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Unchurned is presented by UpdateAI.

Nick Mehta:
But let’s actually, like, remember, the customer, what they’re buying is actually not just the technology, part of my product is this team and this process, you know. It’s not just the soft I think we gotta get out of the world of purest. Like, it’s all about the customer. If we even think about our company’s success, we’re not doing a good job. I’m like, we all have jobs. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
And I wanna keep it.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’m just like, nobody’s doing charity work over here.

Jon Johnson:
No. Exactly. Nick Mehta, how do you feel about the current state of customer success and how most organizations are putting us back under revenue again? What are your trends and what are you feeling about the state of customer success? There’s a ton a shit ton of consolidation. There’s a shit ton of big movers coming in and buying people up and smashing things together. Where is it from your perspective?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Can I go to the importance of the different way? What are you wearing this pulse?

Josh Schachter:
Oh, god.

Jon Johnson:
Oh, I’m not wearing the glasses here.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Last year. Last year, we all tried to guess that we saw you. I know you’re gonna reveal. I’m I guess, what? Again?

Nick Mehta:
I’ll give you a hint, and you can do what you’re guessing, and I’m not gonna react. The hint is the theme of pulse this year is the 19 eighties. Is this, like, the beginning, one of those TV news where we’re supposed to pretend to be talking to each other? Yeah. Audio is playing. Alright.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. I mean, usually, we are talking to each other, but

Josh Schachter:
We actually usually ignore the guest for, like, the first minute. It’s very uncomfortable. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So if

Jon Johnson:
you could just be quiet, Nick. Just, like, give us, like, 10 minutes. Fuck off a little bit.

Josh Schachter:
Nick already went into a power play. But you know

Jon Johnson:
what? He went

Nick Mehta:
in easily.

Josh Schachter:
He just left. I mean, Nick like Nick Nick knows who he is. Right? He’s like, fuck that. I am talking first guy. Nick, why don’t you introduce us, please?

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. Exactly.

Jon Johnson:
Ladies and gentlemen

Nick Mehta:
John and Christie. I think they do some work every now and then with not being entertaining podcasters. I’m not sure.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Actually

Jon Johnson:
There’s a good chance that we don’t.

Josh Schachter:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Unchurned. I’m Josh. There’s Christy. There’s John. And as you all know now, we have Nick Maeda on the show. We’re very excited about that. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Woo hoo. This is our, like, annual repulse, get together, and we’re really excited. Nick, by the way, we’re we’re actually unlike other podcasts, we don’t take, like, 2 weeks to air this thing. This is gonna be out on Wednesday in 2 days. So, we get a lot of, like, good intel for folks before they head out to

Nick Mehta:
see this. Aren’t we supposed to pretend it’s actually Wednesday? You just broke broke the cardinal world podcasting.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. But, like, but but John Bridges win. John breaks it every week.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Every time. I have I have no professionalism, Nick.

Nick Mehta:
Exactly. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Hey, Nick. This wasn’t on the list, but you you your your head is, in the way that you just moved momentarily, and there was a big easel behind you that looked really interesting.

Nick Mehta:
I was like, oh, shoot. Yeah. You can’t cover it now.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We zoomed in for a second. I’ve seen

Josh Schachter:
some more work in

Kristi Faltorusso:
progress on the way.

Jon Johnson:
For 2024. Yeah. It’s

Nick Mehta:
like a millionaire company strategy right there. Yeah. You can’t see it. Exactly. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Can you can you bring it forward a little bit? Let’s take that’s what we actually just wanna run dive in. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
It says, yeah. It says, make better decisions on which podcast to join. That was number 1

Jon Johnson:
on the list. It’s pretty typical. Yeah. Exactly. Sing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
You know,

Nick Mehta:
it was not related to you, obviously, other other

Josh Schachter:
You you knew you knew better already, Nick.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Anyway Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Cool. Well, we’re super excited to have you. We’re super excited about Pulse. I’ll be there. We’re a sponsor this year, and that’s awesome. Awesome. Like, we’re we’re super pumped about that with Update. Grateful.

Josh Schachter:
Grateful for that.

Nick Mehta:
Thank you. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Of course. Yeah. No. I mean, my first question for you, Nick, is why did you get kicked out of San Francisco?

