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Episode #124 Redefining Compensation to Better Align CS Roles with Revenue Goals

#updateai #customersuccess #saas #business

Hosts ⁠⁠Kristi Faltorusso (CCO, ClientSuccess)⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jon Johnson(Principal CSM, Key Accounts at UserTesting)⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠Josh Schachter (Co-Founder & CEO, UpdateAI) dive into a dynamic conversation to kick off the new year.

Tune in as they share insights on how companies are restructuring compensation models, discuss the trends they’re observing, and reflect on the evolution of customer success and account management and the ongoing merger of these roles.

Timestamps
0:00 – Preview, BS & Intros
5:44 – Are CS leaders transitioning to account management roles?
9:00 – Redesigning compensation models to align CS with revenue activities
14:50 – Problems with current data management practices
25:18 – Predictions for 2025
28:52 – LinkedIn algorithm, AI content, and Social Media Behavior
36:08 – Need for a defined strategy and long-term planning
39:30 – Pressure on CS to demonstrate quick impact and results

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👉 Follow the podcast
Youtube: https://youtu.be/JprAz-o-dWk
Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3dfWXmD
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3KD3Ehl 

👉 Connect with hosts
Jon Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonwilliamjohnson/
Kristi Faltorusso: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiserrano/
Josh Schachter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/

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Unchurned is presented by UpdateAI

About UpdateAI
At UpdateAI our mission is to empower CS teams to build great customer relationships. We work with early & growth-stage B2B SaaS companies to help them scale CS outcomes. Everything we do is devoted to removing the overwhelm of back-to-back customer meetings so that CSMs can focus on the bigger picture: building relationships.

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Josh Schachter:
Yeah.

John:
That was so anti climactic.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Update AI. As most things are with Josh to advance in their career.

Josh Schachter:
Hey, y’all.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Josh Schechter.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, I get it. I get it. We’re talking about You wanna repeat it now that we start the episode? Nope. Nope. Hello, everybody. Happy New Year. Happy I don’t know why that was so funny. Happy 2025.

Josh Schachter:
Happy holidays. All the holidays. Welcome back to live well, kind of live unchurned. I’m Josh. We have John. We have Christy. We got the whole gang. We don’t have a guest.

Josh Schachter:
Our guest is sick per order.

John:
Is the listener. Hello, everybody.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. John, over to you.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, that was cute.

John:
Josh, how was your new year?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, we’re starting new year.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, here we go. Get straight into the banter. I thought we’re gonna go, like, professional here, but no. Same no. New Year, same you. So my New Year was great, John. I didn’t I think I watched Netflix, and I was asleep by 9:30.

John:
Amazing. What show? What show did what binge you? What’d you binge?

Josh Schachter:
Well, actually, right now, I don’t know if it was that night, but right now, I’m watching Brother Sun on Netflix, the Michelle.

John:
Yeah. They just canceled it. So there’s only one season.

Josh Schachter:
Really? It didn’t get the the the views that they wanted?

John:
Oh, interesting. Fantastic. And it was ended on a cliffhanger, and then they said, nope. So, you know

Josh Schachter:
Oh, should we spoil it for everybody here, including myself? No? Okay. I really wanna watch Shogun. But

John:
Oh, it’s so good.

Josh Schachter:
Is it? But Jess is not into that, and I’m just like, when do I have the time?

Kristi Faltorusso:
And then hear different shows popping up on our Netflix recommendations because I don’t even know what any of those shows are.

John:
I’m sorry that we’re not watching, what what is that? Kinsley knows best or

Josh Schachter:
Below Down Under.

John:
Yeah. Whatever No. Whatever I’m watching the river. I’m not

Josh Schachter:
below deck. Yeah. Whatever whatever it is.

John:
Yeah. It’s either, like, super trashy reality or, like, hey, let’s let’s figure out how to kill people.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. We wanna figure out who killed them, not how to kill them.

John:
What’s your show right now, Christie? What are you watching?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, I was just watching the most recent 2020 episode. But,

Josh Schachter:
like, with Barbara Walters?

Kristi Faltorusso:
What? It’s not Barbara Walters anymore. Okay?

Josh Schachter:
With the ghost of Barbara Walters.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I tried watching Missing You on Netflix Mhmm. Because TikTok the TikTok girlies were telling me, like, it was fantastic. And I’m like, do I know

John:
what TikTok girlies are Lindsay Lohan? Christie. So

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. It’s not Lindsay Lohan. It’s, like, Missing You. It’s, like, some weird like, it’s, like, a 5 part series where the woman, she’s, like, a cop or detective, but, like, she was engaged to somebody 11 years ago, and then he just went missing. Then he disappears. He disappears, and, like, then he reappears on a dating app.

Josh Schachter:
Yep.

Kristi Faltorusso:
That she’s on and sees him, but it’s, like but, like, they’re trying to uncover, like, what happened.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, stuck in memory.

Kristi Faltorusso:
This is

Josh Schachter:
a real story.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. And it’s not a real story. Well, I don’t think it’s a real story. It’s it’s a it’s a show. It’s a 5 part series show. It’s a short. But I don’t know. I’m, like, 25 minutes into episode 1, and I’m, like, it the acting is feeling a little cheesy for me, the story line, and then we’ve got some accents.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And so, like, for me, I’m, like, I can’t really get into it.

Josh Schachter:
Abandoned. Abandoned.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. So I think I told Anthony that we’re gonna jump ship. Yeah. So I don’t know.

John:
It’s good. I had to find something now. Shrinking. Have you guys watched shrinking yet?

Josh Schachter:
I was just gonna say I wanna watch season 2. I love shrinking.

John:
So good. I am so deep into therapy mind right now. Like, that’s, like, all that I’m thinking about.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, it’s great. We wanna get to that next segment. Yeah. It’s Apple plus. It’s Apple. It’s with Harrison Ford.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s have Apple TV.

John:
Yeah. I’ll give you my login, Christie.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay.

John:
Harrison Ford, it’s the best role Harrison has ever had.

