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Unchurned is presented by UpdateAI. 

Jon Johnson:
Happy Monday.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, you’re starting us off. Oh, okay. New year, new you, new MC. We’re back.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. You sound great, but I can’t See it. I wish you looked more official, like, put it in the shot.

Jon Johnson:
There we go. Because I’m not

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s so pretty.

Josh Schachter:
I know. I know. John, over to you.

Jon Johnson:
No. No. No. No.

Josh Schachter:
No. No. No. Please. Please. Please.

Jon Johnson:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to unchurned podcast, CS and BS with the crew. We are calling in. It’s it’s the new year, 2024. We’re happy to be here. I am John Johnson, Principal customer success manager at User Testing. I’d love to introduce the rest of my my my guest hosts. Who’s next? Christie, who are you? That’s tough.

Ejieme Eromosele:
By the

Josh Schachter:
way, John,

Jon Johnson:
is it see,

Josh Schachter:
now you understand. Isn’t it? I don’t know. I was gonna say something,

Kristi Faltorusso:
and now I’m

Jon Johnson:
not No. Well, because we’re digital, like, there’s no, like, body language to be like, Hugo.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Hugo. I’m like, you understand why you like to go. The show when I start off the show, that’s the hardest part of the show is, like, who’s gonna go next? Because I don’t wanna sit there and say everybody’s names, But then it’s like there’s no round robin who you don’t know the order. I mean, we show

Mickey Powell:
all the Goes by Chris I

Kristi Faltorusso:
mean, doesn’t it even know John, me, Mickey, Josh?

Jon Johnson:
That’s been my experience. But I also love that we’re, you know, we’re 8 days into the year, and we still haven’t introduced our guest.

Mickey Powell:
It’s been 8 days.

Jon Johnson:
Who is this? We have somebody else with us in the room. Wait. So let’s see.

Josh Schachter:
You’re just skipping the okay.

Jon Johnson:
Chris, we know who Mickey and Josh

Kristi Faltorusso:
is. No. No. No. No. Hold on. John, you have to do it the right way. Stop.

Jon Johnson:
Yes.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. I’m gonna go, And then Mickey’s gonna go, and then Josh’s gonna go.

Josh Schachter:
And then excited about this. Christy, do you have a new do does Christy have a new spiel?

Jon Johnson:
Yes. She does.

Josh Schachter:
I think somebody

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. I don’t.

Josh Schachter:
Spiel over the holidays.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I don’t have a new spiel. My spiel is literally the same. Hi, guys. I’m Christie Faltorusso, chief customer officer at client success. I’ve been in the customer success industry for the past 12 years building, scaling, and transforming customer success. I am thrilled to be your cohost here on CS and BS.

Josh Schachter:
Oh my gosh. It’s just full of saccharin This is so good.

Jon Johnson:
And sass. I love it. This is so good. Alright. And Mickey’s gonna come really far below. Who are you, Nikki?

Mickey Powell:
Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. My name is Mickey Powell. I’m the head of go to market at UpdateAI. Spent the last 10 years holding way too many positions in customer and operations. Excited to be here with the crew and our amazing guest, and looking forward to make a conversation

Jon Johnson:
until we get

Kristi Faltorusso:
You didn’t say anything about AI, though, Mickey. That feels weird and off brand.

Mickey Powell:
Weird. He is tramp. Is a living embodiment of the problem. I I try to just keep it you know? I try to tone it down. Because if not, then I’m just gonna go too far and, yeah, just too much.

Josh Schachter:
Then he hears from me after the episode.

Mickey Powell:
Who are you?

Josh Schachter:
Who is me?

Jon Johnson:
Who are you? Who are you? Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Who is me?

Jon Johnson:
With a new microphone. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Josh.

Josh Schachter:
I’m Josh. Josh Schachter, founder and CEO of UpdateAI, the least knowledgeable about the

Jon Johnson:
customer experience. I’ll be honest.

Josh Schachter:
Like, I give you a lot of

Jon Johnson:
shit, but the reason that we’re all here is because Josh decided to get this group together, and it’s been a wonderful almost year. I’m just excited.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s one of those things he regrets a little bit every time we get back on this podcast.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Right?

Josh Schachter:
Yep. Only Only when it takes us to 4 minutes 4 minutes to get to our guest’s name doesn’t

Jon Johnson:
do I

Mickey Powell:
regret it.

Jon Johnson:
Has kind of been the theme. Yeah. Who are you gonna introduce our guest?

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. I’d like I’d like to introduce everybody to

Ejieme Eromosele:
Are you

Josh Schachter:
sure you’re gonna do that? I know I know I know your first name To Ajime Alright.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We can work with that.

Josh Schachter:
Aramos Aramosso. Okay. Yeah. That’s workable.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Are we giving him? Does he get a b? Like, is that a b?

Jon Johnson:
C plus.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We do. So, factoring that in, I think he would get, like, a b minus.

Josh Schachter:
It would be mine. It would be,

Ejieme Eromosele:
like, on the lower end.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. She’s being kind of conversation that we had before we started recording.

