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GTM Strategy

Retention & Expansion Podcast: The Role of Customer Success

Customer SuccessNRR

Customer Success is the cornerstone of sustainable growth, focused on maximizing customer retention, expanding net revenue, and increasing adoption and engagement. By leveraging AI-driven insights, personalization strategies, and data-informed customer lifecycle management, companies can identify opportunities to enhance product value and prevent churn. CSMs act as strategic guides, helping clients achieve outcomes while fostering long-term loyalty. Integrating customer success metrics like NRR, usage analytics, and ROI calculations ensures decisions are proactive and measurable. With a unified approach to retention and expansion, teams can transform customer relationships into scalable revenue streams. This framework positions Customer Success not just as support but as a strategic growth engine for modern GTM organizations.

Curious about how the best CS leaders think about the role of customer success in retaining and expanding revenue?

Our CEO, Jen, sat down with Stephen McBride (Sr. Manager, Customer Success at Hubspot) to cover how he thinks about the priorities for CSMs & support, incentives, AI trends and the importance of ROI clarity.

About Our Guest: Stephen McBride

Stephen McBride is the true definition of an operational generalist. He started his career as a consultant in the Salesforce space and moved on to work in product at early HubSpot, Sales & CS Ops at Grovo, run our Salesforce practice at Go Nimbly, and do a second stint at HubSpot as a senior manager of a large CS team.

Stephen is truly a star, and we’re pumped to share his knowledge.

Key Takeaways for Customer Success Teams

Highlight the Value of the Product

  • Showing ROI in your solution is more important than ever. A tight ROI calculation ensures customers understand and can communicate the value of their investment, making them more likely to stay and expand. CSMs need to excel at helping customers calculate that ROI.
  • Customer Success teams are evolving into advocates and shepherds, guiding customers to make the most of the product.
  • The focus of a CSM is to increase adoption and usage to ensure customers not only stay but thrive, becoming loyal advocates.

Leveraging AI to support Customer Success

  • AI is playing a supportive role, not a replacement for CSMs.
  • AI assists in distilling lengthy email chains, providing summaries, and drafting responses, ultimately saving time and increasing efficiency.
  • AI can help pinpoint critical customer touchpoints and interactions, providing valuable insights for CSMs.
  • AI can significantly reduce the time CSMs spend researching and digging through data, allowing them to focus more on customer-facing activities.
  • Customer Success teams are evolving into advocates and shepherds, guiding customers to make the most of the product.
  • The focus of a CSM is to increase adoption and usage to ensure customers not only stay but thrive, becoming loyal advocates.

Prioritize Personalization in Customer Engagement

  • While AI can provide draft responses, personalized and tailored communication is still the gold standard in Customer Success.
  • Personalization and ROI calculation will remain at the heart of successful customer relationships.
  • Customer Success is about guiding customers, helping them help themselves, and ensuring their journey is smooth and valuable.
  • Customer Success teams are evolving into advocates and shepherds, guiding customers to make the most of the product.
  • The focus of a CSM is to increase adoption and usage to ensure customers not only stay but thrive, becoming loyal advocates.

Following these key takeaways, it’s clear that Customer Success is more than just a support function—it’s a strategic lever for driving retention, expansion, and overall revenue growth. By focusing on proactive engagement, leveraging data-driven insights, and empowering CSMs with the right tools and processes, companies can transform their existing customer base into a sustainable growth engine. These insights provide a roadmap for aligning Customer Success strategies with broader go-to-market objectives, ensuring both long-term client satisfaction and measurable business impact.

Have questions on what are the pillars for the Custumer Success or want to learn more about how to spot gaps and improve your lead to meeting process?Get in touch with us!

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