In our new episode of the Mastering CS, Candid Leader Insights podcast, Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, discussed with Renata Pinheiro, the VP of Customer Success at Zaptic.
Renata shares her inspiring career journey, from pursuing a degree in biology to becoming a customer success leader in the tech world, offering valuable insights into how she navigated these transitions and evolved her approach to building and leading successful CS teams.
What You’ll Learn:
- How to transition into customer success from different industries and roles
- Strategies to position customer success as a key function early in startups
- Balancing sales, product development, and customer success for optimal growth
- The role of technology in scaling customer success teams effectively
- How to handle customer requests and set expectations through transparent communication
Key insights and takeaways for CSMs based on the interview:
Career Transitions and Skill Mastery: Renata shares her journey from biology to customer success, highlighting how transitioning across careers requires a focus on mastering new skills and adapting to evolving environments.
Importance of Early Investment in Customer Success: Startups often focus on sales first, neglecting customer success until problems arise. Renata emphasizes the need to prioritize customer success early on, ideally before issues like churn or customer dissatisfaction emerge.
Balancing Product, Sales, and Customer Success: Success in customer-centric startups requires balancing product development and sales efforts with customer needs. Renata advocates for integrating customer feedback into the product roadmap and aligning teams to ensure customer value at every stage.
Transparency and Setting Boundaries with Customers: Saying “no” to customers is a crucial skill in customer success. Renata explains that transparency, honesty, and clear communication help manage expectations and maintain positive relationships, even when a customer request can’t be fulfilled.
Scaling CS Teams with the Right Tech Stack: As companies grow, having the right tools becomes essential for scaling customer success efforts. Renata advises implementing a Customer Success Platform early on and ensuring that tools integrate seamlessly with existing CRM systems to optimize processes.
Podcast transcript
Working in Customer Success
Irina 0:00
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 Renata Pinheiro, VP of Customer Success at Zeptic. I hope I pronounced your last name correctly.
Renata, welcome, and thanks for joining us today!
I always start the interview and this discussion by getting to know the guest a bit. So what I know about you is that you’ve been deep in the high-growth tech startup world. So I’m curious what inspired you to focus on customer success, and how has your approach evolved over time?
Renata 0:56
Yeah, as I was saying on a previous chat, it’s a great question. I’ve been working with customers my whole career, right? So I had a bit of an atypical start in the sense that I did biology at university and wanted to do science and help cure diseases and things like that.
But I realized I really miss when you’re in a lab working with people, and then when I left uni, I pivoted into market research and ended up in essentially what was called account management at the time. And I worked with various big agencies and FNTG companies in what used to be, in the back in the day, what was customer success in traditional businesses, right? And then when I pivoted into tech, I found out that customer success was essentially how you engage with customers in the tech environment.
So it was a natural evolution of my role. I really never looked back, because I’ve loved tech, I’m now on my fourth tech startup. And, you know, customer success has been the path that made the most sense for where I work.
And a lot has evolved in my approach, like, you learn so much over time. And, you know, the environments that I work in are accelerated growth, because tech businesses are trying to do so much in such a condensed period of time. So how you view customers, the flexibility you need to bring to your approach, how you deal with the challenges, how you deal with people all has changed, right, as you learn.
I think it’s a really exciting career.
CS in early-stage startups vs established companies
Irina 2:31
I’m not sure how is your experience, but often CS leaders are struggling in startup environments. And I’m a strong believer that you need a set of skills to be able to perform in a startup versus a more established company or even a company that went above the 1 million ARR threshold. I’m curious, how was your experience?
And I’m not sure if that was your case or not. But why do you think customer success often takes a backseat in early-stage startups? Was your experience similar or were you luckier in the startup you’ve worked with?
Renata 3:21
So not so, not as lucky as I have wished, but I’ve been very lucky in the startups I worked for, of course. It’s an interesting thing, right? Because when you’re setting up a business, your first focus after you figure out what your offering is going to be is, I need to see if anyone’s going to pay for it, right?