Ejieme Eromosele:
This is true.

Jon Johnson:
That’s why I wrote it down.

Ejieme Eromosele:
That’s why

Kristi Faltorusso:
I got the mileage.

Mickey Powell:
Wrote it down. I made sure to write to write it down, like, phonetically, Ajamay.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Okay. There you go. You should let me know.

Josh Schachter:
How do you pronounce your last name?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Aramicelli.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, I was totally off.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. I mean, you

Jon Johnson:
I mean,

Ejieme Eromosele:
it’s more phonetic than my first name.

Josh Schachter:
And what’s your middle name?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Which one? I’ve got several.

Josh Schachter:
What’s your full name? What’s your full name?

Ejieme Eromosele:
My full name is Ajme Aramacelli, but I’m Nigerian. So, usually, the father’s family gives a few names, the mom’s family gives a few names. I have, like, 3 or 4 middle names. Yeah. I’ll go with I I’ll go with an easy one. My least favorite, but it’s English, is Beatrice. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Oh, that’s a good name. Interesting. Yeah. Beatrice’s strong woman.

Ejieme Eromosele:
It’s just like an old woman name, kind of.

Kristi Faltorusso:
It’s like Gertrude. I get it.

Jon Johnson:
It’s like a 20s. Yeah.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We’re

Jon Johnson:
all like Yeah. I get it. Drink some champagne and listen to some jazz. Exact I mean, I like Asia May.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yeah. I was gonna say,

Josh Schachter:
is that what Beatrice is doing? Because I wanna hang

Kristi Faltorusso:
out with her.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Maybe it’s it fits. It’s seeding.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. Asia May

Jon Johnson:
is the

Josh Schachter:
general manager of EMEA, of Quig. Quig? And you’re in Quick. Quick. Cut straight. I just you know what? I just Josh, you’re done. Take my phonetics lessons this morning quick.

Jon Johnson:
With a q.

Josh Schachter:
Oh, man. And then she’s the founder of Success in BLAC. No.

Jon Johnson:
Okay. That was on purpose.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I mean, obviously, Joan. I got it.

Josh Schachter:
She’s the founder of Success in Black, and we want to learn about both of those Organizations have been about your career growing into both of those.

Jon Johnson:
Well, I also think this is one of the first guests that we’ve had that we’ve all, like, met. Right? Like, in person? Nope.

Josh Schachter:
I hope that this is Josh’s

Kristi Faltorusso:
first time after he butchered the name.

Josh Schachter:
So I’m

Jon Johnson:
okay at Pulse.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I was at Paul’s

Kristi Faltorusso:
at the pool. Were you at Pulse this year?

Ejieme Eromosele:
I was there.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. She was on stage. I turned her on. She just, like, won an award.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, I didn’t get wait. Apple also had the awards.

Ejieme Eromosele:
When I was on stage. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
Yeah. Well, because

Kristi Faltorusso:
why do you get to go to the sessions? I remember I didn’t have a legit Jockey. Yeah.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I wasn’t

Kristi Faltorusso:
I wasn’t legitimized.

Jon Johnson:
Wow. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
Sneaks in. I get kicked out.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I got arrested for b and e.

Jon Johnson:
No. But I I remember it was one of my favorite sessions that I sat through was, was you speaking what it was one of the last days, wasn’t it at the end of the session?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. It was, like, the closing keynote. They’ve got, like, 30 people round robin.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. It’s it’s awesome. That. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
It was good.

Josh Schachter:
I do have to say, though, if you’re if you’re attending sessions at Pulse, you’re not doing it right.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. I Just sit

Kristi Faltorusso:
in the lobby.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Attend the sessions.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Because I only attend the sessions I’m speaking at?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Well, I was flying into London. So I live in London now. So it was, like, last minute, and I wasn’t even gonna go because I’m like, this is a 12 hour flight, and I can only do, like, one day, and it’s, like, insane time difference, but whatever. I, like, showed up and it was great, but I then, like, turned right back around and and flew back out. So I was in that.

Josh Schachter:
Ajamay, I wanna talk about your career in customer success, but I actually wanna jump because I just wanna I think it’s a really single, as part of who you are, what you do is your founding of Success in Black. Can you tell everybody that may not be as familiar With that organization, with the group, what you guys do, and then I wanna kinda get into, like, you know, how you do it and the mission and all that stuff.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So Success on Black is a platform to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion and customer success. The first, I think, opportunity that we’re tackling is helping folks that look like me, so black professionals, do 3 things. So, find out about these roles and opportunities because I do think it’s a great gateway drug into tech. So make them aware that these opportunities exist, give them resources to land their 1st roles. And then for those, ICs, in these roles, giving them the resources to, of course, advance.