Josh Schachter:
It’s about shrinks.

John:
It’s great. Yeah. And I figured that out. So, like, do we all have jobs? Like, are do we have like, is CS still a thing? Well, what do you mean?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Today, it is. I mean, no one told me otherwise. I mean, I showed up today. So, John, is there something you wanna tell me? No. No. Hire you to lay me off for tomorrow? This is so awkward.

John:
You have that 15 minute calendar meeting too? Awkward. Oh, no. Please tell me you don’t.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’ve never talked to Dave for less than an hour at a time. So, no, there’s never a 15 minute meeting.

John:
That’s good. No. I, we’re starting a new year. I feel like we’ve had what? This is our 3rd year on the podcast.

Josh Schachter:
Did you

John:
know that? Wow. I don’t know if it’s, like, consecutive, like, 36 months, but it is the 3rd calendar year since we started this in 22.

Josh Schachter:
Time goes quickly. Wait. But so what’s your your your prognostication with

Kristi Faltorusso:
the whole was this going?

Josh Schachter:
CS. Yeah.

John:
I, man, I wanna know if you guys have seen it too, but account management is taking a big swing, at the CS pie. I’ve had 3 of my former CS leaders in the last year transition into director of account management roles or SVP of account management roles and take over larger ownership and revenue and less focus on usage. That didn’t have a response to that.

Josh Schachter:
It’d be a way.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I because I don’t know that usage is what I would have customer success focus on anyway.

John:
Okay. I guess that’s a

Kristi Faltorusso:
So I guess that’s

John:
a one size fits all.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Like yeah. That’s I

John:
mean, like Yeah. The the training enablement, like like, ground floor, like, how do we get people up and running on the platform? Not just, like, I guess

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So more traditional customer success Yes. Less revenue focus. Customer You’re saying that you’re seeing the pendulum swing extremely in the other direction and that folks are moving to almost exclusively revenue roles?

John:
I’m seeing and I’m this is actually the question that I have for you. In b to b enterprise, I am hearing this started last year when we’re talking about who owns revenue and all this kind of stuff. With it, we’re actually transitioning over to an account management model, this year, which is for our whole organization and, like, what, 55 CSMs are kinda transitioning in that as well. We hired leadership that come from account management, and most of our exiting leadership, transitioned into account management roles. So I think one of the things that I’m seeing is two things. And this is what I wanted to ask you guys about. Is this industry something that we’re seeing in the industry, like a a a more focused term other than customer success? Because, you know, customer success is a company initiative. It’s not a department and all those sunshiny things that we’ve always said.

John:
Or is this people that have been underpaid as CSMs getting really sick and tired of small paychecks and moving into sales? Because that’s kind of the thing. It’s like, where is the roof for customer success? If if you’re not getting into director levels or leadership, like, where do you go? And I and I’m seeing a lot more extreme, like, experience, 10 to 15 years experience being far more comfortable stepping into an AM role than they are into, you know, whatever extra title they get from a CS.

Josh Schachter:
They wanna get closer to revenues because they wanna make more money. I agree. Yep. But I also think that there’s this merger happening, and it happened last year too. This isn’t a 2025 thing of combining CS and account management.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. I was gonna say, I don’t know that we wanna talk about exclusively the lens of titles as much as we do. We should break down against, like, roles and responsibilities because I don’t care what you call it. It’s, like, what is the responsibility of the professionals? Right? Like, what are they doing in their day job? Because I would say to to Josh’s point. Right? Like, this isn’t a new trend if we’re just seeing these individuals responsible for revenue, maybe getting targets and quotas, maybe being bit more structured than it had been. So I would say that’s new. But if you’re seeing a complete shift in the abandonment of customer success at an organizational level and these individuals are pivoting and taking an account management roles to maintain employment, that’s different.

John:
Yeah. And I think when I think back to, like, when I started in CS, it tradition like, I came out of account management roles. Like, that was like it was either customer support or account management. And I think, there’s 2 types of people 15 years ago that transitioned into CS. It was either the folks that were coming out of support, right, that just needed, like, an like, a deeper level of, you know, career or jobs. And then there’s, like, the sales folks that that didn’t couldn’t sell, right, or weren’t really, like, making it in the BDR AE model, so they move over to CS. And then there’s the folks that

Josh Schachter:
Or didn’t want the pressure of the

John:
Oh, yeah. Didn’t want the pressure of, like, the quota a little bit. Right?

Josh Schachter:
Same as couldn’t sell, but sure.

John:
Right. Yeah. I guess you’re right. That was a negative stint on it. Thank you. But then the other side is, like, then the sales guys are like, I’m a seller. I’m gonna be in sales, and I’m gonna make my huge money. Right? And then we’ve just kind of seen it diverge over the last 10 to 15 years.

John:
Yeah. In the first, like, 5 or 6 years that I had, I owned renewals. I owned upsells. I owned all of these, like, commercial conversations if we were talking about add ons. If it was a net new team, we kicked that over to the sales team, and I’m seeing this kind of, like, come back to that model. And I’m seeing a lot of people like, oh, maybe we should call it something else. And we get caught up in these, like, big feedback loops of, like, well, what is it called? And I like what you said, Christie. Because I don’t care what you call it.

John:
I don’t care what your title is. Like, what are your tasks? And I hope that we are seeing I’m wondering because I’m not in, like, the b to c space. I’m just curious if this is something that is more mostly like upmarket or if we’re still kinda seeing the renewal managers, the same implementation managers, all of those kind of, segmented skills that kind of now fit under that account management title that it used to be.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I I I just I think that from the very top of the organization at the executive, CRO, CCO level, you’re going to start to see these these mergings happening. Right? When, again, whoever whether it sits under the CRO or the CCO, like, you’re going to have one executive accountable for both. Yep. And you’re going to start to have revenues tied to customer success. And I think, honestly, I think that’s how it should be. I think, you know, like just everybody should be accountable and it makes it more fun and interesting. There is more pressure.

