will get there.

So I think that's kind of how I would approach it. Uh, if I'm given that scenario, but really ideally, I don't want to be given that scenario. I want to avoid the problem proactively. Yeah.

So have alignment from the start, whereas sales and CS is really on the same page. Again, they're selling exactly what we can deliver. Uh, and then when you take over a CS, you're just kind of continuing those promises and uh really fleshing out that success. You know, yeah.

We know that the product works, we know that you can achieve success. Um, once you buy it, here's the team that will help you achieve that success. And you're just finishing a journey for them. I love that you said that.

So I'll tell you my perspective on like a buyer client side, right? Like I've worked, I work with software companies, I work with customer success teams all the time because I buy products too. And I'll tell you like exactly what you said, in the sense that like some of the best customer success managers that I've dealt with is the ones that do set expectations and are just honest with me up front. Like, honestly, there's times where I try to push to get things done faster, or maybe even sales told me, like, hey, this is gonna take like 30 days.

So I'm jumping on that customer success call and I'm like, okay, how can we get this to two weeks? Um, as a, you know, as a on a business side, I'm like, I'm for me, urgency is like the most important one, obviously, but also quality. So I'm also trying to push, you know, the customer team and see, okay, how fast can we get there? But um, I will say the ones that really do reset my expectations and are just upfront and transparent about okay, this is what the reality is, versus somebody that disagrees and says, you know what, we'll get it out in two weeks, and then that doesn't happen, that of course will frustrate me more as a customer than somebody that's just upfront and honest.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm glad you're saying that because I had some some of these chats recently with uh the company I'm working with. Uh, but yeah, I I fully agree.

You know, if something is kind of uh promised, uh, for example, even in a sphere like development, you know, this feature will be available on this date. Um, and then that's I don't know. We've all we've all worked with dev teams, and I'm again not blaming them, not blaming any team in specific, but maybe there's a critical error that was unexpected that they had to spend two, three, two, three days on, and then the deadline is pushed. That happens, and it happens almost to everyone, it happens you know, regularly, I would say, for companies, so it's not something that's kind of out of the question.

It will and does happen. So I I have been trained to not give a date in general, in general. Uh you know, you kind of say, Hey, I'm expecting this soon or shortly, or um, you know, uh and then you take the ownership on yourself to say, you know, this will be available soon. We've put it in as a request.

As soon as it's available, I will reach out to you and let you know. And then you put a note for yourself, you let them know because really uh, you know, the the roadmap is often outside of your hands. Uh the technical team sets it, yes, it's according to feature requests and so on. You can influence it if something is super urgent.

Uh, but in general, the best teams work on sprints and they already have the roadmap set out. So you know, putting in some something in there, um, unless someone's paying uh a boatload of money to get that implemented, uh, it doesn't make sense for the team to kind of divert course because the feature requests are you know a fact. We know what features are most demanded, and we're gonna build those first. So uh in in those senses, yeah, it's kind of um if you're really working towards those feature requests, then uh, you know, really they're kind of happy uh with that and setting those expectations uh wrongly can only hurt you.

Uh and it's uh it's not just a CS problem, it's a whole company problem. So you want to, you know, be honest and open, you know, even saying I don't know when this will be done, but I will let you know when it is. Yeah, yeah. No, I totally agree.

It's the the best way of doing business and really earning that customer's trust is just transparency. Um, because you know, like you said, when you're either not necessarily lying, but you're trying to make them happy, um, you know, that and maybe sometimes that just comes from like really genuinely wanting to help that customer, can you can do it the wrong way? So that's true. And one of the oh, go just that there, um, you know, that's kind of the the difference, you know, short-term thinking versus long term.

Yeah, you know, if if I do something that will make them happy now, but you know, bite me later even harder, I'm gonna try to think long term and I won't do that. Yeah, yeah, no, totally agree. And on customer success and or like post-sales in general, we've talked about like overall health metrics and QBRs that are kind of like the cornerstone of managing accounts. What are two to three metrics that you personally care most about and why, especially maybe in early stage companies that don't necessarily have a mature like CS operation yet?