Ejieme Eromosele:
And then for more senior leaders giving us a platform to kind of, you know, amplify our voices and then also give back to, or train your talent. So, I founded it in the summer of what I like to call Black Lives Matter, so that was summer of 2020. There’s a lot going on that summer if y’all remember back, but it was when, you know, George Floyd was murdered. And, you know, there’s a lot of just, like, corporate activism about, like, you know, how to help, the different dimensions of, you know, black talent in in, you know, different kind of functions in different areas of work. And so, you know, people were reaching out to me, like, how how do I help black people in customer success? And there really wasn’t a platform to advance that. So I created it. And now we’re a little over 450 members strong, even more allies and advocates, that, you know, support our mission. And, yeah, it’s a great great community.

Josh Schachter:
Yeah. So what’s the setup of it? You said As members, allies, advocates.

Ejieme Eromosele:
So so our members our members, we show up in Slack, so we got a Slack kinda community where it’s you know, how Slack works, there’s different channels for different topics. We’ve also sort of grouped folks at the different stages they are in their customer success journey. So we have a specific channel for leaders. We have one for those transitioning into CS so they can get more focused, help and resources. But we also have a broad network of partners, sponsors, allies that give us their time, their energy, their resources, their advocacy to help people land jobs and get promoted and get paid more.

Josh Schachter:
What are some of the kind of discussions that have come up In those forums in recent months or, you know, since you’ve started?

Ejieme Eromosele:
So, I mean, I I think it’s a professional, but also, like, a place to show up personally. So we’ve got things like, you know, holiday memes, in 1 channel, to, you know, very serious topics, like how to navigate the conference circuit when people might be, you know, behaving not so professionally. So it kinda crosses the spectrum. We obviously get a lot of folks that are looking to transition into CS and, you know, looking for how to tweak their stories and their resumes and the transferable skills to land that first role. We’ve been getting a lot of asks from our, leaders, in terms of what’s next for them, especially as the world of CS is changing and, you know, they’re being asked to take on more traditional revenue and sales roles. So, you know, how can they start to learn sales chops as their scope of work is expanding, so it really runs the gamut. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Jon Johnson:
But it’s really amazing to

Ejieme Eromosele:
to be able to to do that work.

Jon Johnson:
I love that. I have I have a question. Follow-up on that, actually. I know, we’re working on a collab with you at CS Institute. So I’m just so thrilled that we’re actually getting some, you know, some traction around some of those conversations. You guys have a similar I think, the idea of breaking into CS is was a big topic, you know, a year and a half ago, 2 years ago. It’s like every teacher on LinkedIn was like, oh my gosh.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Wanna be a customer

Jon Johnson:
health insurance and double the salary, please. Right?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
I’m curious, what we’re having some of the these internal conversations about folks that we brought into the industry, and they’re, like, hitting their 1st year. Right?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Mhmm.

Jon Johnson:
And that feedback cycle of like, oh my god. I’m totally prepared for it, or I’m totally unprepared For it. Like, I’d love to hear what the conversations are, mostly the follow-up, like how Mhmm. We talk about supportive communities, and it’s more than just, hey. Here’s a job. See you later. Yeah. You know, what’s been the feedback of folks from your community that broke into CS? Maybe their 1st time coming out of other groups.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
You called it a gateway drug into tech, which I love. Yeah. You know, just get a taste and then maybe kinda find your path.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
I I really love that Model. Right? I’d love to hear a little bit about how your community is kind of Mhmm. Finding their way in tech out of where they came from before.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I mean, I think everyone’s experience is very varied just based on how varied customer success looks at different types of organizations. Right? So, you know, 1 member comes in mind, and she’s like, it is my dream in life to be a customer success manager. This is the only thing I want to do, and we’re like, okay. Great. Like and she got her 1st role, and then she’s like, oh, now I wanna be implementation manager. And now she is. Right? I love it. Totally fine.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Right? But, you know, I think that people have an idea of what they see, and I think we’re all probably to blame in a good way, of really glamorizing and proselytizing customer success in terms of, like, this amazing career, and it is, but it may not be for everyone. And you get in the role and it’s, you know, the maturity of the organization, the maturity of the thirty of the CS team, the product, the customers you’re selling to, like, there’s many different dimensions that can make your experience look very different from someone else’s. So we are getting a little bit of the, oh, it’s not exactly what I thought it would be, which I think is is fine and and normal. But we’re also getting a lot of folks that are like, I love this, but the role has changed in a year. And it’s now becoming more of a sales job. And I still love it, but now I need to, like, learn this new set of skills and almost transition into this new role, if you will. Right? So, yeah. We’ve been getting, just in general, a lot of good feedback.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I mean, I think at the end of the day, the hope is that the community can be a support network and kind of like a safety net for people to go and ask questions if they’re not feeling it or, you know, ask for more help, as they’re kinda really, like, getting their feet, into their roles.

Jon Johnson:
That’s awesome.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. So

Mickey Powell:
how do we help?