Josh Schachter:
There is more at stake, but I think it’s probably healthier for the organization. Why should and so it’s fair to customer success, too, right? Like, why should they why should they only, you know, be babysitting, adoption and things of that nature, but not have skin in the game for renewing and be able to Well,

Kristi Faltorusso:
only if they’re getting compensated for it.

Josh Schachter:
Well, sure. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Sure. Let’s not task with all this stuff and then make the assumption, like, oh, yeah. This is better for them. It’s only better for

Josh Schachter:
them if they’re outstanding. For it. Yes. Right. A 100%.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So if the comp models aren’t changing with the roles and the scope

Josh Schachter:
Fair. Yes.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Nobody likes that.

John:
No. We don’t. Yeah. We actually we had a CCO up until last year, and, when they we had our kind of, like, new reorg, they modeled us under our CRO again, which has been, interesting. I I really like it, so far, at least, I should say, if he’s listening. That’s why I say that. Love you,

Josh Schachter:
Jamie. And the comp structure is fair?

John:
I mean, I haven’t seen this year’s yet. So last year, I’m I’m pretty happy. I mean, you know, user testing has always taken care of us. Like Yeah. There may be chaos when it comes to transitions and and and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, I’ve got plenty of salt to pour into your margarita, but they’ve always taken care of us. I’ve I’ve been really pleased with that level of it at least. Yeah.

John:
So I trust that that there’s something that’s gonna be they’ve already told us. I think to your point, we were, like, usage based. Almost all last year, it was just usage. Like, that’s what our comp was on, and we realized, like, that’s really driving the wrong outcomes. It’s driving, hey, guys. Do this, do this, do this, do this because I needed to get a paycheck or other folks needed to get a paycheck. And the reality is just because somebody’s clicking a button doesn’t mean that they find the value in the platform or that they they actually meet an expected outcome that they’re aligned on. And if you’re just talking to the folks that are using the platform, they’re not the decision makers anyways.

John:
So

Kristi Faltorusso:
I will say and this is probably not a trend because it’s only literally been a handful of conversations, not more than that. But the leaders that I’ve chatted with already since the start of 2025, so over the past 6 days. They are all focused on redesigning comp models. And they are doing so with the objective of compensating customer success professionals for revenue activities.

John:
Mhmm. I love it.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So I’m so grateful. To see that there is more of a focus on that. In fact, one leader I chatted with this morning or this afternoon or another, he’s actually focused on building his CS function around a p and l to truly understand the profitability of their business in terms of the revenue comp you know, their contributions to the overall business. And I was like, I love that. Yeah. So I I don’t know. Like I said, it’s too soon for me to be like, yes. This is what’s happening.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s literally been a handful of conversations over a couple days. But every single one of those conversations, it has been with a leader talking about redesigning comp structures with this intention.

John:
Yeah. I love that.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Josh, how do

John:
you think

Kristi Faltorusso:
about everyone is taking on revenue.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I’m thinking about comping for my my army of customer success managers.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, 70 5. Pay yourself?

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Hey. I do have a You do yourself?

John:
Are we getting paid?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, you guys are getting paid?

Josh Schachter:
You’re not getting the checks.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I quit.

John:
I did get this really nice long sleeve pullover.

Josh Schachter:
That was last year. That was last year.

John:
Thank you for pointing that out.

Josh Schachter:
I didn’t get anything. I think it was this year as well.

John:
That was trying to make the point that you didn’t send me anything this year.

Josh Schachter:
Gift is in the mail. Your Christmas gift is in the mail.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Aren’t they always?

Josh Schachter:
Yes. No. Literally. Literally. Okay. So, other trends. Other other things to be looking out for in 2025. I mean, we can talk about AI.

Josh Schachter:
We talk about the tools. We talk

John:
about all that. Let’s see.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Talk about how you get ready for AI.

Josh Schachter:
Sure. Go ahead. How are you getting ready for AI, Christy?

John:
Can we

Kristi Faltorusso:
talk can we talk about data? Okay. Listen. I think everyone is super focused on, like, the innovation that AI is gonna provide. And I listen. I am I’m bought in. I believe that it’s going to be transformative, but how can we get there when everyone’s sitting on crap data that they don’t trust?

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Christy, I love when you talk dirty data to me. Mhmm.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, data is always in the world. So that’s I I mean, listen. I That

John:
did something to me, Christie. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
I bet.

John:
Gotta be honest. That

Kristi Faltorusso:
I bet.

Josh Schachter:
I’m sure, John.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I bet. Alright. We’re gonna

Josh Schachter:
Okay. Talk data. Talk talk data.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So and listen. I know this is not the case in every situation. But for a lot of the AI in the technologies that I’m at least exploring and tinkering with, they require data to, like, power some things. And so it’s like, okay. Great. If these are all the outcomes that I’m gonna get from this tool, right, whether it’s predictive insights or I’m getting some action, right, is gonna drive other actions, and it’s based off of inputs or some data that’s being collected. But if that is inaccurate, outdated, inconsistent, there’s no governance

Josh Schachter:
on it

John:
Yeah. How

Kristi Faltorusso:
are we trusting it? So, like, what good is the AI if it’s sitting on garbage? It’s not. Right? It’s not. Am I wrong? No. But so, like, why isn’t everyone like, why isn’t that everyone’s top priority? Because I think AI still has a lot to be built and, like, I think there’s a lot coming. Right? Yeah. So if I’m a CS leader, today, I’m preparing for the future, and I would be doing that by focusing on how do we get my data so clean, so tight, get the governance around it. Like, make sure that when all of the technologies that I want to use are ready, so am I.

Josh Schachter:
So what are you referring to? C m CRM data? What what

Kristi Faltorusso:
what type of anything. I mean, like, listen. Data doesn’t live just in your CRM. And even if it is in your CRM No.

Josh Schachter:
But what type of data are

Kristi Faltorusso:
you referring to? Everywhere. It it depends on what you’re using. I don’t know. I can tell you right now. Anytime I ask anytime I’m speaking at an event and I ask people, raise your hand if you trust your data, there’s always 2 people in the crowd that raise their hand, and I’m like, you’re lying to yourself. That’s fine.