Yeah, yeah, great question. Um, you know, I think uh CSAT is a super easy one to implement. You know, you can use Google Forms um to ask people what their CSAT score or NPS is. Uh, and also I want to try uh tie CSAT, so customer satisfaction, to as well qualitative uh feedback you're receiving from customers on calls through emails.

You know, are they not showing up on calls or not answering emails? That's a quality. Qualitative sign that's negative. So I think that's kind of the general customer satisfaction, but also the CSAT and NPS can be done really quickly.

My other piece is the GRR and NRR. You know, you're looking at your gross revenue retained and your net revenue retained. Out of the customers that I had at the start, how many did I keep at the end? It could be end of the month, could be end of the year, generally tracked by month so you can be more proactive.

And NRR, you know, out of the customers that I have, how many expanded? You know, a lot of expansion is tied to success. They're happy with the product, they want more user seats, they want to go to a higher plan, they want to get more features because they're already getting value out of the existing ones. So I think NRR is a good sign, and that's really easy to set up, you know, just calculations with your current customer base, how much has returned, uh, and how much have you expanded.

So it's easy to calculations. Uh, and then I would say activity level. This could be a little bit harder for smaller organizations, but I think generally everyone that's providing again, I've been in SAS and e-commerce that's providing a platform. Uh, you have some usage stats.

You know, how often are they signing in? Are they adding more users? Are they deleting users? Are they clicking on certain features?

So you'll generally have some of that information. Uh, and I like to tie that um overall uh to what I've been hearing about more lately, uh, and what I've been working on is basically uh uh RPS. It's uh a reflection or a forecast uh for renewal, which is a renewal prediction score. So RPS and multiple metrics could be tied to that, and that's kind of giving you the overall picture of renewal.

Um, but again, that might be a little bit for for bigger companies. Yeah, that's a really good breakdown. Um, I'll tell you probably my favorite, and I've seen that happen to me. So I'll give you an example as well, is the activity level uh part that you mentioned of if I have a software and you can track the, like you said, the features that I'm using, or you know, what level of the software I'm using more versus the other.

Um, I've had like some good companies have given me feedback in the sense of like, I'll get emails on features that I'm not using where it explains the feature that I'm not using and maybe I'm missing out on. And I mean, I'll be honest, there were features that I had no clue would be used that way. Um, so once I've gotten those emails, or even through the customer success side telling me all these features that I'm missing out on and you know what that could do for my business or what that could do for me.

Um, you know, and I've ended up using them, I think that's a very good way to personalize the approach of each of your accounts. That way you make it tailored, you know, to the person specifically or the account specifically. Yeah, I totally agree. And I'll I'll add a plus or an asterisk to that, what it could do for me.

You know, don't just explain the feature, but really show what the benefit of the feature is to a business or to your business if you can personalize it that much. That's a big one for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to go back real quick to the two things you mentioned, CSAT and NPS.

I know they're standard. Um, in our off um offline call, you mentioned something that you had a very specific take on how to collect that feedback without your presence influencing the score. Can you break that down for us? Yeah, I mean, I definitely don't think that you should be influencing that score in terms of, hey, can I watch you fill out the survey on this call and kind of put pressure on you to put the highest score possible?

So I think that's a no. Um, so you know, send them the forms or the surveys separately. Um, I also have worked with support teams where we were able to leverage happy customers in a better way. So, in terms of, you know, it might not be the most objective overall picture, uh, but it definitely sometimes helps with stats.

So, for example, um, asking a happy customer for a CSAT or an MPS uh can help with your stats internally. I don't know if that's the objective or to uh in terms of if that's the point of why you're doing the surveys, uh, to essentially show that you have a good score, or if you more want to get an objective picture and then you don't or shouldn't just ask happy customers. Uh, but I've also built systems with support teams kind of working cross-functionally, where uh we wanted to increase our reviews on uh SaaS or software review sites such as G2 or Software Advice or Trust Pilot, where then at that point you can actually train the support team and work with them to notice a happy customer because from my experience, they they notice a happy customer, but they don't have that reaction of, okay, what what you know what can I get out of that, or how can we benefit from a happy customer?