Because everyone has good ideas, you might have good tech, but if you can’t find market or product market fit, it’s not going to go anywhere. So a lot of early stage startups are focusing on that customer acquisition, that sale, right? And because that’s what then helps drive growth, helps drive investments and valuation, that starts first at top of the funnel and sale.
And then unfortunately, more often than not, customers become, because they come at the end, you start aggregating customers, they become an afterthought, right? So my first advice when I’m talking to companies is like, whenever you think you need to start looking at customer success, you probably should have started six months ago. Because there’s a lot that needs to be done there.
And more often than not, founders are really good at selling their products because they’re so involved early stage. So you could actually come in from an angle of you don’t need the sales team until you hit a certain threshold of awareness and you need the CS team before you need a sales team. It is a very biased perspective, of course, because I’m from CS and I think this is the way, right?
But it tends to be that startups bring in someone in CS when they either have a lot of churn, right? They have too many customers and they can’t then diversify across the people that are there. So it tends to be, it has to be a problem first and you then have to play catch up because you have to fix the problems.
Some problems are a little bit too late to fix and then set up a good way. So the earlier you start thinking about it, the less likely you are to find yourself in a problem scenario that you need to rescue, right? But it stems from the sale.
Customer-centric companies
Irina 5:18
You tried to position customer success within a timeline, setting a marker for when we should start thinking about CS. I want to ask, what makes a company truly customer-centric, and how can startups build that mindset from the very beginning? I often hear that customer success is not just a role or function, but more of a mindset.
From your perspective, what makes a company truly customer-centric?
Renata 5:54
Yeah, and that’s interesting, right? Because I think it’s both. I think there is a philosophy of customer success, which is everyone’s job is essentially customer success in one way or the other.
But then you also have the function of customer success, right? And I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive. Customer-centric businesses are very different, right?
And again, I don’t, I don’t think there’s just the one way, but the questions I think you need to be able to answer well are how often am I thinking about the value that this is going to bring my customer, my future customers? Because we work for our own business, right? So the business that we work through is the majority of our day.
So I’m always thinking about Zaptic, right? You’re always thinking about Custify. How often are you thinking about how, if Custify wants to do something, why would a customer care?
How well do I know my customers? Am I thinking about how this is going to bring value or benefit them before it benefits me? And so, and how often am I talking to them?
Because sometimes what you find is in early-stage startups, you talk to your customers a lot, and then as you grow, you talk less. But you assume that your knowledge from when you were a seed is still valid from when you were a series A, and customers evolve, the industry evolves. So it’s those questions that then give you that customer-centric mindset, right?
It’s not just, I want to sell more, or I want them to use this feature, or I want them to open my marketing newsletter. And I was like, how are you going to do something that’s going to make them want to engage with you? And I think that drives customer-centricity.
I also think that it’s not always possible to be customer-centric. It’s a little bit like healthy eating. Everyone wants to be healthy eating, but sometimes it’s not possible because you’re very stressed and you have bigger problems and I’m going to get tickling.
And owning that is better than pretending you’re a healthy eater and lying about it. Sometimes you have to pivot and be sales-led or product-led, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just owning that, and saying, because we are a sales-led business right now, we are going to have to do this, and we’re not going to do this.
And if this happens, this is how we’re going to deal with it, as opposed to pretending you are not.
Irina 8:06
Well, when you mentioned the parallel with the healthy thing in marketing, we used to have it, I think, almost 20 years ago when social media was a hype and everybody talked about it was a buzzword and everybody wanted to do it, but nobody knew exactly how to do it. And I resonated. And also, you mentioned about things that constantly change and evolve when it comes to the customer, the industry, the challenges.
I can second that from my role as a marketer, because we did define an ICP, we did define our product market fit, but through the conversation that I constantly have with CS, I realized that what was relevant six months ago or one year ago, it’s no longer relevant, where things need to be adapted or put it in another view. So even if I’m actively promoting the CS but not on a day-to-day operation, I do see this also from marketing.
Balancing product, sales, and customer success
And speaking about that balance that you need to have, especially in a startup or not only, how do you balance the urgency of product development and sales with the importance of customer success?