Jon Johnson:
That’s why I don’t wanna

Nick Mehta:
know. Yeah. They they, yeah. I mean, I don’t know. It’s it’s funny because we’ve been in San Francisco for so many years and, doing most recently in Moscone Center. I knew it was awesome. San Francisco, amazing city. I live in live in Palo Alto just south of San Francisco, But, you know, customer success is everywhere.

Nick Mehta:
And one of our original offices against that was in Saint Louis. We’re like, oh, it’d be fun to do it in the Midwest. So it’s awesome. We have, you know, few thousand people will be flying out, and, you know, it’s not that not the easiest place to get to. So if you’re coming out to Saint Louis, you commit the customer success. So it’s gonna be great. I’m really excited.

Josh Schachter:
I actually think

Nick Mehta:
By the way, it’s it’s also you’re you’re a bigger deal doing a tech conference in Saint Louis than you are in Saint Louis.

Jon Johnson:
Yes.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. I’m assuming it’s gonna be renamed Saint customer success next week. That was my my assumption. Saint Matta. Yeah. Saint Matta. No. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Maybe maybe Saint Josh. I think that’s all Saint Chris. Yeah. Yeah. I I, when, you know, when when Taylor Swift did the first era’s tour stop in, Phoenix was in Glendale, and they renamed the the, areas Swift City for the day. So I’m I’m thinking that’s gonna happen for us.

Josh Schachter:
Nick, are you a Taylor Swift fan? I wasn’t sure.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. I know. It’s really subtle. Right?

Jon Johnson:
I was gonna say, Nick, we’re all taking a shot every time you say Taylor Swift, and we’re expected to be gone in the next 10 minutes. So

Josh Schachter:
Oh, easily.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. This was

Jon Johnson:
already part of it. We’ve got another bingo card too that we’re not gonna tell you about until the end. No.

Josh Schachter:
But I’m gonna I’m gonna start over. So so I’m gonna without the talking points, Nick. Nick, why why is it in Saint Louis this year? Yeah. Exactly.

Nick Mehta:
That’s it. Everything I said.

Josh Schachter:
That’s it. That’s it. Love it. I love it. Okay. Cool. I

Nick Mehta:
don’t have talking points, people. I don’t even read. I don’t even look at what meeting I’m in right now. So

Jon Johnson:
This is just a regular meeting. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Can I go to the important stuff? Yeah. Go to the real questions. What are you wearing this pulse?

Josh Schachter:
Oh, god.

Jon Johnson:
Oh, god. You asked me that last year.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Last year. Last year, we all tried to guess that we saw you. I know you’re gonna reveal. I guess you’ll guess again?

Nick Mehta:
I’ll give you a hint, and you can do what you’re guessing, and I’m not gonna react. The hint is the theme of pulse this year is the 19 eighties.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, that’s right. I didn’t know that. Okay.

Jon Johnson:
So you’re gonna moonwalk on stage.

Nick Mehta:
That would be very bad.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No. No. Listen. We were just talking about this with a friend of mine, all the different, aesthetics that there were in the eighties. Right? You can go, like, the the gym, like, unitard working out vibe. You can go eighties hip hop. You could go eighties rock.

Kristi Faltorusso:
You can go eighties, like, preppy. Like, if you think about, like, the rich kids and all, like, those pretty pink movies like that. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Like, you

Kristi Faltorusso:
got the jacket with the button down really open big hair. I’m gonna can you all be wearing wind like, the the windbreaker outfits? Could you all be doing that?

Nick Mehta:
That is a cool idea. That may or may not

Kristi Faltorusso:
Like, if you all just had that on, I think I would I would appreciate that aesthetic.

Nick Mehta:
That’s a good idea. I like

Jon Johnson:
neon windbreakers. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Right. And maybe, like, fanny packs too just, like, because that like, which is, like, tied tied off.

Nick Mehta:
Fanny packs every decade, Christy. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
I actually just got

Kristi Faltorusso:
a new one. I wear my little John wore his fanny pack to New York and got robbed.

Jon Johnson:
I did I I still think Zendaya stole my

Nick Mehta:
wallet, guys. Really? Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. I’m fairly certain.

Nick Mehta:
Us. I

Jon Johnson:
got stuck in New York last weekend.

Nick Mehta:
Zendaya can do everything. She’s amazing.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. She’s so great at stealing my wallet and my IDs and Did

Nick Mehta:
you have did you was your wallet in your fanny pack?

Jon Johnson:
Yes. And I took my phone out to take yes.