Josh Schachter:
There is no What does that mean? But what is but, like, get specific. I don’t I like, I get it. Do you

John:
mean, like Like, customer data, like

Kristi Faltorusso:
talking about let’s just talk about customer data. Let’s just talk about how many how many of your contacts are outdated? People have left. You’ve got outdated titles. You’ve got outdated email addresses. People aren’t even there anymore. I mean, we’re just talking, like, basic things. Like, just with contact information. Cool.

Kristi Faltorusso:
That’s wrong. Okay? So if you’re using this to drive automations and insights around people, and I’m gonna go collect a what are you doing that with? People that aren’t even there anymore? Things that aren’t even useful? If it’s gonna have, again, actions that are driven from predictive insights, cool. Are we sending things to the wrong people? Are we gonna get bounce backs? I’m only talking about that one piece of information. Now you’ve got customer data that’s outdated. You’ve got folks who don’t log any of their information in one place. I still talk to CSMs who this one uses Evernote. This one uses OneNote. This one uses their notebook.

Kristi Faltorusso:
This one uses Google Notes. This one you like, okay. But that’s company’s proprietary data. Why isn’t it being stored in governed technology that is approved by your IT and security teams? Like, why like, how is that happening?

Josh Schachter:
John, it sounds like she works for a CS platform.

John:
Oh, do you work for wait. Centralize all

Josh Schachter:
the data. Yeah. We weren’t aware

John:
of that. Here let’s, Josh, do you remember our conversation?

Kristi Faltorusso:
True. This isn’t a TV.

John:
No. It’s totally true. But do you remember do you remember conversation we had a couple weeks ago with, Lauren from Glean? Yep. This is one of those things that I I’ve been spending a lot of time on is is I I agree with you, Christy. Like, the data problem is part of the problem. But what Josh is pointing out, I think, is the bigger problem, is that I think that we say data, and I don’t think that we actually say what we mean. Right? So if nobody owns data, how marketing handles their leads is gonna be completely different than how sales does does. And those often transition from marketing to sales to CS.

John:
Right? And if we’re all in separate tools and the taxonomy is different, like how they spell their names, if there’s a prefix or a post, any of that kind of stuff is dependent on departments. And all of these tools are selling into silos. They’re selling as a solution for CS. But the solution for CS isn’t just AI. The solution for CS should be, here’s all the data in the rest of your organization. It’s not just your data.

Josh Schachter:
Yep.

John:
And I don’t see tools that are actually, like, breaking through on that. And I know that’s because of how you sell, and VCs need quick wins, and they need growth, and all there’s so much stuff that goes into that. But we are still in this AI as a point solution where there isn’t actually a platform that says

Josh Schachter:
Well, the good news is that the the the what’s coming are agent workflows. Right? Like, we all we’ve heard it. Right? And one of the nice virtues of agent workflows is that they’re gonna be able to traverse all those different databases,

Kristi Faltorusso:
all the

John:
different systems. Identify.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Identify. And so I was actually listening to a podcast, a much better one than ours yesterday from

John:
the That’s a difficult job.

Josh Schachter:
From the, from the team at Y Combinator. One of the few things that I like that comes out of Y Combinator. And, they were talking about, like, how, the, you know, like, agent work like, it’s gonna be the demise in some ways. I don’t wanna be sensational here, and this is a different topic. But, like, in some ways, the demise of SaaS software because you can have an agent that can traverse any back end system, whatever code it’s written in, whatever database, and can collect all that information for you. And then that becomes the Copilot just to surface whatever you need. And so this stuff is coming. Now that’s not a very practical response for, like, the year 2025 because agent workflows are, you know, here, and they’re gonna be becoming much more prominent in 2025.

Josh Schachter:
So my prediction is that just like it took, like, a little bit more mass adoption, like, about a year for people to understand what an LLM is and to really kinda start becoming more familiar with Chat gbt. By the end of this year, people are gonna really start to becoming, like, more familiar with with agent workflows and start to use those. I was actually in Zapier today this morning, and all of a sudden, like, the the thing was like, hey. What kind of workflow do you wanna build? And I just typed in a prompt, and it automatically just created the entire workflow, which is amazing.

John:
Now let me I I agree with you. I I think to to your question, Josh, about, like, what do we need to do to get ready for that, I do think that CS leaders need to educate themselves on how data transformation happens within your organization. And I think Yeah. CSMs have been so secluded from, like, true data. Like, we don’t have access to the data lakes. I get the reports from Tableau that somebody else builds for me. Right? I I there’s so many tools out there that are so powerful that we don’t necessarily have controller access over. So I I do think the intelligent leaders in CS specifically are going to understand this year how to not unify with the customer alignment, but also, like, understand how data transitions internally.

John:
And this unification that had to happen this last year because of budgets is actually gonna benefit us because we reduced tools. We reduced size.

Josh Schachter:
Really interesting. I really like that. What you were saying is, like, because right now, if you’re you’re blocked or you’re gated by the reports that somebody in ops or something is generating for you, right, that you have to wait for to be have delivered in a certain time or day or whatever kind of event that isn’t there. You’re gonna be able just like this morning, I was able to do in Zapier, you’re gonna be able to just go and type a prompt or 2 and and polish it and have whatever data you want. You know, whatever report and alert you want created just bespoke for you. Right.

John:
As long as there’s governance. Right? And I think that’s the thing is that

Josh Schachter:
That’s fair.

John:
Yep. Just because, like, if that tool doesn’t have an integration with Zapier or doesn’t have an integration with Tableau or doesn’t have an integration with Pendo where half of the data is living, then you’re not gonna have you’re gonna have segmented data. And this is kind of the point that I’m making is you because we live in such a, like, a bifurcated, siloed, weird everybody’s got hatchet jobs with all of these tools of how things work, and everybody’s got a road map. There isn’t gonna be, like, the one ring to rule them all because you can’t build an integration for all of the tools. Right? Is it Clari, or is it Planhat, or is it Right. You know, Salesforce, or is it HubSpot? It’s like, oh, we focus on HubSpot. So, yeah, we’re gonna sell to HubSpot customers, but then that customer transitions to Salesforce, and then you lose all of your right? I mean, we’re still playing in the same space where Yeah. Yeah.