Renata 9:34
I love this question because I actually think they are the same thing, right? So you cannot have good sales without good customer success, right? They’re two sides of the same coin, because sales is difficult, getting a customer in, particularly in this market, please give me money, right?
Essentially, it’s difficult. But then from the moment they start, how do you make sure that they stay and then they grow, which is more sales, is also all tied to that same journey. And then product development is very much on that balance of what is it that we’re doing that’s going to bring value to all of our customers, right?
And how are we prioritizing it? Most companies have a limit somewhere, right? You can’t build everything to everyone.
And it’s about managing customer expectations, from prospects to renewals. And if you do it well, and if you have that customer-centric mindset, if you have those good conversations, you can actually get them to partner and understand your product development. So it doesn’t have to be everything now, right?
Sometimes customers ask for things that they don’t think that they think they need, or they don’t need, they ask for things that they want, but you can give it to them in a different way. And that’s why the partnership across those three is not either or is like, if we have a customer asking for this, and the prospector asking for that, and the renewal asking for this, and how do we unify it, right? And drive that cohesion.
Setting the right expectations for customers
Irina 11:09
How do you say no to a customer, especially when not necessarily it feels like he has the power, but how do you say no when you cannot implement his future request? How do you communicate it in order to keep the relationship alive after the moment of no, it’s not possible? How do you set up the right expectations?
How do you navigate those type of conversations?
Renata 11:45
I love this question, I love most of your questions because I think it’s such a crucial skill in CS. It’s very easy to be liked by your customers if you’re saying yes to everything, right? But you then create a problem for it on the line, because at some point you’re going to have to set that boundary.
So doing it early, doing it well is so important, because sometimes we feel like if we say no, the customer is going to be unhappy, and therefore you’re failing at your job, and that’s the wrong mindset. You have to set up a good healthy relationship, it’s not one side sucking everything from the other. So with future requests, it’s about being able to explain why.
Most customers are very reasonable, they will have things that they have been asked to do that they can’t do. So everyone understands, I would love to be able to do this for you, unfortunately we cannot, and here is why our roadmap is this way. We have prioritized these other features for you, we’re working on this instead.
This is how what we’re doing will also benefit you, right? And therefore, if this is still important, we can review it at the next available slot, or if they want us to do something that is completely out of, you know, imagine I was a Custify customer and I wanted you to solve my support problem, right? And you’re like, well that’s not what my tool does, here is how you can help.
Maybe don’t look at tools, maybe try and we can integrate, and you can try and help them in another way. But the earlier you are honest with them, explain to them why, explain to them what you’re doing instead, how they’re going to benefit from it, the better.
Irina 13:17
To summarize what I gathered from your answer: be transparent, honest, and communicate effectively. These are key skills, but it’s also important to look for indirect solutions to meet customer needs. Additionally, it’s crucial to understand why the customer is asking for something.
Because in some cases, what I noticed is that only by asking the why questions and actually understanding the pain or the need, you realize that maybe that particular feature, the customer wants it, it does not solve their need. And there’s another way. Yeah, I wouldn’t call it necessarily a workaround, because I think it sounds as a negative connotation.
But there are, I like to say it in design, there are 50 shades of the gray color without making any connotation. But so it’s not always black or white. We see it when we have a conversation, there are a lot of great shades in between.
And you can actually navigate this part.
Renata 14:42
And the why should always be done before you reject, right? If you say I’m not doing that without understanding why, it comes across negatively. So you need to understand why.
Because before you tell them no, if you can think of another alternative, that’s how you’re going to know. But let’s say they’re asking for something, and you understand the why, and you know it’s not something you’re going to do because it’s completely misaligned with your vision, right? And then you can explain why.
And it’s also about finding out what other value are you giving them instead, you know? So going back to the food analogy, it’s like, no, you can’t have french fries, but you can have mashed potatoes, which is still potatoes, and it’s still very yummy, you know?
How does a CS team change when the company changes
Irina 15:24
I’m going to park a bit and we’ll revisit the business side of the CS. I want to talk about teams and the way you structure it. And I know that you have different experiences.
How does a team change when the company changes? And now I’m thinking of different stages from startups growth, seed series A, series B, for sure the structure, the roles, the responsibility, the dynamic into the team, does that remain the same? So how should we start when we are in a startup with no investment?