And you know, really putting it into their thinking of, hey, when there's a happy customer, maybe you ask them for a review, review because they're happy and they're gonna give us a good review now. Um, so or when someone's saying, Hey, you know, you saved my life, or you know, you're the best, or you know, just kind of catching some of those signals and asking them for reviews at that point. And those are public uh reviews, you would want them to be positive. Maybe your CSAT and NPS can be more objective, you know, ask at all moments or any moments, not just happy customers, but for something like that, I do see the benefit of asking happy customers for reviews.

For sure. And uh I'll say it's one thing I posted about on LinkedIn uh a couple weeks ago was um I truly believe that we're, you know, anybody can build a company nowadays, technically, right? Like you have these AI agents and you can technically go and build some sort of a product by vibe coding and not necessarily even having a lot of um, you know, engineering or software experience. And we're not necessarily in a feature war anymore as companies, we're in a trust war.

And I feel like the companies that are succeeding the most are the ones with the most trust, you know, from the customers. So right now, feedback and reviews and hearing from your customers, you know, what they want, how you can apply what they're looking for, you know, to your platform, it's like more crucial than ever. And I think it's just gonna keep on getting more crucial. Yeah.

So yeah. I would totally agree there. You know, we are in the deep age of the internet in terms of it's been around for some time, uh, not at the start of it. So there's so many sources of information on a company, you know, going from Glassdoor to platforms like G2, uh, software advice, trustpilot.

Uh, people are posting on Reddit nowadays. Uh, there's Google reviews for businesses. So there's so many avenues of information that you want to show the best picture uh of the company and not a fake picture. You know, I'm again of the mentality of being ethical, actually providing good uh products, good services, having good customer success, helping them reach their goals, and then you know, everything else just flows from that.

If you have happy customers, they'll expand, they'll share by word of mouth, they'll share on LinkedIn. You'll ask them to do a case study together, which will help promote to others and help bring more customers in. Uh, you'll get more reviews. Uh, you know, it's it's it's endless.

So I think you know, doing the right work and helping the customers, you know, which again aligns with my values, is and then everything just flows from there. Yeah, no, I I love that. And for sure, I totally agree with it. Like I said, um, I wanted to talk about something different within the CS right now, is there is debate within these departments, um, especially, and I think also depends a little bit, you know, like the company size and how mature is the organization.

But um, I do see kind of like a debate of going back and forth between, you know, should CS own revenue or renewals or upsells or expansions? Where do you stand on it? I obviously know you have experience in it. So, what have you seen on your end that is like the best way to set up a CS department on that end?

And what should you guys own? Yeah, great question. Great question. I think the real key there is size of company, you know, just the key key to that answer.

Um, you know, uh, for example, um a company that has less than 10 people, um, that's a SaaS product, uh, where mostly are developers, if it's a SaaS product, uh you have probably the CEO doing sales, and maybe even the CEO doing customer success. So um, you know, for small teams like that, it's not a leisure that they have to be able to split things up. Um, but you know, I still think even if one person owes every uh owns everything, you should still do it ethically. You know, I'm just imagining the story of a CEO selling on ethically and then him being the CS person as well, and then having to cover that situation, which that wouldn't work out too well.

Exactly. Yeah, you wouldn't want that. Uh, but you know, in an ideal scenario in a mature company that can split things out, I think sales is uh the one that's responsible for uh revenue. Now, I'll put an asterisk to that to that, um, because renewals are you know CS aside, keeping someone happy, uh you know, again, if they're happy, they're gonna renew.

If they're reaching their goals, they're gonna renew. So that is CS side. So I get GR and NRR being tracked uh for um CS. But any new sales, even expansions, even upsells, even across sales, if CS has those targets in revenue, uh, and I've been in many companies where there's been different levels and different phases, but I've been at companies at times where um things are not going well.

Maybe a competitor has come into the space and it's a big competitor, um, like Google or Microsoft, and you can't sell as much as you used to. You know, you're not anymore the most known name there. So, you know, it's kind of factors that are outside that are externally controlled uh that are affecting the sales numbers. Uh, and then basically the targets are kind of unreachable, uh, they're unrealistic.

You have to ask how many, uh, what percentage of our sales rep are hitting target on an ongoing basis? Uh and that has to be uh a number that's close to 100 or somewhere around there because otherwise targets are unrealistic, you know, they're unachievable because none of your sales reps are hitting them. So I think that's super important. Uh, and I've seen it where they are realistic, pressure comes down, and then you're selling in any way you can.

