In our new episode of the Mastering CS, Candid Leader Insights podcast, Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, discussed with Bettina Berger, Head of Customer Success at TalentAdore.
Bettina shares more about her journey in CS and how she manages to keep her teams aligned, even in a hybrid work environment.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to find the right blend for hybrid work
- The importance of a customer success team
- How to prioritize the important tasks
- How to sell the value of customer success internally
Key insights and takeaways for CSMs based on the interview:
Navigating Economic Uncertainty in Customer Success: Bettina highlighted the unique challenges of managing customer success in recruitment during economic downturns, focusing on long-term collaboration with clients to prepare for future hiring needs and talent retention.
Empowering Cross-functional Teams for Seamless Customer Experiences: Bettina discussed her role in overseeing customer success, support, and technical project management, emphasizing the importance of aligning these teams to maintain smooth customer experiences and addressing process gaps quickly.
Hybrid Work Approach with Purposeful In-office Time: Bettina’s team balances remote and in-office work, ensuring that face-to-face interactions are purposeful, often reserved for collaborative activities, while more focused tasks are completed remotely.
Automation and AI in Customer Success: TalentAdore has introduced self-service onboarding and is using AI for internal content generation, aiming to automate processes where possible while retaining a human touch in customer engagement.
Podcast transcript
Intro
Irina 0:02
Welcome to Mastering CS Candid Leader Insights, the podcast where we deep dive into the world of customer success with industry leaders. I’m your host Irina Cismas and today’s guest is Bettina Berger, Head of Customer Success at TalentAdore. Bettina, welcome, and thanks for joining us today.
Bettina 0:19
Thank you Irina, it’s a pleasure to be here, thank you!
Navigating economic uncertainty when working in the recruitment space
Irina 0:23
The pleasure is mine. Bettina, working in the recruitment space during a time when many companies are facing economic uncertainty and cost-cutting measures including layoffs must bring some unique challenges. How have you been navigating all this, especially when it comes to leading customer success?
Bettina 0:45
Very true, very spot-on question to be honest because yes, we are facing the reality of these macroeconomic climate changes ourselves and as TalentAdore is in the business of talent acquisition then those are the departments and obviously anything to do with the employees are the first ones to be hit by any cost-cutting measures so we feel it and experience it first hand from our customers and well, this is a journey on the silver lining is that we take this journey together actually with these customers who are impacted by such measures and who find themselves in these hard situations. One important thing to remember is that these financial difficulties are usually temporary so we need to prepare also long-term with our customers and this is a time actually which can be really well used in collaboration with our customers to prepare for what’s going to come. How do they retain the talent that they have during these times?
How will they get started with the rehiring afterward? So this is where our focus and conversation with the customers usually shift in these times that let’s use it to prepare to do things smarter, to do things better then. Part of our solution is also talent management so it’s not just about the recruitment flow which like I said is mainly in the focus of these conversations during these times.
Irina 2:15
I want to know more about your role at TalentAdore and how it ties the company’s broader mission of bringing that human touch back to the world.
Bettina 2:27
Yes, so as you mentioned I’m head of customer success and the name might be a bit misleading in a way because in our function we have actually more than just customer success managers. It’s a pretty interesting setup. We have obviously the CSMs or the customer success managers and then we have technical project management which takes care of the smooth delivery of all kinds of integration projects and making sure especially during the onboarding and also later on that the technical setup surrounding our solution is flowing well and then we also have support.
So basically all customer facing post-sales functions are super close to each other and they are working in a unison in our function and well I have the lucky role to actually make sure that the people who are in these teams are empowered and enabled with the skills that they need to manage everyday customer interactions whether it’s about a project, it’s about a support ticket or a long-term strategy with the customer. So that’s what gives me the most of the joy to be honest with being the supporter to these team members because very often I find myself in a situation that obviously the individuals in the team members kind of already have a pretty good shape and pretty good idea in their minds where they want to go with their day, with a certain task, with a certain project.
So sometimes and most of the time the biggest support I can give is following along with the ideas that they have and making sure that they have the necessary means, like I said skills, resources, whatever they need at hand to make sure that they succeed and bringing human touch back to recruitment. Yes that’s a multi-level concept to be honest which makes it pretty easy I would say to bring into our day-to-day interactions internally and externally because I guess what we all strive to do regardless which industry and business we are in is to make sure that whatever can be automated, whatever doesn’t need to be paid so much attention to is done in an efficient way and we put our focus and majority of our resources to the moments which actually matter and if you ask me what matters the most is actually human interactions, the people.