What changes when we have a seed series A, series B, in terms of team dynamic and structure?
Renata 16:21
I’m going to give some general recommendations, but with the caveat that every startup is different, and how you should figure this out is based on what your product offering is, the industry you’re operating, and the customers you’re going after, right? So that’s like the trifecta, and that determines how you set everything up. But there are some general things that can apply, because I don’t want people to think, oh, this is what I need to do.
Think about your product, think about your industry, think about your customer, and that will set up customer success. But generally, when you start small or you start from nothing, you need a generalist, right? Because you’re going to have one person, if you’re lucky, maybe two people, and they need to be able to do an okay enough job across everything that comes after the contract signs, right?
So it’s a 360 role, you’re still probably figuring out where exactly the responsibilities are, so the generalist can go, I’ll pick this up, I’ll pick that up, and someone that is relationship-driven, because you are not, you’re less likely to have the tech stack at a stage of an investment. So you start with that, and in that stage, you’re figuring out what is it going to work with our customers? What do they expect?
Let’s try a few things out. Where is it that are value moments? And you’re also mainly reactive to the customer needs, right?
When you bring in a round of investment, you can then start bringing a little bit more structure, where you might then start, most often, separating support to success, right? Where you go, okay, I might have more customers now, they have support, I have success, you start having some metrics, right? And you can start shaping what I call your bedrock processes, which is the thing that always happens, like sales to CS handover, always happens everywhere, right?
Onboarding, whatever it is, if it’s technical, always happens everywhere. So these are things that you can start looking, what is it that we need to do to have a good experience? And then obviously, as you bring in more investment, you can specialize roles, then you can start splitting into onboarding, success, support, you know, technical account management, services, if you have services, you bring in good tools to bring you data, because data is going to help you drive decisions.
And then with more data, you can drive prediction and automation. And when you get to a certain level of customers, and ARR usually, you then need to segment, because you can’t treat everyone equally, you need data to be able to leverage it and scale, right? And then usually, by the time you’re getting to Series B, you know, more or less, your journey, your structure, your scale, and then you’re just about how do I automate it?
How do I make it more efficient? How do I scale it everywhere without having a one to one increase on headcount? Right?
So it starts, it takes that kind of shape, usually.
The importance of industry expertise for CSMs
Irina 19:01
This is more of a curiosity. I’ve had several debates with the CSMs I’ve interacted with about industry expertise—whether it’s a skill or how important it actually is.
Do you have CSMs who are rock stars in a particular industry, but struggle when moved to a different one? How important is industry expertise in your experience?
Renata 19:32
So I love this. Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna stop saying that because it is, as with most things, it’s not an answer that is clear cut. It depends on your industry, some industries, if you have industry experience, and you want to move into a CSM role, it’s super valuable, right?
So I was talking to someone the other day, and they work in this business that deals with recruitment. So their customers are recruiters. And if you have been a recruiter, you can bond.
Yeah, then you have that benefit of if you’re recruiting from the industry, and you’re selling to that same persona, it’s very good to bond, but then you have to be able to educate them on what CS is. Sometimes, it’s easier to educate on the industry than educate on what CS is. So you have to decide for your, your product and your industry and your customer base, what is easier for you to teach.
Some industries are easy to learn. Some industries are very hard. And that’s where I think you should make the call.
Irina 20:32
I think I really love your answers. I also noticed that for more, and I’m going to make an analogy with the marketing. I always said a few years ago, I went to an interview as a marketer, as a company.
And honestly, I couldn’t, even if it was called marketing, I couldn’t understand and the way they were doing the way they were doing. So the fact that it’s marketing or CS, it means totally different, totally different things. And I understand why you mentioned and you said the triangle, the product, the industry, and then the CS because it’s very, it’s very important.
And when you were explaining the differences, I realized that even if you know the industry, and you say that, okay, I’m gonna be a rock star. Well, yes, you have part of the thing solved, but you have other challenges. And if you do not know the industry, okay, it will be a challenge at some point, but at least it will be easier on others.