Now imagine on the CS side, CS has that pressure. Their motivation is no longer to do or is less to do what's right for the customers, but now they have pressure from the investors, from the CEO, from their manager to hit their unrealistic targets. And then your motivation changes. So in an ideal world, CS does not have those revenue numbers.

Yes, renewals, yes, CSAT, NPS, GRR, NRR, uh, all of that. But uh, even for a new opportunity, expansion, um, you know, bring in sales. You are in CS, the cut the customer's friend, you don't want to generally sell them anything uh unless it's oh, we're loving this, you know. Can you add me more seats?

You know, that's something yeah, CS rep can do. But you know, if it's an exp, you know, a reasonably sized expansion, if it's a cross-sell, if it's an upsell, different products, uh, so on, I think that should be passed to sales. And potentially you can track CS on number of opportunities passed to sales, which means you have a good ear for the sales side. You're realizing when customers say, Hey, you know, I was thinking about this, something else that I need, or another goal that I want to achieve, and you actually have a product that will help with that, that can be kind of an opportunity tract that's passed on to them.

So that's kind of where I would draw the line in my ideal world. CS should never prep face that pressure of having to reach unreachable targets and then not have the motivation to do what's right for the customer. Yeah, I'm gonna add a little something to that. And you tell me if you've ever either experienced this before, I'm just completely outside of the track here.

But I I can also see like one benefit here when the the selling and the upselling, you know, and the account expansion is separate, where you, like you mentioned as a CS, you can be the customer's best friend, and you can be also kind of like same-side selling is what I call it, you know, where you can be like the the eyes and ears of the salesperson and still helping the customer on their end and achieving goals like simultaneously, but you're selling, you know, on the same side as the customer versus uh you know, being that salesperson.

So I'm not sure if you've handled or have gone through that before, but I would see that being a benefit of that as well. Yeah, yeah. And I can see kind of you know that CS person being on that sales call and then adding adding to the sales team as they're selling. Oh, yeah, this is exactly you know what I was mentioning to you on our last call, where this product could help and this is why it could help.

You know, you're kind of the the tie-in between. Um, you are on the customer side and want to represent yourself on the customer side. Uh, and really people like me are, you know, I want to do what's best for the customer and what's best for the company. So I I always go for those win-win-wins, uh the triple win.

But uh, yeah, really you're you're going in there and you're kind of working with the customer and kind of saying, hey, they had these needs. Maybe you're explaining to the sales team um what exactly the needs were that prompted you to introduce, make the introduction and hey, they needed this, and you know, this we have this other product that can help them achieve that. Can you tell them a little bit more about it? Uh, and you're really kind of on the customer side, you're you're their partner, you're their sidekick, their friend.

Yeah, exactly. I love that. I want to talk about the other side of the CS, you know, when the customer is unhappy. Maybe they're not necessarily, you know, like yelling at you, but they are disengaged or maybe not getting value, or you know, on the other hand, you do have a frustrated customer.

Is there, do you have a playbook personally, or maybe any key steps that you take to turn that around ideally before it becomes a churn risk? Yeah, I do have key steps and and a playbook. Um again, uh like a previous question you asked me, I would love to have handled this proactively. Right.

To have health metrics tracked and for there to be some signals that uh client is getting disengaged, is getting unhappy, is not getting value. You know, so yeah, I'm a big fan of data, big fan of tracking everything you can track, because then you can make changes and see if the changes made things better or made things worse. Then do more of what made things better and less of what made things worse. And you keep iterating.

So I'm a big big fan of data in that sense. But you know, the playbook there is if you're dealt with that situation, you need to realign. You need to reconnect with stakeholders, you need to realign. Um, whether it's, you know, maybe the your contact person that's working with you on a weekly or daily basis is not answering.

Sometimes you have to escalate up to the C level, and hopefully you build those relationships. Maybe you have that phone number that I was talking about where you can call them and say, hey, looks like there's some issues with your team getting value out of this. Um, you know, this is not what we wanted. Uh, you know, you you're definitely gonna have that empathy and be on their side.