Ejieme Eromosele:
How do you help? So, Success in Black, the membership is free. I’m keeping it that way up until I maybe can’t afford to keep it that way anymore. So, the way that our allies and advocates help is by, you know, giving us their platform, telling others, that we exist. This year though, I think we’re really focused also on getting funding to keep our lights on. So for example, you know, we want to move off of the free black license so that we can keep all of our history beyond 90 days, in Slack. There’s a lot of goodness in there that we wanna make sure everyone has access to, now that we have 450 members and we’re very active, our Slack license is very expensive. So I’d love to be able to support that and pay for that. Shout out to Black.

Ejieme Eromosele:
If y’all are listening, hit me up. We should talk. But, yeah, just in general, I think, you know, being able to, yeah, help us pay for kinda, like, the tools and the tech keep the lights on, this year, we’re doing a big push on in person. So, you know, we had a great meetup, at Pulse, and it just felt so, I don’t know, soul affirming to see people IRL and to, you know, get to kind of, you know, be in person together. So, we’re sponsoring a few in person meetups, in places like London and New York and San Francisco and Atlanta and

Josh Schachter:
New York. Yours in New York? I wanna hear more about the New York

Ejieme Eromosele:
So we have we don’t have a date yet for New York, but I would like to be there. I’m a New Yorker, so I’m like, I gotta be at the New York one. Right? So that’s probably gonna be in the back half of the year. Beyond where to come on that,

Mickey Powell:
the one

Josh Schachter:
that we want. On that. Let’s Okay. I would love to

Ejieme Eromosele:
Or we’re looking for sponsors and collaborators, all of our our in person stuff. So yeah. Really, like, get funding to help keep the lights on, you know, kind of the tools and resources, give us your platform to help advocate and partner with us on getting some of those in person to meet ups.

Josh Schachter:
How does somebody join the network?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. So you can go to success in black dot c o, and there is a member application form, so fill out some details, and then we’ll, be in touch on your acceptance.

Jon Johnson:
I love that. Yeah. We’ll add that to the show notes as well.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Awesome. Thank you.

Jon Johnson:
Folks will listen. I love that. And, yeah, keep us posted on the events too.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
I I love that people are getting in person. I got to hang out with Amber, before your meetup. Okay.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Which one? The c c one?

Jon Johnson:
Was it Pulse? Amber Monroe in

Ejieme Eromosele:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jon Johnson:
In San Francisco.

Ejieme Eromosele:
She’s everywhere. I should I thought we were talking about, she’s everywhere.

Jon Johnson:
We also met in DC. So we also had dinner in DC, so she literally, He, is everywhere, and I and I love I’m

Ejieme Eromosele:
too big.

Jon Johnson:
She’s kinda like my in.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. And she’s helping with the the collab too. There are 2 big events we did last year where a bunch of folks led up. So, obviously, Paul said San Francisco, but then also Turn 0. Shout out to them. Sorry. Yeah. They, were in action over.

Josh Schachter:
I wanna hear about Quicke. I wanna hear about Quicke. John, you

Ejieme Eromosele:
gotta stop.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Don’t you love how Josh Protect me. It’s okay. No. Edmondson.

Josh Schachter:
I am protecting the listeners of this show. As As lovely as I’m sure your peer and friend is, nobody gives a shit that she met with John. So let’s go. We wanna hear about background and

Ejieme Eromosele:
the amazing things that

Josh Schachter:
you’ve done and how you went from leading CS to being a general manager and and why quick is miss Misspelled and all these other cool topics. So,

Ejieme Eromosele:
Brand, probably. Alright.

Josh Schachter:
So you’re so you you are the general manager of EMEA. What does it mean? Europe, Middle East, Asia? Is that it? I always forget that. Africa.

Ejieme Eromosele:
What is it? Middle East and Africa. We’re

Josh Schachter:
on from. And so you’re the general manager of that giant part of the world, and, you went from being, The VP of CS into that role. So I wanna pin that part of the conversation to learn about that growth because

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
This Podcast is being listened to by people who wanna grow in you know, even beyond CS, and follow those footsteps. Why don’t you first start by just introducing Quick to us because, you know, on your website, it’s

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
A lot of AI. It’s a lot of CX. So I think it’s relevant to our listeners.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. So Quik is a conversational customer experience platform. We believe that the world is best served by humans talking to humans, but that sometimes AI can help us do that more efficiently and effectively. So we’re a platform for customer service and customer experience, professionals who want to speak to their customers. So we’re truly a b to b to c platform, and we connect them on messaging channels. So think about WhatsApp that’s big on the rest of the world, but things like Apple Business Chat or even SMS or Instagram DMs. And then we add a layer of automation to handle sort of the simple tier one tasks as well. So we’ve got amazing customers across the world.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We’re really focused on enterprise customers. So Hana Mia, I’m proud to have, you know, brands like Nespresso and Volvo and some of our customers, as well.

Josh Schachter:
So I’m part of this, like, dental membership club in New York Wally, and they sent me this whitening kit tooth whitening kit. And all they did, they sent me, like, a padded envelope with a syringe and and a dental Trey. And I’m like, well, how do I actually do this? So I texted this wall number.

Jon Johnson:
How

Josh Schachter:
do I actually whiten my teeth what you just sent me? Then the next day, they sent me a text message back with instructions and stuff like that. And so that could have been terrific. Right?