So there’s no role in which you step in free of challenges. And it’s like nothing happens along the way.
Renata 21:56
Exactly. And it depends also what you expect from that role, right? So if you have, sometimes a more junior role can go by without the industry expertise, because they’re gonna learn and you need it from a more senior or some companies is the other way around.
It’s okay, if the senior person doesn’t understand the industry, because I want them to know what good marketing looks like. And they need to come in and set up good marketing. And the team that’s already there knows the industry enough.
So you have that balance. So that’s why I’m like, it your industry and your customers, what what is it that you’re bringing to the table? And what do you need from a hire?
That’s what would decide Do I need industry? Do I need sector experience?
How to prove that CS is driving revenue
Irina 22:35
We started the conversation by discussing why customer success (CS) often isn’t seen as it should be, especially in startups. Now, I’d like to ask, how have you managed to make CS a real revenue driver in the companies you’ve worked with?
I ask this because, in my experience, when you can prove to CEOs that CS is driving revenue rather than being just a cost center, they tend to be more open and willing to listen actively. In theory, everyone listens, but in practice, it often feels like they’re just waiting for their turn to respond.
Renata 23:22
It’s tied a little bit to the customer-centricity, right? So where you have businesses that are less customer-centric, or more sales led being able to have the attribution to revenue is what gets people listening. Right.
So my advice is to understand the type of business you’re in. If you’re more customer-centric business, you by default need to justify less because that business understands if we don’t have this team, there’s no way we’re customer-centric, and we have this huge problem, right? It’s always beneficial to still be able to attribute, but it’s less of an appeal battle.
Whilst if you have a product-led organization, attribution is like, how can I bring value to our product evolution? And then you start going around feedback channels, you can create communities, you can connect your product, you can do better testing like there’s a lot of things you can do a CS to facilitate that product evolution. If you’re a sales led, it’s around, where is the space for me to generate and attribute revenue?
I’ve worked in businesses that CS has no revenue target, right? And I’ve worked in businesses where they do. And even when you don’t, you can still prove sales value by finding leads and making introductions and giving opportunity to sales.
And obviously, where you do have the revenue target is making sure you hit those targets around the renewals or the expansion and upsells, whatever that is. But it first identify what kind of business you’re working with, and then see how you can bring value that you can easily communicate and attribute to what your team’s doing based on that business type.
Essential KPIs for Customer Success
Irina 24:50
What I really appreciate is how you highlighted the difference between sales-led and product-led organizations, as well as the fact that there isn’t a universal set of KPIs for customer success. I recall a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a Head of CS who had no churn—literally zero churn. I initially thought, ‘This must be the dream job!’
But then I realized, even without churn, there are still other challenges. I’ll be releasing that episode soon, but in the meantime, let’s talk about some examples. Everyone knows that CS should manage renewals, and upsells, and have revenue targets. However, let’s explore other KPIs that are just as important and can impact the CS team in different types of organizations.
Renata 26:01
So, I mean, if I was going to pick the one KPI for CS is definitely net revenue retention, because I love everything, right? And also, because particularly in startups, net revenue retention is really good for investors, right? Because it shows how much you keep and grow your customer base and grow from customers is really important for startups.
So definitely have it. But in terms of others, whatever your product is, what is your engagement metric, right? And that engagement is the usability of it, right?
Because we know if you sell something and people don’t use it, why would they, at one point, they’re going to, someone’s going to ask why are we paying for it? It might not be in year one, it might not be in year two, but at some point, they’re going to go, why are we spending money on this? It’s the equivalent of having a gym membership that you never go to, right?
At some point, you’re going to go, do I really want to spend that money in the gym? Because maybe I’m never going to go, right? So, and that’s a really good leading indicator of are you providing value?
Now, it’s not a replacement of it, because just because someone uses your product doesn’t mean they’re getting what they want out of it. But we definitely know if they don’t use it, they’re never going to get anything out of it, right? So it’s around, and, you know, you can name things like you can have, you know, NPS, or CSAT, or effort scores, or adoption rates, feature functionality, it depends on how your product is built, right?