John:
I hear what you’re saying, and that is a beautiful future. But because the systems that the organizations that we’re building these in don’t work that way, there is no harmonious, like, utopia, you’re still gonna have tools that get ripped out, and then and then you’re gonna be missing the largest piece of data because that doesn’t work with, you know, whatever LLM was built for you or built by you or OpenAI licenses, you know, all those kind of things. Like, there’s so many complications that it’s not just a free for all. We are still locked behind, like, the infrastructure of these organizations. And if you got the marketing leader and you’ve got the CS leader and you’ve got the IT leader, but the sales leader is like, fuck that. I’m not doing that, then you’ve missed your pipeline. And if you implement, you’re not gonna have clean data. You’re gonna be missing a large part of it, and then you’re just gonna be working yourself into the problems because what wins?

Josh Schachter:
Well, cool. I like it. I feel like this is one of those conversations where it’s kinda talking in circles. Like, we’re all on the same page. Like, you gotta have Oh, yeah. The data, like, have, you know, have the right systems talking to each other. I don’t know what the Just

John:
want one tool for everything, man. The whole thing.

Josh Schachter:
Just, like, let

John:
me log in to one thing.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah.

John:
Should we

Kristi Faltorusso:
go build it?

John:
No. It’s hard.

Josh Schachter:
Well, it’s kinda like what Rippling is doing for HR software. Right? They’re just creating the foundation and then different apps and different teams that act as their own little start ups within the company to build the apps on top of it.

John:
What, Christy, what do you, what do you wanna see this year?

Kristi Faltorusso:
What I wanna see? I wanna see people get their shit together. I I feel like I I know that’s, like, such a broad statement as a complaint. Like, I wanna be this, like, visionary right now and be like, oh my gosh. Here’s the future, and here’s what I wanna see. And, like, I have a notebook full of that. There are teams that aren’t even ready for, like, what’s available, like, 8 months ago, and so I just feel like we just need organizations to, like, figure out what it is that they’re supposed to be doing and start doing that. And I just feel like there’s still an absence of that in more in more places than I think is okay at this point.

Josh Schachter:
I wanna see a lot of the CSMs that are looking for work get work.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yes. Well Has anyone seen the LinkedIn feed? Like, I don’t know. The past couple days, my feed has just been people announcing jobs and promotions. And so I don’t know. Like, I actually made a TikTok video just not that long ago about that very thing. I think that we’re gonna see that turn a corner, Josh. I do think that the market will put back up.

Josh Schachter:
I do too.

John:
I do too. Well, q 4 was strong for a lot. If you look at all of the reports that we saw, you know, in in the the last year, like, our, you know, our numbers are up. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in our customer base, and numbers are up for q 4. Like, there seems to be a loosening of purse strings, which is great. But to your point, like, yeah, let’s throw bodies at it. But, you know, maybe we need more consultants that are coming in and bashing heads together and saying, like, do you know your core problems? Do you know where your leaky buckets are? Do you know what your retention actually means? And I liked your point about, like, building a CS practice around a P and L. Like, yeah.

John:
So your CSMs manage $2,000,000 and you pay them x, but, like, what’s the effort that they’re putting into? Didn’t you have oh, man. Christie, I feel like you had, like, a what was the you didn’t wanna call it a QBR. This was a couple years ago. You had a

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, a core. Core. My custom my customer objective review.

John:
Yeah. Yeah. Like, does anybody know what their customer’s objectives are?

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. I did I did a post on that this morning too. I’m like, it’s January. Like, you got no excuses right now. Like, you could like, this is the best time to rally around that.

Josh Schachter:
That’s what we’re that’s my vision for Update for 2025, by the way, seriously, is we wanna stitch together what we have in our product. And I’m not gonna go and use this as a hopeful advertisement. But, like Like

John:
you do normally.

Josh Schachter:
Like, I do normally. But, we think that there’s a huge opportunity in, like, basically tracking the objectives. We call it the stated needs. Right? Stated needs, objectives, fine, whatever. But tracking the needs objectives of your customers from very beginning to end and just making sure there’s the right cadence and everybody’s voice is heard and that you’re following up appropriately. I think that’s a huge and, actually, one of the things that I’m starting to hear is, which is good for us is, like, voice of the customer seems to to to have evolved in the past, you know, several months from what it was before. It’s no longer people aren’t people before would be like, okay. I’ve got my NPS.

Josh Schachter:
That’s my voice of the customer. Alright. Nobody actually wants to listen to NPS. But, like but now I think people really understand that that LLMs and and technology can properly interpret voice of the customer even from different data sources, to your point before. And so I see that being, like, a much stronger thing as a trend in the industry. What else?

John:
What else, Josh?

Josh Schachter:
Oh. Oh. LinkedIn posts. Gosh.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Here we go.

Josh Schachter:
There we go. Here he goes. So hard. Old man Schachter. Here he goes.

John:
Get off my lawn.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I would like to see less, and I’m talking about myself included and very much so, Christy. Of course.

Kristi Faltorusso:
What do I do now?

John:
I wanna see less from you, Christy.

Josh Schachter:
Less less less AI generated LinkedIn posts.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I don’t use the AI for my post.

John:
Writes all her shit. Oh.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I use it sometimes to, like, clean up. No. No. I’ll use it to clean up my stuff because most more often than not, my my, content has typos and grammatical errors. And so I got a lot of people who love to send me DMs about, hey. You have a typo in your post. And so, obviously, basically completely I was like, I obviously, like, my typo made the whole the whole post invaluable to you. I get it.