Uh, it's not what I wanted either. I want you to get value out of this. So let us make a plan. Let's make schedule a call, bring in all the stakeholders, and make a plan on how we're gonna fix this and sit down, uh, really dig deep.

I think I, you know, I'm a consultative uh CS person as well because I like to ask questions. You know, if they tell me, hey, this is important, you know, I might ask why is it important versus just accepting that it's important. So, you know, questions like that to really dig deep and see where were the issues, what were the problems, why are they not getting value, why are why were they getting disengaged? Uh, really get to the root causes, and then you're making a plan moving forward to fix those root causes.

Uh, you are putting yourself on the line in terms of I'm gonna do these action items to correct X, Y, Z, and so on. And essentially, you are then um setting benchmarks and milestones. So, okay, in two weeks or in a week, or in whatever amount of time, we want to be here. And then you follow up at that time and you make sure that they're there, and follow up in between that time to make sure your team works, whatever the work that your team needs to do to do to get them there, uh, do that work before that week, make sure they're there, and then you're coming in saying, you know, we did it.

This is what we set out last week. We we are here now. What's for next week? Let's work on that.

And you're consistently getting them back on that right track, in which case, hopefully they'll they'll be getting value and be satisfied. You know, I have nothing to add to that because that was very well said. Um, and I yeah, literally, I have nothing to add. I think you said that and articulated it very, very well.

Um okay, I want to go over to the rapid fire section. So, what is one tool that you can't live without right now? Um, I'm um AI. I'll call it an AI as one tool, but it's not um mostly Claude and Chat GPT that I'm using now.

I use a bunch of Gemini as well. I have a Google Pixel phone, so Gemini is uh on there. Um, so yeah, I think that that is is a tool. Uh also a CRM or one source of truth.

You know, for for CS, you need one source of truth, one place where you can gather all the information on customers that you need. I actually have a random question for you. I posted about this on LinkedIn today. How do you refer to like Claude and ChatGPT as like he's or she's like what do you call him?

Probably it's okay. Yeah, yeah. Chat unless me and I and I know people who name their their chat GPTs and their uh claws, so then they can have a name, but you know, it's not a human to me. I don't think it's a he or she.

Um maybe they're non-binary. Um but for me, uh it's more uh a computer, so it's an it. Um okay. Well, I do humanize them, not necessarily give them like names, I use their own names, but I was just thinking about it today.

Um, because I was talking to my fiance and I was like, Yeah, you know, chat, he's like he's been very like blah blah blah lately. And then I was like, Claude, she's been awesome. And then I realized that I'm saying she for Claude. Maybe that's oh sorry, sorry, I cut you off.

No, I was just gonna say like an ahead for Chat GPT. So I don't know, maybe the names that they have respectively, Claude sounds more like a women's name. I don't know, but that's what I was gonna say. You're pretty much I just realized that today.

Um, yeah, so I figured I'd ask because I didn't know what people are referring to them as of nowadays. So and then maybe some social standards come into play, you know. In general, again, it's an unfortunate reality, you know. Most you know, CEOs and are male, so then we have that male-dominated kind of thinking in ingrained in us.

So maybe that's why some people call it a he versus a she. Yeah, very true. Um, okay, awesome. In terms of my other question, is what is your biggest growth level lever right now within SaaS, specifically CS, obviously, because that's where you're at right now focusing the most in 2026 that you've seen has been very successful for you?

Yeah, yeah, great question. And I think it is automation through AI. Um, hands down. Um, there, you know, like I kind of mentioned with that CRM and one place, one place of truth.

I've been in companies where you jump into the CRM, there's some data there. Then you have to jump into the deal section, and there's kind of the deals data from the sales team that they inputted, what plan they're on, what they sold them, at how much, for how long. Uh, and then you have to jump into the admin panel to see their performance within the platform, to see uh, you know, um how certain dashboards are performing or campaigns are performing, or and you're basically picking out details.

Uh, and maybe there is another platform, for example, like a Fathom or another note taker, where you now have to go watch previous meetings because the transcript isn't anywhere, the action items aren't anywhere, and then you kind of have to go watch that, or at least copy things and read everything. So um, you know, getting all of that into one place and automating the tasks that don't require, you know, the CS's value, skills, experience, and brain power. You know, if it's something repetitive, if it's something that, you know, that can be a template, if it's something that can be done, you know, just with me approving and send, you know, clicking send um or something like that is really a time saver.