Nick Mehta:
I mean, just realistically, you’re like, let me take my wallet and put as far away from my body as possible. I don’t think you could just easily rip off, who’s who’s the who’s the villain here? I think it’s me.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s me. No. But I did get some really great photos of Zendaya, with other people, that I’m I’m very happy with. So I feel like the trade off was,

Nick Mehta:
Are you getting are you getting text from well, if you get your phone back, you’re gonna be getting text from, like, Tom Holland or something like that.

Jon Johnson:
No. No. No. So him and I have been talking. Actually, hold on. Let me check. Yeah. He says, oh, I can’t share that.

Nick Mehta:
What does he think of customer success? What’s Spider Man think of customer success?

Jon Johnson:
That’s so funny. There’s they’re both so tiny, by the way. This is one thing that I did not realize.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I thought.

Jon Johnson:
She but I’m 6, like, foot, and she is, like, still little. So I actually kind of

Kristi Faltorusso:
expected it. Me, John, or smaller?

Jon Johnson:
Tom’s little like you. Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Tom, I’m on

Nick Mehta:
the store here. Oh, yeah. He has.

Jon Johnson:
I’ve seen photos. Well, Zendaya is a freaking tree trunk. So

Nick Mehta:
This is a pop culture podcast. Right? Is that what we’re doing, or is it that?

Jon Johnson:
No. We’re in the we’re heavily into

Kristi Faltorusso:
the b s. Success in the wild. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. We’re breaking down the Kendrick Lamar Drake, thing, which I don’t really know anything about yet. I have to read about it.

Jon Johnson:
So No. I just want I want I want I actually want more beef back. I don’t know. Did you guys listen to me? Josh and I went to an emo concert in New York last weekend. That’s awesome. Screamo band. And if you remember, if you’re ever into kinda like that those days, they used to beef all of these emo bands would, like, write songs about each other, and it was almost very similar to what hip hop is doing right now. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
I mean, hip hop has always done

Kristi Faltorusso:
this, you know.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
But it was

Josh Schachter:
like So are

Kristi Faltorusso:
you suggesting that we bring this to customer success?

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Yeah. I wanna start a beef. And, I mean, we got We’re

Nick Mehta:
we’re gonna

Kristi Faltorusso:
start beef. Okay.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, I feel like the the obvious beef is Nick Meda against whatever the is going on with Tatsango and Catalyst. Like, you just need

Nick Mehta:
I I got no beef.

Jon Johnson:
No. No. Got

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No. No. You just let them you let them beef internally because you have a job there.

Jon Johnson:
Like, you

Kristi Faltorusso:
can’t get anybody else to beef with them. That’s fine. Just let them play this out. It’s okay.

Josh Schachter:
Can we do, like, a HubSpot beef or something? Might be

Nick Mehta:
a rough, question.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We’re We’re just gonna watch. We’re gonna eat popcorn. We’re gonna watch. We just let it do its thing. It’s gonna it’s gonna jam the family. Match. I

Nick Mehta:
love popcorn. It’s so good.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. Exact same. Same. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Just hear for the show.

Josh Schachter:
Listen. I think I think eighties theme. I think Nick is going out there, in a trench coat, no no pants, with a stereo speaker above his head. It’s gonna be like the John Cusack saying, oh, okay.

Jon Johnson:
I was wondering where you’re going with this.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. Say anything. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
The the you just didn’t have to do the no pants.

Josh Schachter:
Have to. No.

Nick Mehta:
Josh, that was nice.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Because he was wearing pants. He was wearing shorts. Right? He was wearing shorts and more.

Nick Mehta:
Sorry. For people thinking about attending Pulse, I will be wearing pants. I want you to know I will be wearing pants.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And, Nick, we should encourage everyone else to wear pants too. Right?

Jon Johnson:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Pants are a very good part of corporate culture. Yeah. Or Yeah. Or anything that is covering your

Kristi Faltorusso:
Covering. Coverage. Coverage. 100%. For coverage.

Jon Johnson:
Man, feel like we got off track, guys.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. John, bring us back. Let’s ask a CES question.

Jon Johnson:
So, Nick, I’m curious. How are you feeling this year?

Nick Mehta:
Pulse? Oh

Josh Schachter:
god. Oh, no. No. Wait. Sorry, Nick. Don’t don’t answer. Don’t answer. Like like, we we John, we said we weren’t gonna ask, like, the lame so are you yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Like like, what

Nick Mehta:
are you excited for Pulse? For

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Okay. Fine. Let’s do it. I’m gonna do it. Shut up, Josh.