Jon Johnson:
That’s the case of it.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Exactly. Cool. Yep. That’s fine. Yeah.

Josh Schachter:
And so and so you’re less for customer success, so to speak. It’s more for the b to b to to see end of things. Right? The consumer function. Okay. That makes sense.

Mickey Powell:
Would you would you consider Meta’s WhatsApp business unit a competitor?

Ejieme Eromosele:
No. We are WhatsApp customer. So we build on top of that channel. So for a lot of big brands to able to be able to maintain and manage a support channel like WhatsApp actually takes quite a bit of infrastructure, plugging it back to all the other internal systems, maybe, connecting to other channels. Right? So we kinda come in as that, like, sticky layer in between that simplifies that. So a lot of our customers use us for WhatsApp, because they don’t wanna have to manage additional channels for service.

Mickey Powell:
That makes sense.

Josh Schachter:
And how are you guys leveraging the latest AI? You’ve got AI I counted. You’ve got it 536 times on your home page.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I love it.

Josh Schachter:
Right. Because you Good job. It’s created.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Did you really did you go count them all, You

Ejieme Eromosele:
know, it’s not that many. We don’t even have that many words on there probably. So, so, I mean, we were doing this AI stuff before, you know, ChatCPC kinda blew up the world with with, with what they’re doing. But the way that we’re incorporating, let me say, this next generation of AI, is that we’re not able to do a lot more, more effectively and more efficiently. So in my region, in particular, multi language support is very important for large multinational companies be able to provide support 24 by 7 in dozens of languages is pretty challenging. With this next generation of AI, we’re able to do that a lot faster and simpler. So, we’re incorporating that both from an end customer perspective and also from an internal agent. So, customer service agents use our platform.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We’re able to, you know, suggest the next best thing that’s faster, kind of read what the customer is saying, and just offer the agent assistants, so that they can help, kind of resolve your question faster and more, effectively.

Josh Schachter:
Awesome. I wanna talk about your career in customer success. I think Christie is

Jon Johnson:
in the

Josh Schachter:
best position.

Mickey Powell:
And I wanna know and I will let Christie lead, but I just wanted I wanna know how and why you’re such a badass. So, Christy, badass to badass, take us away.

Ejieme Eromosele:
There you go. Let’s do it. Let’s get the woman

Kristi Faltorusso:
We would get our own show. I won’t try to poach you for another podcast, but

Josh Schachter:
What would that show be called, Christy?

Jon Johnson:
Oh.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Actually, I just launched a podcast. It’s gonna be going live in February called She’s So Sweet, But suite is spelled s u I t e as in c suite. Interviewing just c level women and amplifying their voices in their journeys and hearing their stories and offering advice to other women who have aspirations of eventually growing their careers. So Consider this your formal invite to come and join me, but I will send you an email separately. But all things aside, I Can I can I start at the beginning before CS? I’m actually more interested in the consulting journey because you start off in consulting. Right? You were at Accenture?

Ejieme Eromosele:
I was at extension and then PwC. Yep.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Can we start there? Because I Josh, you were in consulting too. And, like No. Past consulting

Josh Schachter:
wanna talk about consulting. Thing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. No. I don’t wanna talk about your thing, but I do think that the foundational knowledge, work, and experience you get from being consulting does really do something for your career trajectory, especially in tech and in customer success. So I’d love to go a little bit about

Josh Schachter:
that journey. And structured.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Which are good things considering the work that we have to do. I mean,

Ejieme Eromosele:
you know, I mean, business school. But, you know, now that I’m many years removed from my consulting time and the trauma has sort of, like, worn off. What was

Kristi Faltorusso:
the the cumulative years? What was it? It was, like, 5 6 years, 5, 6 years?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Almost 10 years. I did point it was 4

Josh Schachter:
and a half.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Intention.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Oh, because it’s right. Okay.

Ejieme Eromosele:
And, yeah, another, you know, four and a half, almost 5 years at PwC. So now that that’s been many years behind me, I’m very appreciative of the training ground, that was consulting. Right? And I think that, you know, it gives you I mean, I think you said, Josh, like, a structured way to kind of, like, think about problems. And especially for the roles that I’ve taken since then, I was managing director of customer experience for the New York Times, brand new role, didn’t know what the hell I was doing, I could very quickly structure the ambiguous into something that was tangible and valuable. Same with working in early stage startups. Right? Like my 1st role in CS was VP of CS. We were transitioning from being, an agency and doing kind of bespoke, you know, Facebook activations to a SaaS model. And so I had to come in again and be Like, what the hell are we doing not doing these things in a more, structured way? So, you know, I thank God for the consulting experience because, like, my mind can kind of operate in the Legos just all over the floor, but very quickly I’m trying to kind of, like, put them together.

Ejieme Eromosele:
And I think that’s a a great skill.

Mickey Powell:
I love LEGOs.