So that’s what we are also trying to deliver with our solution in a sense that we enable whoever are the users whether it’s a hiring manager or a recruiter or the candidates applying for a position and that’s the kind of motto or the ethos that we are also trying to live in the company that where are those little tweaks that can make our lives easier so we can actually have maybe a bit longer coffee break together chatting about just everyday life or if it needed then we can have maybe longer meeting sessions together with the team if we need to resolve an issue which is much better done in a face-to-face or in a remote meeting than asynchronously.
Aligning multiple teams for a seamless customer experience
Irina 5:45
We’re gonna go deeper into this automation part and how do you leverage it in order to make space for that human interaction. You mentioned that you have different teams under your supervision and I want to ask you what challenges do you face in aligning those teams and how do you overcome the challenges so that you keep a seamless customer experience. How do they collaborate?
How do they hand over things one from each other? How do they work together?
Bettina 6:32
Yes, on paper usually it sounds super seamless. In reality and in practice we definitely face sometimes some hiccups and there’s a gap there there’s a gap here I think in turn so amongst these three functions or sub functions so to say within the team it’s fairly easier to work out maybe any process gaps that we have because how the flow goes is we have a new customer close by our sales colleagues amazing CSMs take over the onboarding and basically the full ownership from then on is with the customer success manager and from the moment on that a customer is onboarded to the platform that they also have access to our support team for the day-to-day user issues.
I don’t want to say help desk issues but like you know day-to-day technical user issues they can then leverage our support team as well and if they are looking if the customer is looking to embed our solution deeper into their HR infrastructure then we have the integration possibilities and that’s where the technical project manager comes into the picture. So if we put it under customer lifecycle it falls nicely into its places where the CSM technical PM and support comes in.
Now in reality, when we have a customer case—let’s say a customer reaches out to support—it sometimes turns out to be a bigger topic. We may need to dig a bit deeper and do a deep dive with the customer. At that point, the responsibility, or “driver’s seat,” may be passed on to another team, like the Customer Success Manager. This handover process often makes us rethink our internal processes.
We ask ourselves how to handle these cases effectively. When should we escalate? Do we need to escalate, or is it simply a matter of handing over a task? For example, if an issue has come to the wrong channel, we need to re-channel it internally. Fortunately, we’re pretty agile and can quickly review our process. Maybe in our next team meeting or similar setting, we can bring up issues like these for discussion.
I feel lucky because every team member feels safe to share their thoughts. They understand how important it is to fix issues promptly. For instance, if someone notices that a case with a customer didn’t flow smoothly last week, they won’t hesitate to suggest revisiting our approach. This willingness to review and adapt has become part of our culture.
The flow of how information moves from the customer and through which channel it enters is something we’ve charted and mapped out. However, our review process is not set in stone. We don’t have fixed review cadences, as adjustments often happen on an ad hoc basis. If something isn’t flowing well, we don’t wait for a formal opportunity; instead, we pause, assess, and decide on any needed changes.
Another positive aspect of our team is the way we share experiences and knowledge. We have a daily “office hour,” an open, free space where any Customer Success Manager or team member can hop in, raise questions, or simply find someone to discuss things with. This remote space allows for quick exchanges and has become a valuable resource for everyone in the customer success organization.
Irina 10:31
Do you have a hybrid setup is it both the office and remote and those types of interactions are happening in the office?
Bettina 10:46
We are on the journey as a company, on the whole, to become how should I put maybe a bit more face-to-face than remote so um but face-to-face with a purpose I should put so not just meeting for the sake of I don’t know counting the days of how many days we’re actually spending in the office.
But when we come to the office then we have a purpose of why we are meeting or why we spend the time together it can be also as simple as hey we just haven’t spoken to each other for a long time but usually we have some kind of a theme or like I said a purpose to that to those face-to-face interactions but I have to say that we do set it up for a remote as well because we the team is spread across across Finland basically and not everyone can come to the office at the same time so we always leave a possibility for remote and we try to encourage that either it’s fully remote or fully face-to-face because mixing it is maybe not the best of those two worlds.
Working remotely vs at the office: How to blend these two?
Irina 11:56
I don’t usually speak with CS leaders who also have this HR perspective. So I’m curious: why do you think blending the two might be the best approach?