But I would suggest figure out what is your engagement and adoption metric and figure out how does that tie to tangible outcomes.
Irina 27:35
You also mentioned PPM, sending leads to sales, we’re making the introduction. I’m curious, how do you do that? What’s the process?
What’s the framework?
Renata 27:50
So have you heard of what, well, marketing with that is like, it’s a CSQL, right? So yes, qualified lead, essentially, different businesses can set it up with whatever criteria they want. But it could be that as a CSM, I’ve just had a QBR, and they talked about the fact that they are bringing in a new team, and that new team is out of contract, or they might be exploring a new use case, and that use case is out of contract, or they might be going through an acquisition, right?
So as you’re engaging with the customers, you might be hearing these things that we could that either this is and go, hey, this is interesting. Can we talk about that? Or you can go, hey, salesperson who looks after this account, you know, Martin mentioned today in our QBR, that they’re acquiring Banana Inc.
No, it’s worth you thinking with him and figuring out because we might be able to offer the same thing to Banana Inc. You know, and it could be a restructure. So it’s things like that, that you can then either progress to a certain point and qualify yourself, depending on the business, or you immediately hand over to sales to progress and qualify themselves.
How to build a customer success function
Irina 28:54
I wanna close the business side of things by asking you what advice would you give to a tech startup CEO who is just beginning to build their customer success function. What do they need to take into account? What should they avoid doing?
Renata 29:10
Oh, dear. I mean, I always probably started earlier. But you don’t have the ability to time travel.
Particularly in tech startups, the CEO sets the tone for who are going to be thinking about it, right? So the more that they can keep the customer engagement, either directly or through engaging with the team, so they understand what customers are doing, the more that they can bring the mindset of what is it they were doing that delivering actual value to the customers now, right, as opposed to thinking in the future, the better. And to a certain extent is, is always very helpful to know that senior leadership is grateful for that.
Because when they once yes works well, things don’t go wrong, right? And it’s sometimes difficult to remember, because things are not going wrong. People are doing their job really well, right? But once yes goes badly. Everyone knows that. Could you have that churn complaints and things like that? So it’s that would also, I think, drive a lot of recognition, attribution to the value that a team like that brings. But So in summary, if you can foster a customer mindset from the CEO, help make sure that you’re setting up a good journey that delivers value and give the recognition for the work, because when they work, nothing bad happens.
The importance of having the right tech stack
Irina 30:45
Since you have experience on the tech side of things, and you mentioned earlier that startups often lack the foundation for proper tools, especially at the beginning, I want to talk about the role of technology. How do you leverage technology when it comes to scaling? What’s your advice on when it should be introduced? At what point do you realize that you can no longer work without it, and what are the signs?
Let’s discuss the technology stack, when to introduce it, how to introduce it, and how to pitch it internally.
Renata 31:34
So I always think as soon as you can afford a customer success platform, you should pitch for it. With the first substantial round, I’ve always pitched for it by saying, “If you give me this software, I can probably save one headcount, right?” But if I don’t have software that enables me to have the data in one place, to automate, to track health scores, to understand what’s going on with our customers, and to have triggers, I’m going to need more people.
Usually, software is less expensive than a person, but you also have to be mindful of the business’s capital situation. So it tends to be when you have your first C+ or Series A, you have enough cash to be able to afford software. Some startups are more fortunate to afford it earlier.
I always recommend not to use the CRM, because the CRM is for sales, and it’s like trying to fit someone else’s shoes on your feet. It kind of does the job, but it’s not comfortable, and you don’t want to walk very long in it, so that is my recommendation.
From a general tech stack, there is a CSP. If you have a substantial support need, you might have support software as well, and they should integrate. Obviously, your CSP should integrate with your CRM so there is seamless communication across all systems. You don’t want to create silos.
In terms of when to bring it in, we covered that as soon as you can afford it, to be honest. But in the early stages, you can probably keep generic information in a spreadsheet, like the number of accounts, your ARR, and your renewals in Google Drive or Microsoft Drive. However, it starts getting messy. By the time you hit double-digit customers, you should definitely start thinking, “Okay, where am I keeping this information, and how do I make it accurate?”