Kristi Faltorusso:
But You told I’ll use it

Josh Schachter:
for that. You told us that you use, LLMs for your posts.

Kristi Faltorusso:
What are you talking about? No. I don’t.

Josh Schachter:
Yes. I sent John and you a text, like, 3 weeks ago. I was like, hey, guys. I discovered the most amazing thing. All I have to do is talk to my Chat GBT app on my mobile phone, and it will spit out an amazing for, like, a minute, and it’ll spit out an amazing LinkedIn post.

John:
Are you

Josh Schachter:
sure you

John:
sent that to us, Chuck? Yes.

Josh Schachter:
You definitely sent this whole thing about, like, her calendar schedule and this and that. She’s like, welcome to 2024.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No. I yes. I have a calendar of all of my topics, but that’s not AI writing my content. Oh, I like

Josh Schachter:
saying is that

Kristi Faltorusso:
they are writing my content for you.

John:
No. I don’t want AI to write my content. So many.

Josh Schachter:
You shouldn’t. But I do. Yeah. So I basically ask people I

John:
mean, no. But let’s get to my point.

Josh Schachter:
I have

Kristi Faltorusso:
a content calendar. I have a content calendar for

Josh Schachter:
all of my contacts. People out there, but I see so many people out there where, like, because at this point, like, you can sniff the really, like, lazy when people, like, generate it through through AI and are just too lazy to change it on their own. Right? And you can, like, you can just smell the formatting of it with, like, some, like

John:
Yeah. It’s the unquote knowledge of content.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I will say yes and no. Because if you actually follow people who are, you know, brand people who talk about, like, how to write for LinkedIn, they are giving very prescriptive formulas on how to write content that will get engagement. So I think you’ve got more people who are paying attention to how do I work with the LinkedIn algorithms. So creating shorter sentences, making sure you have a hook. So I do think that there is a formula that a lot of people are are are following, but, no, I am not disagreeing with you, Josh. I do believe that there is ton of lazy people who are just using AI to write all content.

Josh Schachter:
You know what I think I’m more focused on?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I think you’re seeing a combination of both, and so it’s making it appear as if everything is changing again.

John:
Let me push one button here because I I noticed a trend too. I felt I started feeling this last year, but there are those of us that posted every day and got really good at content, were really, like, interest that was, like, 2020. Right? That’s, like, when I started, and you get some recognition, you win an award, you get to go on panels, and you do all these things. Right? And then you get, like, 3 years into it, and you kinda like like you said, Josh, you kinda get turned into, like, the get off my lawn guy, right, where it’s like, why am I still doing this? Like, I don’t get the same buzz anymore. It’s like we’re addicts here just, like, looking for the next big fix. However, I think LinkedIn has changed dramatically in the last 3 years. Before, in 2019, it’s been

Josh Schachter:
a week of crap. Right? What are you saying?

John:
Well, it’s really turned into TikTok or Instagram. Like, it’s now an algorithm, and now you gotta hack it. And now everybody that is a thought leader is now just a thought leader to be a thought leader.

Josh Schachter:
And can I can I have a very honest moment with you?

John:
You do like you never do before.

Josh Schachter:
I’m a little bit jealous because, like, Gen Zers just get it. There’s something that they that they just get on how to write crap content that goes viral that I don’t understand. And I’m actually.

John:
But it means nothing.

Josh Schachter:
But it means nothing. It means

John:
nothing. It’s vapid. And I think that’s that point. And I think that’s the thing is that, like, I, I love the idea of inclusive communities, and I love the idea of learning and thought leadership. But the problem is when it becomes all gamified, and I think this is a LinkedIn problem. I think that corporate, like LinkedIn fucked it up. Yeah. And then now they’re pushing videos, and it’s like, that’s gonna really draw down the value of it.

John:
I remember when when like, my first job in in SaaS and software. Like, I couldn’t go to Facebook, but I could go to LinkedIn. So right? Like, they blocked Facebook. Right? So but I couldn’t go to LinkedIn because that was professional. Right? And so that’s where you spend your time, and and it’s a little bit of a dark web. Not really dark web, but, you know, it’s just the Wild West. Right? It didn’t have any of the bells and whistles. But now it’s like more it’s you buy you can buy ads on LinkedIn super easily through the mobile program.

John:
Like, it’s just turned into another Facebook. And I and I don’t know how you can have something that has that much value like LinkedIn does. Microsoft bought it. Of course, they’re gonna turn it into, like, a monetation monetization process. But it really sucked a lot of the joy out of, like, true connections because I did I posted something 2 weeks ago. I didn’t get any engagement. I was like, well, this is bullshit, and I deleted it. I was like, so pissed.

John:
Right? I was like, I’m never doing this again. Oh, I get to be I have all these followers. Why do I have to pay to get it?

Josh Schachter:
So it’s I would have liked it.

John:
No. But it’s the same thing as, like, as as a musician who spent most of my time on social media trying to get, like, thousands upon thousands of followers that never engage with my content because it doesn’t it’s not spicy enough or it doesn’t have a hook. And it’s like we now have to be marketers on top of everything else, And I’m fucking tired. I am so burned out on all of the changes within my organization that I cannot keep up with new algorithmic changes on LinkedIn every 3 to 4 weeks because the long tail is now important. And now it’s gonna be video, and you’ve gotta have the lighting and all this stuff.

Josh Schachter:
Now you just turn into something else. It’s turned into social media. Maybe maybe I should accept that, actually. Maybe if you just accept that it’s social media, then maybe I

Kristi Faltorusso:
mean, it is social media.

Josh Schachter:
Well, it is. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It is. But it’s like but like it’s like national Inquire social media now. Right? It’s like

John:
it’s like we’re definitely in, like, star and repeat, like, inquiring territory at this point.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. It is now the New York Post.

Kristi Faltorusso:
TMZ for other generations.

John:
But also, how are we going to find people in this industry? Right? Like, I get it. Like, there’s so much value to it, but so many people

Kristi Faltorusso:
are trying to

John:
build

Kristi Faltorusso:
But is there?