Then you are spending the time as a CS person on providing value. You have more time on providing value to customers. So maybe I'll dig deeper into a customer account and find. You know, more ways to provide them with value.

Or I'll dig deeper into metrics and see, you know, who's not perfect. You know, maybe everyone's pretty good, but who do I want to be higher? And then jump into that account and see what I can do there. Um, really, the value we provide as CS and sales is being and partner as well, partner success and partnerships is being client or partner facing.

So you are on the external side. So I think that's really the value that we can provide. I don't yet see, uh, maybe one day, but I don't see yet see AI working with customers, partners, and so on on all sales, all CS stuff. Yeah, because I don't see people wanting to talk to a computer uh versus a human and to have that human connection.

So, really, that's what we provide. So, where you want to spend your time is on customers and on calls with customers, building that trust, uh, hearing what roadblocks or barriers they might be having, unblocking them, and really, you know, working towards the best possible metrics you can through your clients. So that just frees out your time for that. No, I can agree more because I will always uh whenever I'm on you know customer support chat that's uh AI automated, I'm always like talk to human now.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, we're we're still there, I believe. Yeah, until AI is at the point of being able to answer any question better than a human can, and we lose the need for a relationship, then maybe nothing that'll ever happen as human beings. I feel like we crave relationships, right?

So yeah, people buy from people, it's it's what exactly I've known for my whole career. Um, and I would add another thing to this, uh, another growth lever is potentially partnerships if you're not doing them already. Yeah, yeah. No, I couldn't agree more with both of those answers.

And uh the frustrating thing about AI in the beginning was just the fact that you had all these systems that are great on its own but don't communicate. Yeah, so adding the automation and the integration between those has definitely been a game changer for sure, including for myself too. So couldn't agree more. Awesome.

My last rapid fire question for you is what is one belief you have that maybe most people would disagree with? Great one. And funnily enough, it's tied with our last uh question. Uh, but I think uh the AI bubble might burst in terms of not the value AI provides, but the hype around AI.

Yeah. Currently, it takes too much electricity and costs too much in computing power for where we're going with it. Um, and I'm just worried that you know, at some point we're gonna hit that that ceiling and realize this is very expensive. This takes a lot of computing power, a lot of data centers, which cost a lot, and that that bubble can burst.

It's it's definitely not an opinion everyone holds, but um I think it could happen. Yeah, that's a really good point. And uh to your point there, AI is not cheap, like you have to pay for tokens and credits, and they can run pretty freaking fast. So, like by the time you add it all up out when you're like automating everything, I'm not saying that it might be the exact cost of like having you know human perform all those tasks because you're also gaining time, but it can start being pretty comparable.

Yeah, yeah. And exactly why those uh token costs are running out and are becoming expensive is because the computing and the electricity that's required to provide everyone with this is getting expensive. Um, so that price has to go up. Uh, and also, you know, you can see some of the investments in the AI.

Um, some of these brands that have been, uh I forgot the the brand that was a sneaker brand, um, converting into an AI company and essentially boosting their stock like crazy. So the hype is there around AI, and essentially there's being a lot invested into it, partly because of the hype, but I think once we realize how much it actually costs us, um there could be a burst. Yeah, no, yeah, totally agree with you on that. I guess I'm the one person that doesn't disagree with what you just said.

Okay, there you go. There, I should have fixed something else then. No, no, you're fine. That means that we think alike, so that's good.

Great minds think alike. I love it. Okay, and I wanted to end with our hiring section. In your opinion, what do you think separates someone who is good at CS versus like an A player CS?

Yeah, I think um, you know, empathy is definitely something that sets people apart, you know, being able to be on that customer side. Um, you know, just kind of understanding them, uh, putting yourself in their shoes, uh, explaining to the internal team why a product uh feature is important for a certain set of customers, uh, maybe building the business case uh that shows you, hey, how much additional revenue we could get if we had this feature, because uh you know, X number of customers asked for this.