Josh Schachter:
K. Go ahead.

Jon Johnson:
Here we go. I got the question, Nick. I it’s written on a piece of paper right next to here, and it says ask this question. Nick Mehta, how do you feel about the current state of customer success and how most organizations are putting us back under revenue again? What are your trends and what are you feeling about the state of customer success? There’s a ton a shit ton of consolidation. There’s a shit ton of big movers coming in and buying people up and smashing things together. Where is it from your perspective? Kind of the grandfather of what the fuck we’re doing in it doing here. Like, you literally wrote the book on this. So I wanna

Kristi Faltorusso:
Literally, he wrote 3 book

Jon Johnson:
4 3 book.

Kristi Faltorusso:
4 book. Is digital one the 4th book, Nick? Is that the 4th book?

Nick Mehta:
5th book. I don’t know. I I think we’re like a book publishing company now.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. No. But I wanna hear where your brain is at on this coming from the history and then what you’re seeing moving into. Is that good enough for you, Josh?

Josh Schachter:
Well done, John.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It was very long winded though, John.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. That’s typical for me.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I have to, like, try to figure out where the question was in there.

Nick Mehta:
Time’s up on our podcast now. Great seeing you guys. But, the, I so, yes, it’s it’s like what I’m gonna talk about is it’s not an easy time. Like, be, like, at being real for, like, one sec. Are we allowed to be real on this podcast? Doesn’t feel weird.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We all we only want people to be real now.

Nick Mehta:
It doesn’t feel like that’s part of the theme, but okay. Let’s be real. It’s hard. Like, you guys all know. Like, you’d see people the hardest thing for me is just seeing, like, people getting laid off and looking for jobs. I’m sure you guys get Christy, you do so much for the community and, like, you must get emails all the time like I do. People looking for work, and you try to help them, and I can always look at a ratio of, like, number of people that are have reached out to look for jobs in a week and number of companies that have said, hey. I’m looking for somebody.

Nick Mehta:
And the good news is it’s the ratio is getting a little better. It’s not very scientific, but I get a lot of requests. So the last year, it might have been, like, in a week, I get, like, 20 emails from people looking for jobs and, like, maybe 1 person 1 company looking for job. Now it’s probably come back to, like, you know, maybe 10 people reach out to me looking for jobs and 2 people 2 companies are hiring. So that’s good. I think there’s a little bit of a ramp up. So, John, I think there’s, like, a really tough last year for people and SaaS in general, not just customer success. It’s just SaaS.

Nick Mehta:
SaaS is in a malaise right now. Right? It’s like that we our our theme is, like, the eighties and we’d like breakfast club and all that. And we’re like, SAS is in detention right now. It really is. Right? And so that’s like, let’s just be real. And it’s hard, and it’s everything from layoffs, people being asked to, like, deliver the same results with half the number of staff. Right? They you cut half your team, but, by the way, you still have the same accountability of numbers. Customer expectations, I’m sure I don’t know what you guys, but, like, everywhere.

Nick Mehta:
It’s like customers want another discount. They They wanna drop their licenses. They wanna downsize the contract everywhere everywhere. Right? Every company is dealing with this. So it’s like the pressure from customers is higher. The pressure from your company is higher. You’re worried about your own job. Like, let’s just be real.

Nick Mehta:
And on the flip side, the truth is it’s still never been more important, like, what we all do. Like, the out the business outcome of, like, retention. I mean, you know, good positive thing I’ll share just a little anecdote. Once a year, Stanford Business School has a class on sales.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
And they have me coming into a day out of customer success. And it’s awesome because it’s, like, nice to go to that because you could see despite all the challenges. And they’re all, like, yeah, this is the future. All these, like, students in Stanford Business School are, like, super deep on customer success. And so I think part of the message is gonna be, yeah, we’re in, like, in a low point. So we all know when you’re in low point, things do get better. But the thing I’m also saying is we can’t just keep doing the same things and expect different results. Like, I’ve done so many pulses where I’m like, it’s all about the customer.

Nick Mehta:
We need to get everyone aligned around the customer. How come we’re not more customer focused? And it doesn’t work. Like, that doesn’t work at all. And so I think a couple things, John, like, yes. There’s a huge trend of CSB aligned revenue. I don’t think it’s a 100%. I see some people looking to have a separate CCO, but it’s absolutely, like, the wind is shifting in that direction. And how do you make that work? How do you actually make like, rather than complaining about it, how do you say how do we see us become more accountable for revenue? In some cases, you know, I know it’s heretical, but some cases, they should be have a quote have a quote.