Josh Schachter:
So then yeah. We can

Kristi Faltorusso:
we can talk about your love for LEGOs another time, Mickey. Okay. So then you step into this role. You’re kinda outside of that. You go into this managing director of customer experience at New York Times. What does that even mean?

Ejieme Eromosele:
You know,

Kristi Faltorusso:
I think all we are we are in tech, so, like, what is customer experience at New York Times look like?

Ejieme Eromosele:
That it was my job to figure it out, actually. Wait. So it’s 2015. The New York Times had this, like, premier strategy document called our path forward. And it was like, look, the New York Times is no longer going to exist as a business unless we figure out how to make money from all these millions of people that read our journalism. So their business model prior to that was primarily driven by advertising revenue. Right? So large advertisers would, oh my gosh, buy an ad in the paper that obviously moved to online, but then, of course, the Googles and the Facebooks of the world started to dominate online advertising. Think why would I spend money with a singular domain like the New York Times when I could get broad reach on a Google Ad network.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Right? So they were hemorrhaging. So they were like, okay. Our path forward is we need subscribers. We need individuals to pay for the New York Times. And so they came up with a set of, like, 8 to 10 roles. This role is one of them, and they were like, we need to figure out what a subscriber experience needs. Like, who are our actual customers, and how do we serve them across marketing product and the newsroom? So that was essentially my job to be like, what is a subscriber experience? How can we measure the value of a subscriber? Because, again, back then, an individual subscriber pays, what, like, $15 a month. Right? Like, you know and advertisers paying 1,000,000 of dollars.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Right? So it’s like, how do we scale the subscriber opportunity, and put in kind of the the muscle, the process, the operating model, around it. So, yeah, I came in and I helped them do that. It was fun.

Kristi Faltorusso:
What was the big takeaway from that role?

Ejieme Eromosele:
The big takeaway was I like the subscription business. And, and, you know, I’m just passionate about, you know, the Times mission of the, you know, the higher order mission was, you know, educating citizens of the world, right, and informing citizens of the world. And, like, that still always resonates with me. I’m still very passionate about that. But, you know, I also learned that I wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and so that sort of made me start to look at tech and made me start to look at startups. Okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
So now I brought you to Snaps. Right? You went to the VP of customer success role there. And so Yeah. You went there not having any customer success experiences, stepped into a VP role Day 1. Yeah. So no one’s fancier than you. How how did you how did you do that?

Ejieme Eromosele:
You know, just

Kristi Faltorusso:
I did not have that same experience.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Well, I mean, I think the difference or not the difference. I really played up my consulting experience. Right? So consulting is, like, customer success, except you don’t have a tech platform to be able to kind of honestly anchor against. Right? So thinking about desired outcomes, like, that’s all we focused on. Right? It was the the so what and the now what. So, I think it was very easy for me to kind of, like, thread that needle to this is what I could help, the organization do. I also spent a lot of time, in my consulting experience working with customer service leaders, which is what the platform focused on. Right? So I kinda knew the buyer.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I knew their challenges. I knew how to drive value and how to kinda talk about driving value, so I think that also contributed. And I see what you believed in me,

Josh Schachter:
I guess.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Also, a little

Josh Schachter:
bit about About how you you built out that program, the the CS, you know, program within Snaps, and then, And then it was acquired, right, by Quicken? Yep. And you went real quick. And then you wanna learn about your transition from Yeah. CS over to Being the managing director.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. So building up the CS team, at Snaps is really about just, you know, first understanding what value meant, in the product that we were delivering. Right? So I spent a lot of time, like, understanding, like, what is a product? What problems are we trying to solve? The customers that we do have, who are seeing success and why? And then really started to organize the team around the activities that I believe would lead to better outcomes. Right? So, you know, we were super small. You know, CSMs were doing all of the jobs and wearing multiple hats.

Jon Johnson:
We started to carve out.

Ejieme Eromosele:
So we had six CS, 2 directors for CSM, so 6 on the CSM team, across New York and LA. And so, 1st step was to, you know, start to form a little bit of specialization. So, you know, we’re building bots on Facebook back when these were the early stage kind of like Facebook Messenger bots. Right? And CSMs were conversational designers, solutions architects, CSMs, project managers, right, they wore all the hats. So the first step was to sort of start to carve out, like, okay. We need a more specialized, like, bot designer.

Josh Schachter:
To that They were they were helping to design the product is what you’re saying in many ways.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Well, the product was a SaaS platform. But because we’re b to b to c, the product was also a customer facing bot. So, yes, were helping to design that kind of end user experience as well. So, yeah, kind of, you know, starting looking at specialization, started to then say, Okay. Where’s the higher leverage activity that we could be doing? And it was really in kind of this, like, consultative, guidance of here’s how your bots are performing and why, here’s how we can improve them. Right? Like, that’s where the value was. Right? People were spending 1,000,000 of dollars on these bots. They didn’t know how they were performing.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Don’t know how to make them better. So that’s where we focus the CSMs’ time

Josh Schachter:
because Educating them on the ROI. Educating your user your customers on the Or a lot of what they’re paying for.