Since you have the HR lens, I also wanted to ask: How did the team respond when you brought up the idea of having some office hours, even if it was explained with a clear purpose and reasoning? Did anyone raise objections? If so, how did you handle them? I’ve seen media coverage about how some large companies have mandated a return to the office, and it seems like there are two sides: those who feel more productive in the office and those who work better from home. You’re the first person to suggest it doesn’t have to be either/or. Why is that?
Bettina 13:06
Yes, it really comes down to the dynamics of in-person versus remote interactions. When you’re in a face-to-face setting with more than one person in the office, and then a third or fourth person joins remotely, the focus often shifts. Either you end up glued to the screen, directing your attention to the remote participants, or you’re naturally more engaged with the person in the room with you. It’s challenging to ensure that everyone feels equally involved and has an equal chance to participate.
While it is possible to manage this balance, it definitely requires extra effort from whoever is organizing or facilitating the meeting. Because of this, we find that if there’s even one remote participant, it’s often better to keep the entire meeting remote. This approach may sound unusual, but we’ve even had instances where multiple people in the office joined the same meeting from different rooms or at least joined via the same virtual platform (like Zoom or Teams) to maintain a consistent experience. This reduces the tendency to focus too much on one side of the screen—whether it’s the remote or in-person participants.
Many of us have experienced meetings where a remote participant is overlooked until someone says, “Oh, we should probably ask them if they have something to add.” When you’re joining remotely, it can be harder to feel confident about jumping into the conversation. The same can happen in reverse if the remote participants are having a lively discussion, and those in the physical room feel sidelined.
Irina 14:53
Yes, I’ve noticed this too. We’re primarily set up for remote work, though we do have some local offices. People tend to prefer either fully remote or fully in-person work, and in my case, mixing the two really reduces my productivity. If I go to the office for just one day a week, it disrupts my routine. Those office days often end up feeling less productive because they’re just not the same as my regular workflow. I hadn’t fully understood why until you explained it—it makes sense now, so thank you for that perspective.
I also wanted to ask about team motivation. Given the diversity within your team, how do you manage to bring everyone together and maintain cohesion? It can be challenging, especially with different work preferences and backgrounds.
Bettina 16:14
I realize I still owe you some insight into how we handled any objections—if we even had them—when we wrapped up that last initiative. To quickly summarize our approach to office and hybrid setups: you’re absolutely right that those office days aren’t necessarily the most productive for ticking off items on a to-do list. However, this is still a work in progress for us, and we’re encouraging people to shift their mindset.
We try to frame these days as having a different purpose and task list. One key goal for office days is to connect and engage with others. If people focus on that aspect, the day feels more productive and fulfilling. These are not the days to dive into intensive work like creating materials or finalizing content—that’s often better scheduled for remote days. Instead, if you need a brainstorming session or quick collaboration, it’s generally more effective face-to-face.
So, in rethinking what to schedule for in-office days, we can make the most of them and feel a sense of accomplishment by the end of the day.
Irina 17:26
You make a good point. When we’re planning or reviewing things together as a team, it’s often more effective to do that in the office than remotely. Now that you’ve framed it this way, I can see it really comes down to prioritizing. We’re matching the type of initiatives that are actually more productive face-to-face with our in-office days, rather than trying to do them in a remote setup.
Bettina 18:10
Yeah, yes, yes, it’s at least worth a try to see if it works. Yes, about the team diversity and motivation—well, my two cents on any well-functioning team is that diversity is essentially the key to a successful team. Diverse team members bring different profiles, experiences, and, with that, various perspectives on how to approach topics, tackle issues, or plan next steps. We’ve focused specifically on building the team to keep diversity at its core, and that’s true for customer success managers, technical project management, and support roles. While these roles require certain skills, each person’s approach to tasks, customer requests, or escalation issues can vary, and that’s where the strength of our team lies.
We actively encourage the team to draw motivation from sharing experiences, including any bottlenecks they encounter. Brainstorming isn’t just about throwing ideas out there; it’s knowing that we have team members who bring different perspectives, backgrounds, or experiences in handling similar situations. The team has even set aside space in their calendars—a designated slot where they can jump into these conversations and tap into the diverse perspectives within the team. And it doesn’t have to be within the same team; for instance, if the support team faces a technical issue, they can still benefit from ideas shared by other team members.