Jon Johnson:
I agree with you.

Nick Mehta:
And then There’s something wrong with sales. Right? Like, the sales part of our company runs. So that’s one thing we’ll talk about. Another thing obviously is, like, you know, digital and AI, not just the buzzword aspect of it, but how would they actually can help us get through the, like, budget challenge we have efficiency and scale. We use this term, you’re gonna be talking about a lot of next week, human first AI. How do you use AI to make us all more human by taking all the real work off of us? Because, like, Gainsight’s, you know, may maybe other companies as well, we’re, guilty party number 1. You use Gainsight and you gotta check this thing off and enter this field and add this thing and report to your boss, and nobody likes that stuff. Right? And how do you get a human first AI to help take that stuff off your plate and do the things you really love? And what’s crazy is, like, you know, you guys are probably experimenting with it too.

Nick Mehta:
I’d actually Josh obviously knows it very well.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And, like

Jon Johnson:
It’s on his hand.

Nick Mehta:
Josh, do you do any AI? Is that like a

Josh Schachter:
We’re we’re experimenting.

Nick Mehta:
Okay. Good. Alright. It’s cool. I’ll I’ll send you the chat GPT sign up link. So we, I’ll yeah. I get a referral credit if I send it through. But, like, you know, you look at it and this stuff isn’t perfect, but it’s come a long way.

Nick Mehta:
And there’s actually an ability to see a world, like, one of the things I love to see is couple years from now, CSMs do no data entry whatsoever. Amen. There’s not you know, what Josh is doing if updates a good starting point for that. Right? How do you eliminate data entry for CSMs? How do you eliminate the manual updates and give them more time? So there’s sort of part of it is acknowledge the reality. Part of it saying, if we’re gonna be more aligned to sales and revenue, make that a good thing, not a bad thing. And then versus being the purest, I think we gotta get out of the world of purest. Like, it’s all about the customer. If we even think about our company’s success, we’re not doing a good job.

Nick Mehta:
I’m like, we all have jobs. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
And I wanna keep it.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Just like nobody’s doing charity work over here.

Jon Johnson:
No. Exactly. No. And I think this is one of the things though, Nick, and I actually like, I have been really, really fighting this desire to be, like, god, I actually want to be back under revenue. I think that’s kinda where maybe we lost it a little bit is the last 3 or 4 years, we were just so kind of unmoored because it’s like, what is your value? Oh, usage or clicks or, hey. They like me or we did this thing or we did all of these check boxes, and you’re like, yeah. But if we don’t do that, the sales guys are still getting paid, and the renewal guys are still getting upsells. I want growth.

Jon Johnson:
I wanna own and prove that the relationships that I have built have led to more money for this company because that’s how when I go into my review cycle for a promotion or raise, I say, I generated $800,000 last year. Yes. And it’s because of me, and we could tie it back to me. And I think we lost a lot of stuff over the last few years removing us from revenue. Not that the CCO model isn’t great, Christy, RIP, but this idea that you are no

Kristi Faltorusso:
longer sales.

Jon Johnson:
I know. But that’s the thing is you gotta be. You gotta have that perspective.

Nick Mehta:
With time. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. I would I would go to Gainsight, and I would I would sell so much of it, Nick.

Nick Mehta:
Alright. Well, hey. We gotta have a conversation. Let’s go. LFG.

Josh Schachter:
Hey, everybody. It’s Josh. I’m taking a quick break from the podcast to tell you a bit about UpdateAI. I started UpdateAI to solve 2 major challenges for CS teams. The first is that we save CSMs 4 to 5 hours per week with our productivity through AI. Secondly, we give leaders a window into all the conversations across each account and the entire portfolio. So we help knowledge transfer, we help increase the coverage model of your CS teams, and we help you detect emerging patterns and what your customers are telling your CSMs across all the risks, product feedback, advocacy moments, and expansion opportunities. So come check us out at www.updateai.

Josh Schachter:
It’s completely free to sign up and trial.

Nick Mehta:
Hi, John. We we interrupted you with our not meeting list after there.

Jon Johnson:
No. I’ve already lost this. I’ve I’m already distracted.

Josh Schachter:
I think we prefer the the job.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. We’re talking about revenue. Christy and Nick right now.