Ejieme Eromosele:
What’s happening, why it’s happening, how they can make it better.

Josh Schachter:
So tell us about that. I think that’s great. What did you guys do? What was the framework you set up? Yeah. You’re you’re a consulting person. What’s the framework that you

Jon Johnson:
must have to to accomplish that?

Ejieme Eromosele:
So, yeah, the first step was just like, do we know why the bots are some bots are better. Right? So we, you know, partner with our product team very closely to say, let’s run some experiments and see, okay, you know, this is the outcome when we do, let’s say, a simple quiz experience where you ask the user 3 to 5 questions and then they have an end result. Right? And then we would, like, analyze drop off, and we’d say, okay. This is why most users would drop off at this step. The optimal quiz length is 3 to 5 as opposed to 7 to 10. Right? So we ran several, I think, iterative kind of, like, sprint based tests so that we knew what we were talking about, and then we could be confident in, advising our customers on the best course of action. So I think that was the biggest kind of, like, unlock. It’s like we were building the plane and trying to fly it at the same time, but we really needed to take a step backward and help CSMs, like, really understand, like, this is how to drive value.

Ejieme Eromosele:
This is what matters. Okay. Go go talk to your customers about that. That was a perfect activity.

Josh Schachter:
Where the when you talk to your customers, was this done at scale, or was this done more on a one to 1 basis? So are we talking to

Ejieme Eromosele:
your customers? Well, we have enterprise customers. Somewhere. So, yeah, we’re not a we’ve never really been a scaled team. Klein and Marriott. Right? So they demand that one to one attention. So we did spend a lot of time with them. Each CSM at that time had about 10 to 15 accounts, upwards of 2,000,000 in ARR per. Right? But, yeah, we’re focused on enterprise, so we you know, it wasn’t a kind of a scaled approach at that time.

Josh Schachter:
So this is we have insights of of how they’re using the product Yep. And some best practices of what we can share throughout the entire Portfolio uses the product. Yep. Let’s schedule a call with them, with the decision makers, and with the the users and and share with them their usage Compared to best practice and

Jon Johnson:
Yeah.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I think the difference too is that because their customers were using this product day in and day out, you know, we have the the reverse problem where the our customers would be saying, oh, we wanna meet again because This thing happened, and we wanna understand what’s going on. Right? So it’s almost like a reverse pull and push. You know, I see a lot of CSMs talking about my customers don’t wanna talk to me. And I I can understand and I could see a world where that exists, but I think maybe we were lucky or unlucky. I mean, we have the opposite problem where it’s like the CSM’s time then could totally be sunk on 1 customer, right, because they were very demanding. So it’s like, you know, working on to put some guardrails in place and some structured touch points and milestones as opposed to just being kind of, like, there to support their every need in every call.

Josh Schachter:
Well, I do know a platform to help you save time in your Customer success meetings. However, that sounds like a really good product a proud Paul, it’s a great product. It sounds like a really good problem to have. It sounds like you were actually delivering value to your customers, and that’s why they were lining up to have more meetings with you.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. They were talking to to specialists. Right? Like, you know, knowledge experts, so they wanted to tap

Kristi Faltorusso:
Can we talk about the acquisition, Josh? I know you had a thought there. Was it more important?

Josh Schachter:
No. Never.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I wanna talk about the acquisition. Oh, and the reason why is I wanna know from your perspective how you navigated through that. I hear some of them go really well. Some go really poorly. And so what was your experience going through this m and a, leading that team, leading that function, and and how did you manage through it?

Josh Schachter:
This is from snaps to quick. Right?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Like that. What year

Josh Schachter:
was this in?

Ejieme Eromosele:
This is 2021.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. So we’re still pandemicking.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll post I know. We’re still in it. Yeah. I mean, the good thing is we had done 1 or too, they were a partner of ours.

Ejieme Eromosele:
We had done 1 or 2 deals, with them. So we kinda, like, knew the major players, kinda knew how they worked. But then when it was time to say, okay. Like, this is actually happening. With most acquisitions, there’s, like, a set of people that are kind of the, like, key people. Right? That’s, like, okay, before we actually sign anything, and it’s actually part of the diligence of do we want to acquire, this company, you meet with some key executives. So, you know, there were, like, 4 or 5 of us. I was one of them.

Ejieme Eromosele:
So I got to meet with, our CEO, now our CEO and cofounder, and just, yeah, spend some time and say, like, you know, talk to me. It it was interesting because they were acquiring us, but what I appreciated about the process is they let me quiz them because I said, look. You know? What do you think about customer success? So they didn’t have a CS team at the time, and I was like, why don’t you have a CS team? Do you not value customer?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Great question.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Great question. With success. Right? Like, if I were to join on, which at that time, it wasn’t a given that I would join on, I could be like, yeah. Give me a package. Like, I’m good. If I were to join on and they wanted me to join on, like, how would you ensure that I was, you know, successful and I have the resources that I need? Right? So, it was a good conversation because they said the right things at the time to make me confident that it would be a good relationship. Aside from that though, I think, you know, I I did spend a lot of time, like, negotiating, my compensation, my equity package, which, you know, I’d never done before. And I took the opportunity to really empower myself to to be to take that seriously and to do that.