So uh I think that's something that really sets people apart. Uh, and of course, the the nowadays mantra of just you know being proactive, um, you know, being a self-starter, being kind of an autonomous person who won't wait for your boss to say, hey, you know, some of the metric health metrics for this customer drop, but to proactively be looking at them and proactively be solving them without someone's influence. And again, this is really where I found myself in customer success because I actually become worried when a health metric drops or when someone's not happy.

So I don't need my boss to kind of point it to me, uh, but it you know, right away I'm like, no, I don't want this. This is not what I want, and I'm gonna work on it. So I think having, you know, it's hard to test that, but you know, I think scenarios uh and um potentially a project and giving kind of uh uh example numbers of a customer and having someone, you know, really have that common sense and logic to look at the numbers, really assess the situation through numbers, see where someone's at, where the issues are, and what's needed, you know, think with their own mind what's needed to do or what could be done to fix them.

You know, there isn't one solution. This is a part a part where you can get creative as well and kind of suggest a few different things, or you know, really try three different things and come up with a fourth idea. And if that doesn't work, come up with a fifth. But I think some of that, you know, problem solving and then thinking outside the box is important as well.

Yeah, that is very true. I get, I guess I never thought about it that way. Um, I think, you know, we talk, at least I personally talk a lot about sales and on the pre-sale side, you do have to have like the curiosity type personality of really wanting to ask questions, et cetera. But now on the post-sale side, like the curiosity doesn't really take you that far in a sense, right?

It's more like the empathy of, like you said, putting themselves or yourself in their shoes and understanding where they're coming from, why is the frustration there? You know, how does this affect their business? And um, you know, and then on top of that, thinking outside the box of maybe if our solution right now doesn't exactly solve this problem that they're having, how can we get that problem solved in other creative ways? So yeah, that's a really, really good point.

And I think curiosity is tied to that, you know, to get to the core issue of the problem, you do need to ask questions and really understand, okay, you know, why is that a problem? Or why do you want to reach that goal that maybe to the company doesn't make sense and the platform doesn't usually reach, but they have an edge use case. So uh I think curiosity definitely helps there as well. Um potentially more uh I don't know.

I I I think it's equal on sales and customer success. Yeah, I guess that's a good point. Yeah, it's that consultative selling or consultative customer success. You know, you really you want to do what they need, so you have to discover what they need.

Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. Understanding the why in both scenarios is important because it's you know, for customer success, you guys will help them get to that goal as fast as possible, which is the problem. So you need to understand the problem. Exactly.

Yeah, that is true. Awesome. I I do appreciate everything you shared, Ivan. Everything was pretty awesome, honestly.

Thank you so much for just coming on and being super transparent. Um, I'd love to ask where can people reach out to you if they wanted to connect? Um, I would assume it's LinkedIn, but um, you know, obviously feel free to plug in whatever it is that you want. Thank you.

First, I want to say thank you for inviting me on for being your first CS person. I am honored. Um, I really enjoy the chat. Uh, you know, great questions.

I think these are important topics as kind of companies evolve and as we move forward with AI and you know, all these CS and partner success and sales are getting more separated and mature companies. So I think it's very relevant for today. Uh, so I'll say that. But yes, definitely reach out to me through LinkedIn for anything.

I'm always happy to chat and to add a person to my network or as a friend, at the at the least, if not more. Um, so definitely LinkedIn or uh my email address is the Ivan Stefanovsky at Gmail. So you can reach me through there as well. I appreciate that.

And we will link your LinkedIn profile on our show notes as well to make it super easy for everybody so they don't have to try and guess how to spell your last name. Um but again, thank you. Well, I mean, listen, my last name's not easy either. So I totally get the struggle on that end.

For sure. Um, there's so much notes to take from this episode. If you didn't join us live, make sure that if you are listening, go back, either take notes or honestly use your AI note taker at this point. Uh, but for those of you watching live or catching the replay later, uh, feel free to connect with Yvonne or drop questions still in the comments.

We I still personally look at them even afterwards as well. And I'll make sure that if there are any questions that Yvonne can answer, I will tag him to make sure that we get the right answer for you guys. I'll probably be looking anyway as well. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you again, Yvonne and thank you everybody for tuning in. See you next time. Thanks, Harvey.

Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.