Jon Johnson:
Give me money. No. No.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No. No. No. We’re talking about revenue. So, like, let’s but what I like about all that about us owning revenue is the accountability it drives. Yes. Exactly.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I feel like everyone lost accountability Yeah. And that’s the big thing. Right? Think about salespeople. They are accountable because they have numbers and metrics and targets to hit. When you remove those from customer success, the accountability is gone. The work we do is different.

Nick Mehta:
I 100% agree. And I think long term, honestly, if you’re in a career wise, if you’re, like, somebody starting your career, if you’re not eventually associated with the revenue in some way, like, and you can’t tell people, like, this is the metric I move. It’s It’s like you’re never gonna move up. I mean, it’d be hard to keep your job, but even then, like, hard to move up in a company. Right? You gotta be associated with something that matters financially to the company. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s kinda cool again. Right? It’s just like the metrics and what what actually matters.

Nick Mehta:
And it customer success, it’s funny. I’m sure you feel this way all 3 of you, like, the term is awesome in a way because, it is truly, like, a really encompassing term, but it’s also so vague. Yeah. And, like, I’m not saying we need to change the term because it is what it is. Right? And so we didn’t create Salesforce really came up with this term. It’s a great term. But, you know what I mean? Like, it’s, like, pretty vague, and I think a lot of people are, like, what does that actually mean? I was talking to some recently. Actually, he he’s at, he’s basically, like, COO, but he has CCO responsibilities too at a company that makes government soft.

Nick Mehta:
And they have a, like, a their churn rate per year is, like, 2% or something like that. Right? So he’s like, you can’t get people animated about churn. Right? But they know that we need to do more stuff for customers. Because in many cases, their clients didn’t really like their software. They just were stuck with it. And, you know, we were talking about how can you position it to be more tangible around revenue, and in this case, around adoption, but not just success. Right? I think that’s the challenge is, like, customer success manager is the best and worst term in the world. Right?

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. No. It’s it’s funny this this tie this idea of term terminologies. Back when I was under a CRO before, when somebody asked me what I did, it’s like, oh, revenue retention. Right. I make sure that cost that was so simple to say that. And I was, I was actually at a guitar center in in Raleigh, North Carolina this weekend, and I I met this girl in the synth section. We were like You

Nick Mehta:
just wanna drop off how cool you are.

Jon Johnson:
No. No. No.

Josh Schachter:
The Question.

Jon Johnson:
We we were like talking about what we were doing, and and I for the I was just, like, talking around what I do is strategy and customers, and she was doing the same thing. It turns out she’s a recruiter in customer success, and I am in customer success. And we finally were like, I feel like something’s broken here. Right? Because, like, people still don’t really know what this term is.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yes.

Jon Johnson:
And we don’t know that other people know what this term is. Right? It was like, I say customer success, and be like, oh, what does that mean? Right? And then you have to have that whole conversation.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Can we

Jon Johnson:
change it? Can we change it? No. Don’t change the title.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’ll just, Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Just we’ll just have to go on Google and change it everywhere. No.

Jon Johnson:
If there

Josh Schachter:
if there’s one person in the world that could

Kristi Faltorusso:
replace If

Jon Johnson:
there’s one person, then

Josh Schachter:
it would be you, Nick. Yes. Can we write a book on this? Customer growth, customer renewal and expansion.

Nick Mehta:
It’s funny because I will say joking aside, like, I think it is hard to change because it became people’s careers. So I think it’s more like we just have to make it mean what it needs to be. Right? And what it does mean in the heart of it, I think we just have been pretty poor articulating as an industry what this actually means that a a non CSM Kool Aid drinker would get. Like, I think that might be one of the problems we have. It’s like, pulse is amazing, but it sort of leads to a bit of a, you know, illusion that that everyone thinks this way. You know? Yeah. Or or everyone uses this terminology. When I talk to CEOs, like, improving customer lifetime value retention, whatever, it’s obvious.

Nick Mehta:
Like, nobody is like, oh my god. That’s a dumb idea. They don’t think that connection to why their CSM team is helping. Right? That’s what they they miss. We haven’t done a good job making that connection.