John:
Because I can go and say, hey. I had coffee with this this girl. What does she do for, like, figure it out?

Josh Schachter:
You know you know how much more valuable I think LinkedIn will be with with AI with,

John:
like, media? It’s gonna be huge.

Josh Schachter:
I mean, all the data that LinkedIn has, you know, about what you post, whether or not it’s genuine or not. But it’s

John:
just how type, verbiage, how you speak. But then, Josh, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. We’re already starting to see, like, these AI LLMs being fed by other LLMs. Right? So if everything on LinkedIn is AI created and we use another l AI to tell me about Josh Schacter, it’s gonna go look at your profile and everything that you posted that is all AI. Yeah. And it’s gonna be self it’s like, oh, he’s very intelligent,

Josh Schachter:
and he’s very

John:
all this stuff. But in reality, you’re just a you’re just a bald middle aged dude who, like, hates CS. Right? Like Yeah. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. But we know that.

John:
But if you read your AI generated LinkedIn post ACS.

Josh Schachter:
Yes. But anyways, keep going.

John:
I know. You don’t. But that’s but do you see what I’m saying? Like, that to to Christy’s point, that’s not good data.

Josh Schachter:
Mhmm.

John:
We’re putting out the future feeders of LLMs, and it’s gonna fuck all that stuff up. Right?

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. That’s a good point.

John:
It is a good point.

Josh Schachter:
Now I understand what Christy was saying. We have to prepare for the day because you’re right. If you put in bad data, it will train on bad data.

John:
Yeah. That will give you

Josh Schachter:
good responses. Yeah.

John:
And then how do you tell what is? Like, oh, I gotta tag it with AI, but then it’s gonna be like, oh, I don’t value it because it’s AI. It’s like, actually, like, we should learn how to live with our global overlords because Skynet is coming. Like

Josh Schachter:
But, Chris, you’ve been you’ve been evangelizing this for a while that, like, before you put on put put in place, like, some fancy tools and all this kind of stuff, just get your processes in place. Right? Isn’t that what you do with a lot of your customers is, like, you’re like, hey. Great. Sign the contract. We’re great to great to work with you. Now let’s actually take a look. Let’s, like, actually figure out the processes to make sure that they’re gonna fit.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, the problem is is that it is cart before the horse if you’re buying the software before you have the strategy. And

John:
Right. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Despite the fact that I say that all the time, and I know I’m not the only voice out there who who says that because it’s true, People are still buying technology because they believe that they need that to orchestrate a strategy.

John:
Yeah. It’s really good salespeople.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And so I’ll tell you, like, what ends up happening is that I get customers who don’t have a strategy behind it. So, therefore, they don’t have goals. They don’t have objectives because they’re thinking that it very tactically. And so it’s, like, okay. Well, I just I just need a place for my CSMs to go and log all their calls. I’m, like, but why? What what is the benefit of that? Right now, what are you gonna do with that? Right? Like, so I end up having all these conversations where we try to, like, weave in some strategy in support of that. But if you’re coming in and you don’t really have a plan, it’s hard to then expect the technology to drive something for

John:
you. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
We’re a mechanism. We’re just a mechanism to orchestrate your strategy. We are not the strategy. Yep. And Amen. I I guess this is where, you know, when John said, what do I want for the future? It’s like, I I want people to have the strategy. Like, go do the work. Build the foundation.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Figure it out. When I ask people, okay, well, what’s the reason? Like, what are the top three reasons why your customers churned last year? You get all kinds of like wacky responses. So it’s like, well, you know, like there was a lot of turnover. I’m like, that’s not why your customers churned. Because if you had one person who left your organization, did you only have one person who was using it? Did they did they was there not enough value? Is it not being social? Like, there’s a ton of other reasons behind that. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s not that’s not a part of your churn problem. Right? But that’s the data that people are reporting out, and that’s what people are citing. And, like, that’s the story that’s going to the boards.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s wrong. People just lack any sense of strategy and and control and governance around what’s happening. And then everyone wonders why these programs aren’t working, why they’re not successful, why they can’t retain their customers, why they can’t grow their customers. And then why CS is being taken away from customer success professionals and being handed back to sales teams. Because we haven’t earned the right to keep our business. Shame on us. Sorry.

John:
I love when you get passionate.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. But it’s true. This is what’s frustrating to me. Right? So, like, when you see people like this, John, this is kinda like the full circle moment back to you. Like, okay. Well, we’re seeing everything kinda move into account management. We haven’t earned the right to keep it. And at the end of the day, if if we’re not retaining our customers and giving the organization the ability to grow a base, because we don’t have a base, we’re not preserving that base, then what are we doing?

John:
I’m gonna throw one wrench because I agree.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Go. Throw all the wrench. Throw all the tools.

John:
My dad actually say

Kristi Faltorusso:
all your tools.

John:
He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is still a tool, and I always love that. No. But CSM is supposed to be consistent with our customers. They’re supposed to show up consistently. That’s how you build trust. That’s how you build responsibility. That’s that’s how you build everything in this industry. Right? However, our leaders for the last 2 years, every 3 months, have thrown CS into chaos.

John:
Not because a CSM doesn’t know what they’re doing, but because leadership did not understand what was going on in the market. Since 2020, it has been up and down all over the place, and we are overreacting as an industry and as practitioners. And our leaders have been the ones. I’m not saying that there isn’t fault on the individuals, but, like, it’s gotten to the point where every 3 months, my target changes, my comp structure changes, what I’m supposed to be doing changes, and the things that I do in global and key accounts takes like a year to implement these programs. So I start something in January, and I have to start over again in March, and I have to start over again in June. And then they say, hey. Where’s usage at? And it’s like, well, I haven’t fucking finished anything because every single time you told me to paint the wall blue, now I gotta paint it red. And tomorrow, it’s gonna be green.

John:
So you know what? I’m just gonna wait till you figure it out. And then we sit with these stagnant accounts, and our customers start saying, you told me something different last week. We have good intentions. We are in those rooms saying, no. This is where we’re going. I I have the I have the road map. I have the my leadership. We did our kickoff.