I won’t lie; this diversity also brings challenges, particularly because everyone gathers strength and inspiration in different ways. This is why I don’t compromise on regular one-on-one conversations. These allow me to stay connected, not only with what’s happening in the team but also with what energizes each person. If someone’s energy dips, I want to understand how to support them, even if it’s as simple as being a sounding board without giving answers. Each person’s needs are unique, and as the leader of customer success and engagement, I need to stay in touch with where they are in their lives and work, and know how to support them through any difficulties.
So, to be honest, the “secret” for me is just keeping those individual one-on-one conversations regular and ongoing.
Irina 21:52
Usually, one-on-ones are the first meetings sacrificed when trying to free up time—they’re the first to get removed from the agenda or calendar. It’s easy to think, “Do we really need that one-on-one?” And when a manager asks, “Is there anything urgent?” it’s often tempting to say, “No, nothing urgent.” After all, who’s going to ask a super-busy manager to set aside an hour just to listen? Sometimes it feels like, “I can save that for therapy.”
But prioritizing your team’s well-being is essential. I know from experience as a manager that when things get busy, one-on-ones are often the first to go. So, thank you for emphasizing their importance—and for keeping them on the calendar. Your team is really fortunate; it’s rare to find a manager who truly values and prioritizes these meetings and conversations.
Bettina 23:07
Thank you, and if I can add, it’s somewhat reciprocal. Yes, I have my direct manager whom I can reach out to and talk with, but these one-on-ones also provide a space for me to share things with team members. It’s not just about me offering support—though, of course, that’s a major part. These moments also help us build and deepen connections, giving us both reassurance that things are running smoothly.
If these one-on-ones weren’t working or something was “jamming the cogwheel,” it would be a signal that we might need to examine our operations more closely.
Prioritizing what matters and focusing on tasks
Irina 23:58
I want to ask, speaking of things that end up on the customer success agenda: I know a lot gets thrown at CS, and it’s easy to get buried in the workload. So I’m curious—how do you ensure that the team stays focused on tasks that truly impact the business and influence key KPIs? How do you help them prioritize their work?
Bettina 24:29
That’s something we’re always working to fine-tune. When things get hectic, as you said, the to-do list just grows longer, the backlog doesn’t get any shorter, and focus can be lost quickly. Over the past 12 months, we’ve been practicing a bit of prioritization and evaluation with the CSMs. Specifically, we’re focusing on assessing the criticality and priority of last-minute tasks. Most of the team members are pretty good at setting their daily or weekly task lists. The challenge comes when last-minute items with seemingly higher priority are added on top, creating a pile-up.
I encourage the team to be critical when something comes in last minute. Does it truly need to be at the top of the list, or can we manage expectations and put it further down—maybe as the fourth or fifth priority? This is especially important because, in this role, people are naturally drawn to helping others. They enjoy being in a customer success role and have an instinct to jump in immediately when someone needs support. So I encourage them to pause and reassess: is it genuinely that critical, or could there be a better way to address it? Sometimes, technical or customer support might be better suited to handle it quickly.
This practice is useful not only for planning the day or week but also for handling urgent-seeming details and revalidating their true urgency. On the other hand, as I mentioned, it’s still a work in progress. We’re also developing KPI reports to help assess the health of each individual customer portfolio. These reports give a broader view—not necessarily for day-to-day prioritization but for monitoring overall portfolio health and identifying potential blind spots. It’s an ongoing effort to ensure that we’re measuring meaningful data and displaying it in a way that’s clear and helpful.
Crucial KPIs for customer success
Irina 27:31
Speaking about those KPIs, what are the ones important for your role?
Bettina 27:38
Then, net retention revenue, on a broader term, is definitely something that the customer success team also owns. We are a revenue-generating function, where we contribute to revenue generation. Yes, so we do measure our upsells and MRR as well, because we are responsible for renewals, and there can be expansion via renewals, so that also contributes to our part of the revenue generation as well.
On the support side, the customer satisfaction score is the leading KPI.
Selling the value of CS internally
Irina 28:32
I think you indirectly answered my next question because if you are revenue-generating the stream that means it’s not hard to sell internally the value of the of the CS department and everybody understands it. Would that be a correct assumption in your case?
Bettina 28:53
It’s easier, but because there is one single KPI that the company usually attaches CS value to, it’s also harder to highlight the other aspects of what we are doing.