Jon Johnson:
I like what you just said about lifetime value because, you know, coming from, like, a b to c and kinda marketing world, that is such an obvious term. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of this the like, the b to b world is so anti terminologies from b to c. We have to separate ourselves so much. That actually does tie in really nicely to what we do. We wanna increase the lifetime value of the customer.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We increase

Nick Mehta:
lifetime value. A 100%. That’s, like, the job, and we help the company increase lifetime value by, like, other people doing the right things too. That’s what we do. We just need

Kristi Faltorusso:
to problem is everyone’s doing it differently at each company. Right? And so there becomes this challenge because, I mean, I don’t know that I’ve spoken to 3 different people in customer success and had them describe the work that they’re doing day in and day out.

Jon Johnson:
Same. And it looks

Kristi Faltorusso:
well right. Nobody does it the same way. The the focus is different. There is, again, varying degrees of accountability in the business and their contributions. So there is no like, the problem is that even if we standardize what the term means, we’re we have to standardize the practice then too. I mean, look at sales. No one’s sitting here with sales and marketing and all these other things and trying to figure out, like, even though it might look a little different from company to company, it’s pretty much the same.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Right? There’s nuances. Customer success doesn’t have that. It’s like every company is operating like it’s in own universe.

Nick Mehta:
I thought a lot about obviously, thought a lot about that over the years. You probably have too, Chrissy, where you you wanna standardize. And we all know there’s not, like, a one size fits all because obviously Right.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Very easy

Nick Mehta:
if you have a $1,000,000 customer versus a 100,000 a $1,000 customer, sign into security versus selling a marketing tech application or whatever. Right? So I think we all agree there’s some flavors of it. I think one other thing though I’d add in is when people use that analogy of, hey, sales is very similar, company company marketing similar. One thing to think about is the customer success, it’s almost like it’s part of the product, and the product is not similar company to company. Right? The product at, like, Palo Alto Networks and Update dotai and OpenAIChatGPD, they’re they couldn’t be more different. Right? And so I think there’s part of it that’s let’s standardize some of the practices, but let’s actually, like, remember the customer, what they’re buying is actually not just the technology, but it’s they’re buying the experience, and that experience has to tie to your product really tightly. And that’s why I hope that over time product people say, wow. Like, part of my product is this team and this process.

Nick Mehta:
You know? It’s not just the soft nobody buys the software. Like, they buy the

Jon Johnson:
The outcomes.

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. Right? And and, you know, it’s actually really interesting because, like, an example, like, is very tangible for people is OpenAI. So and, actually, we have an OPI, CS leader that is gonna be on stage of pulse. And OpenAI has a big CSM team or is growing CSM.

Jon Johnson:
G t m. Yeah.

Nick Mehta:
Right. G t m, but specifically a CSM team. So they have a GTM team and then within that CSM team. And it’s funny because, you know, people say, oh, chat g p t, why would you need a CSM? Like, we all all use it. Right? Because they have a chat g p t enterprise and they wanna get companies to change the way they work, so they use AI first, and that takes humans. Right?

Jon Johnson:
Yep.

Nick Mehta:
And so I think in that example, to make chat GPT work in a company, the product is the combination of the technology, which is mind blowing, and the human beings that make that technology real, you know. And I’m I’m sure you’ve touched even update that AI. Right? It’s very automated what y’all do, but you still have to change behavior. Right? Or maybe yours doesn’t require anything. You just, like, sign it up sign up, and it starts generating revenue for you automatically. Right? Is that that how it works? Anyway, watch Josh for my joke. Okay.

Jon Johnson:
That’s right. He was he’s the worst of us. So we’re working.

Nick Mehta:
About it.

Jon Johnson:
Hey, give me your Internet update.

Kristi Faltorusso:
He’s very pensive. It’s very pensive.

Nick Mehta:
Exactly. Right.

Josh Schachter:
I’m back. I’m back. I’m back. I paid the internet bills. Alright. We got one Alright. We have time for one more question before Nick has to bounce. Yes.

Josh Schachter:
Christie, John, Rochambeau, like, one one question. Lob it up there for Nick.

Jon Johnson:
Go, Christie. You have the one.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. I was taking this a ton of different ways. We already kinda talked to them. I I I Okay.

Jon Johnson:
I’ve got a b s question. I Okay. You go.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Fine. Go with your BS first.

Jon Johnson:
No. I just wanna know how it’s used with this fear.

Josh Schachter:
Seconds now for this response. Nick, ask your only question.