Other software is very dependent on your offering. Some companies have community software if you’re in an industry that values community. Some companies might have project management-type software if you’re doing heavy delivery on an onboarding flow process.
I would say, bring the minimal amount of software that you need to get the job done because you don’t want your teams straddling multiple platforms. They should always be able to talk to each other.
Irina 34:00
Those are very good pieces of advice, and you actually mentioned some of the pains that I know CSMs experience. They are often pushed to work in CRMs, doing a lot of workarounds. At some point, the system breaks—it either stops working or becomes too heavy to maintain. Usually, there’s one person, the “champion,” who built the whole thing, and when he or she leaves, everything falls apart.
There’s also another aspect I’ve noticed: in some cases, people rush into buying tools, but they don’t have the process in place.
They end up with the tool and think, “Now what?” Because the tool alone doesn’t solve the problems. As I mentioned before, the tool gives you leverage and enables you to do something, but it won’t do the job for you. Simply buying a tool won’t solve the issues.
So I think it’s important to make clear that a tool is only part of the solution. It helps you pass the exam, but it doesn’t guarantee success. That’s true for every tool, right?
Renata 35:40
Sometimes people sell the benefit of software, but with any software or tool, if you don’t know what you’re going to use it for or how it will benefit you, why are you getting it?
It’s like, I can think of so many analogies. For example, you might get a shovel, but if you don’t have a garden, what are you going to do with the shovel? And if you don’t know what you’re going to plant, why do you need the shovel in the first place?
I also think people sometimes go the other way, saying, “I don’t need the tool; I can manage with Excel or whatever,” but that can make things a lot more complicated than necessary.
So, I always recommend thinking about tooling early, because you can scale with the right tool. You need to know what you want the tool to do for you.
Irina 36:38
Because we are, we need to somehow wrap up our conversation. I have two more questions for you. I want to ask you, what are you most proud of in your CS work, and what keeps you excited about this field?
Renata 36:53
Well, that’s easy, because the thing I’m always most proud of is the teams I built and the people I’ve worked with. I think CS is an incredibly challenging environment to work in, because you’re dealing with people, and people are people—you know, they change every day. They are emotional, they’re ever-demanding. So you’re constantly on different fronts, dealing with all kinds of people.
Creating teams that achieve success and coming together to do something really good is such a rewarding experience. There’s no better moment than when a team receives strong feedback from a customer, or when a customer truly partners with you because you’re delivering real value. But you can only do that with the right team.
So, to answer in a two-for-one: I’m really proud of my teams. I also really enjoy those moments where you’ve made a difference in someone’s day. You’ve helped them think about something they hadn’t considered or made them approach something differently because of how you engaged with them. You’ve helped them in some way, and it’s almost like collecting little treasures throughout your career. Those moments are great.
Irina 37:56
I listened to a podcast earlier this morning, it was about NLP, and there was one thing that really stuck with me. It mentioned that the job of a CS person, whether in customer success or support, is often like that of a coach or therapist. You end up dealing with all the issues and problems when things aren’t working, or when people need something.
The role of CS is challenging because it’s not just about moving things forward; it’s about building relationships and being there for the customer. That can be hard in some cases.
And yes, the team is super important. It’s one of the things that can either help you move forward or slow you down if you don’t have the right team. I’ve been very fortunate to work with amazing people.
So, if there’s one key takeaway about CS that you’d want our audience to remember from this conversation, what would it be?
Renata 39:38
How am I supposed to pick just one? For people working in CS, the biggest takeaway I would always advise is to resist the temptation to fix everything. Resist the temptation to say yes to everything. Resist the temptation to sacrifice yourself and your boundaries to get things done, because, particularly in startups, “yes” tends to become a catch-all. That doesn’t mean it’s the thing that will make the real impact.
So, ask yourself: What are you going to do today, this week, or this month that is going to move the needle? Move the needle for your business, or move the needle for your customers. That’s what you should focus on, and it definitely won’t be everything.
Irina 40:18
Renata, thank you very much for all the insights that you shared with us today. A big thank you to everyone who listened to to us and until next time, stay safe and keep mastering customer success.