Yes, we also do other things, so we are not only measured based on the revenue we generate. That’s an important part, so don’t get me wrong—that also drives our focus. But, for example, we consider how many customer stories we lay down for the marketing team to develop via referrals, or how many referrals we provide in the pre-sale cycle to the sales managers.
These factors should also add to the entire picture of the team’s value. But, like you said, if it’s just about a quick justification or quick validation of the value, we fall back to the MRR, yes.
Irina 29:48
I’m curious because I think you are the first one who speaks yes we are measured by the MRR but it’s not only that.
You emphasize that it’s even more than so. Now I am curious, how do you build this narrative for the board of directors, for the CEO to see that besides the MRR, which I know that everybody is taking a look at, there are 1000 other things that helped the business grow. How do you show this value?
Bettina 30:26
Well, what I find is probably the most effective tool is simply consistency. Showing the same results over the same time, the same measurements over and over again, allows us to build up consistent trends. When it comes to the other metrics we use to measure customer success value, it takes time, yes.
But, like I said, if we measure the same data points and put them on the same timeline, it will show that MRR is one part of it, and the whole value is actually made up of multiple metrics, not just that one. So it’s basically whatever else we measure. For example, as I mentioned, the customer satisfaction score—we also share very regularly the data on our first median response time, how good that is, and even the full resolution time when we look at support performance.
This is something we regularly come back to and include in our quarterly evaluations. We follow the EOS framework, so the quarterly rocks we have reflect these metrics. I also think it’s important that we share this with other stakeholders; this is part of what we present at board meetings in terms of data and performance.
Irina 31:57
You mentioned at the beginning that automating the things that can be automated should be done so that we can dedicate quality time to spend with our customers, emphasizing proactiveness in supporting them throughout the journey.
Leveraging technology and AI
I want to ask you, how you leverage technology and the AI aspect, not only in your day-to-day CS operations.
Bettina 32:25
Yes, that is now coming together with an exciting next chapter in our CS journey because we have just laid the foundations of the first product-led growth (PLG) elements in our post-sale cycle. This essentially brings along the challenge of building on that automation. In short, we implemented self-servicing onboarding for the long-tail and small customer segment, so to say, which has been a project over the past quarter.
The first stepping stone is in place, and by self-servicing onboarding, we hope that it will truly follow this path: as a new user, if you follow every single step, by the end of it, you should be able to start using the system. That means creating job ads and screening applications as they come in. Of course, we have some internal workflows and automations already in our customer success tool, but it always required some manual interaction, especially at the beginning of the customer journey, which included many manual steps.
Now, as this process becomes more automated in most cases, we’re encouraged to think about the next steps in customer engagement. So, once a wonderful onboarding experience is complete, we’re now asking, what is the next step in product usage? How do we ensure that adoption ramps up quickly, and how do we support customers in later stages, whether they want to expand? That’s where product-led growth elements are being implemented this quarter for the expansion stage of the customer lifecycle as well.
The beauty of this approach is that we will now have product usage data to track how users are engaging with the product-led growth flow. This is where I really see the power of automation. Up until now, our customer journey automation was largely based on assumptions. Yes, we used customer data, but what will bring true validation is observing how users actually navigate through this flow, which we are just beginning to see.
Regarding AI, our team currently relies on it mostly for content generation for internal purposes. We’re putting a greater emphasis on ensuring our users leverage AI-powered functionalities in our solution. Internally, we’re also now reaching the point where we have all the tools and need to integrate AI more into our daily activities. It will be interesting to see how we navigate the dilemma of where AI adds value while maintaining the human touch that is core to our company.
Irina 36:21
It was a pleasure talking to you today. And before we wrap up, I want to ask you who has had the biggest influence on your career, and what’s the best piece of advice they gave to you that still sticks up today?
Bettina 36:37
Oh, great question. I have many things popping up in my head, but I’m going to pick one, and that is an amazing customer success leader, one of my former bosses, Gary Evans, who told me a very simple sentence repeatedly, and it stuck with me: The answer is always yes.
Whenever I would start a sentence or we began a meeting, he would remind me, “Remember, the answer is always yes.” That phrase has stuck with me, and I’ve adopted it in my interactions with my team. They know it’s not just about being available but being accessible always, and that there is always a solution. There is always something we can figure out and work through, and if they need anything, I’m there.
Irina 37:33
Thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today, and a big thank you to all our listeners! Until next time, stay safe and mastering customer success.