Jon Johnson:
Sphere is amazing if

Nick Mehta:
Very, very probably should be able to go, but if you get a chance to go,

Kristi Faltorusso:
you’re gonna be able

Jon Johnson:
to go. What’s the what’s the what

Josh Schachter:
what’s the top priority for you? That’s after pulse. Right? After pulse, you you like next day, day off. What what then is the number one priority for you with Gainsight for the rest of the year?

Nick Mehta:
Yeah. Number we always rank them, so it’s probably no surprise. The number one thing for us right now is we call human first AI, I think we’re talking about. It’s just getting AI into every part of our product, and and I think every company is doing this. It’s like, how do you steer the ship so that everything you’re doing is about is leveraging AI. It’s not just about AI. And, you know, when you’re a company like Update dot ai, you did that from the beginning. Right? When you come to Gainsight or anyone that’s been on well, you have to kinda make get every team and every part of your company to think, you can really do everything better with AI.

Nick Mehta:
So, yeah, that’s that’s our number 1. And number 2 is maybe getting a, like, big sign with my name on it for my Zoom background.

Kristi Faltorusso:
You definitely should, Nick. I highly recommend.

Jon Johnson:
Because she has a person.

Kristi Faltorusso:
See, unlike you, Nick, not everyone knows my name. Everyone knows your name, but I have to remind them. So that’s why I put it behind me and on my mic and And you’ve bought it. Necklace and everywhere else.

Jon Johnson:
We’ve also got the tattoos too.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Do you

Nick Mehta:
have your mic?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I do. Nick, I became a brand.

Josh Schachter:
It’s an enterprise. It’s an enterprise. But but, Nick, I think

Kristi Faltorusso:
yeah.

Josh Schachter:
I think people prefer to see your your board meeting notes in in So I I think I think you should keep that back. I’ll take a

Kristi Faltorusso:
screenshot, and we’ll zoom in later, Josh. Yep. Thanks, Nick. Alright. Have a good week, everyone. Bye, Nick. Good luck at Paul.

Nick Mehta:
Pauls. See you. Bye.

Josh Schachter:
Are we done? Are we recording? Are we staying on? Are we are we

Jon Johnson:
talking about Nick Meta. Yeah. We love him.

Josh Schachter:
He was great. He rolls his ass off.

Jon Johnson:
Podcast, guys? Chrissy, are you going to Pulse, or is Josh? Just Josh?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I can’t go. I can’t make it to St. Louis. Yeah. I

Jon Johnson:
won’t be there either.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’m like, of course,

Josh Schachter:
going to Saint Louis.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We have our company we have our company off-site, that same week. So Yeah. We’ll be ideating and spending time together.

Jon Johnson:
That’s awesome.

Kristi Faltorusso:
In the mountains of Utah.

Josh Schachter:
We’ll all be in Colorado. Go go go. You’re you’re gonna be at your son’s graduation. Tell us. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Tell us more.

Jon Johnson:
So my eldest graduates from high school. He’s 18 and taking on the world.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, that’s so exciting.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. I’m I’m excited. I got I like we had a little happy tears when I got the invite and, the announcements and stuff like that. So

Josh Schachter:
That’s super exciting.

Jon Johnson:
He’s gonna listen to this podcast. Love you, Connor.

Josh Schachter:
Does does Connor listen to the podcast?

Jon Johnson:
He does. Every time. Everyone.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Really? Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
But I know that. I I

Kristi Faltorusso:
I know. I I’ll be nicer.

Josh Schachter:
No. No. No. We’re cool. Well, you’re

Jon Johnson:
the nicer. I’ll be better. He’s like, that Josh is a dick. He’s like, yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
He is. I know. Okay. But he

Josh Schachter:
has a softness. Little anemic.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Need to pinch your cheeks before we get you on camera, Josh.

Josh Schachter:
For all the folks listening, Christy and John think I need a tan in there. Right?

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. But, Josh, have fun at Pulse this week. You. Christy, the way that you said that

Josh Schachter:
was At this point, we have no more listeners anyways. Nick left, like, then, like Yeah. Yeah. The bounce

Kristi Faltorusso:
just went.

Jon Johnson:
We’re good. It’s all good. But chat fun at Pulse.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I can’t

Jon Johnson:
I can’t wait to hear how it goes next week. Make sure that we get some time on the pod next week to get updates on that. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
I’ll tag you, John. I’ll tag you.

Jon Johnson:
Thanks, man. It’s all about the views, baby.

Josh Schachter:
Thanks, everybody. Have a great week ahead. Bye bye. Bye, guys.