John:
We did all this. And then 2 weeks later, you know what? Scrap that. We’re gonna try something else. Right? And it’s like, I just brought a 1000 people into this room based on this promise, and it is now changing again. Why do you think the customers aren’t listening to us? Like, it’s because every single time I open my mouth, I am telling them something different, and I’m so fucking sick of it. Oh.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Well, if you go to the Reddit customer success sub thread, the Oh, I do. You guys are not the only ones. That seems to be a pretty consistent theme across a lot of businesses is just the consistent change, the lack of guidance, the misstep expectations. Just it seems like every organization is a disaster. If I’m basing it solely on Reddit. What is them to repurpose. Obviously, everything on Reddit is a 100% accurate. But, I mean, listen.

Kristi Faltorusso:
For as much content that is out there, the the theme is pretty consistent. Right? Like, these organizations are messy. We won’t say what messy looks like because that’s different from company to company. But things are messy. Middle management sucks. And listen, they’re they’re just caught in the middle of a whole bunch of things.

John:
I wanna say,

Kristi Faltorusso:
like I mean, listen. The the fault is at the top. Right? A 100% because that’s what drives all the behavior all the way down. But people gotta

John:
I just feel like everybody is stuck in the middle. And while most people that I meet have such good intentions, they walk into it with such good intentions. It’s like we have we don’t have a memory of, like, the happy person that we showed them 3 months ago. And when we go into it, like, I’ve had so many leaders just kinda revolve and be like, hey. We’re gonna be we’re gonna do great stuff this quarter. Right? And then they’re gone. And somebody else comes in and says, we’re gonna do great stuff this quarter. And then they wanna know why CSMs are like, god, could you just shut up? I just need to get my emails done.

John:
Like, it’s like, can we just be real and say this is fucking hard, and this is a really difficult time, and we are humans just like our customers are humans? Yeah. And I don’t I hear this human centric conversation, and that usually means, like, I’m gonna give you beer in the fridge, and we’ve got ping pong. But the reality is is, like, no. Like, just acknowledge the fact that that we are fucked up. Like, that this is a difficult time, and that’s why it’s work. That’s why it’s a job, and that’s there is fun in unfucking things. Un in an that was not my college experience, but you get what I’m saying. I I do.

John:
I I enjoy that. But if everything that is coming out of leadership is sunshine and roses, and it’s disconnected from the fact that, like, we’re kind of in the shit right now, I would love it if my CRO was just like, we are in the shit right now, and it’s gonna be chaotic. And you need to tell your customers to stick with us however you can.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I mean, listen. The big issue here is that everyone expects that customer success impact is the same as sales. Right? Like, you’re able to see it fast and quick. If you put your pipe like, if you dial up marketing and your pipeline is, you know, 10 x greater than it was, great. Then you’re gonna be able to increase sales. And customer success doesn’t work that way. Right? The amount of work that has to go in to move your retention a point, to remove to move growth a point, it’s just it takes a long time to see that. And I think the problem here is that we’re not seeing impact and results quick enough for the board, for the CEOs.

Kristi Faltorusso:
And so as a result, everything is like, okay, quick pivot. Do something else because this isn’t working. It’s like, well, nope. You haven’t given it enough time to actually see if it can work.

John:
Mhmm. Right?

Josh Schachter:
You know what’s interesting? I I hear We’re

Kristi Faltorusso:
not tracking the right early indicators. Right? And then that’s the other thing is we don’t actually even know what those indicators are to say, like, hey. Look. We’ve early indication that this will work. We have to continue to work it. But we’re we don’t have those insights to share because we’re not being very thoughtful on how we’re measuring the entire workflow of the things we’re putting in place. Sorry, Josh. You were sad.

Josh Schachter:
No. No. I I do hear from from, like, VCs and stuff that I get the sense that there’s more appreciation for CS than there was before and for post CS.

John:
No. I agree. I I agree. And I would say, like, in my organization, I am feeling it. Like, we have had such a focus on the the way that we have retained customers over the last 3 years, and I’m so proud of of so many of the efforts and the things that we have done. There’s been so many good things. And I’m also now seeing us kind of pivot more into what our net new logo looks like. And that’s where this account management model that I started the conversation with, whatever you wanna call it, is like my sales guys are my inside sales guys on a global and key strategic accounts work within their install base.

John:
Right? And they’re writing orders for renewals and upsells, and they’re hitting their quota with that. And I’m talking to them too in the same spaces, and we’re all kind of on the calls together. Those people that are making those 3, $400,000 as, like, global account directors could be making that same money going and bringing in new logos while I sit and keep the shop open. Right? And that’s the model that I wanna see where we’re not all just sitting in the same room, stepping on each other’s toes, having to align, and how what are you gonna take, and what am I gonna take? Like, fuck off. Like, I can handle this, or you can handle this. Right? And let’s segment our tasks in a way that says the sales guys are getting these really big salaries. Let’s make sure that they’re bringing in the net new so that we can retain them in the long run. Yeah.

John:
Get them out of the weeds.

Josh Schachter:
Let’s leave it on that. You guys are all very well spoken today. I I I they’re very, very cogent points from from both sides here.

John:
Well, thank you.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Thank you. I can tell you just

John:
just just

Josh Schachter:
just just just just just

Kristi Faltorusso:
just renew us for the remainder of 2020.

Josh Schachter:
That was that was your yeah. That was your this this was your audition, and and you’ve made the cut to 25. I’m glad I

John:
set up.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Well, you know, it was all the I guess focus

Kristi Faltorusso:
on all the mail. There are 2 podcasts. It’s a good thing.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. And your and your TikTok and your Instagram and and your Have

John:
you checked out fee finder yet?

Josh Schachter:
Alright, folks. Maybe. We’ll see you next week. Good

John:
day. Love you guys.

Josh Schachter:
Love you guys.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Bye, guys.

Josh Schachter:
Bye.