Ejieme Eromosele:
And, you know, it’s a huge decision to, move over to this new company for me personally. And so, yeah, I hired, a woman to help me in that. She’s great. I’m gonna drop her name because she deserves all the cred. Her email or her website is the Stock Options Council, And so she coached me on, yeah, how to think about my equity and how to negotiate, a better package. So I was very happy at the end of the day because I was able to do that, which, you know, I think a lot of people don’t don’t think about as that process.

Kristi Faltorusso:
That’s awesome. Good for you. Listen. So you asked them a bunch of questions. They told you the right things at the time. After this was all done

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
How much of what they told you did you actually experience? Like, where where where is the truth lie in here? Or or did they deliver on everything they said they would?

Ejieme Eromosele:
They were pretty transparent. They’re like, look. You know, we tried customer success, but we don’t know what we’re doing. There are bunch of engineers. Right? So CEOs, ex engineers, CTO. Right? And they’re like, yeah. Like, we believe in it, but, like, we don’t know how to do it. We’re engineers.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Like, Yeah. We’re like, just use the products. And I was like, and and the product, we can tell, was built by engineers who are running the company because it’s not that intuitive. Like, you need you need people to help people learn how to how to do this. So they were honest and I think self aware, and so what I ended up in, was what they sold me.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. I love that.

Josh Schachter:
Desiree, how has your past leadership in CS Helped you in your role right now as a general manager owning a p and l?

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. Great question. So when I ran CS, when I first ran CS at Snaps, we didn’t have any commercial, ownership, so we weren’t even doing our renewals. Over time, I wanted more revenue responsibility, and so I asked for it. And so started by owning renewals, but I didn’t want CSM to own renewal, so then I carved out an account management team. So from, I think, a year into my role as VP of CS, I also had account management. So I also was selling. Right? We’re doing renewals, then I started to do expansions.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Then with the acquisition, actually, one of the ways that my role expanded is I owned all of our renewals and a large majority of our expansions. And so the way that my CS experience helped in this new role is that CS leaders have to be cross functional anyway and dynamic and work with product and work with marketing and work with sales. Now all of those functions, I own. Right? So I’m the go to market leader. I’m owning marketing, events, demand and lead gen, partnerships, sales, customer success, and account management, and having to, I think, be a good partner, as a CS leader and looking across your, peers and understanding, okay, let me put myself in the shoes of product for a second, which I think all CS leaders should be doing, you know, really set me up for this role because I already had a point of view in how marketing could be more customer focused and customer led, same with sales. So, yeah, it really helped I think set me up for for the right opportunity.

Josh Schachter:
So if you’re If you’re the head of CS at a company now and you wanna make that next step to being general manager, your talking points are that coming from CS helps you be close to the customers, understand what the consumer wants, and then also have a kind of a wider Visibility per view into the point of view of all the other cross functions because you’re

Ejieme Eromosele:
I think that CS leaders should. And if they’re not, they should, you know, take a look at what they’re you know, can they see the forest from the trees? Right? It’s like one thing to really, like, be in your CS zone, but, you know, this is sort of like the everyone does CS. Right? I think the CS leader should take it upon selves to put a CS lens at their peers. Right? So think about being more customer first for how your marketing team is handling things, how your sales team, how your product team. So if they’re not already doing that, I would implore them to do that and take a sort of, like, team first approach here, because I think that is exactly what sets you up for that next opportunity. And that next opportunity could be being a CRO. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a GM. Right? But it’s how do you get more cross functional in terms of your your area of ownership and your scope.

Josh Schachter:
What could you think of? Go go ahead. Oh, was that was that you hear, A little frustration from Chris.

Kristi Faltorusso:
There was, like, this little micro industry that came out. No. Well, because I was gonna say, I love the idea of leaning into your CS background to help you in this new role, but I don’t know. I actually think it was your revenue and your business experience in the consulting that actually set you up better for this. So would you agree or disagree?

Ejieme Eromosele:
I don’t think it was all of the above. Look. I mean, I think that my consulting experience, for sure, like, we talked about at the start. Right? Like, you know, I came here with no team, know anything. And it’s like, okay. Stand up a new business. Right? Again, coming into the ambiguous and trying to create something from it. But I do think because I knew our product.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I knew our customers. I knew the challenges that they faced, and now it’s okay. Let’s put a lens of multiple markets on top of that. I think that also helped me get the role in the 1st place and kind of gain the trust of my CEO enough to get the role. I don’t think that our sales leader could have done it. I don’t think that our product leader could have done it. I think that because I was a CS leader and we have to blend, head and heart, know the product, but know your customers, really also set me up for that.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Okay. Fine. Fair.

Jon Johnson:
Management consultant.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Because I’m I’m, like, so jealous of it. Like, I’ll never do it now because I’m old. But, like, if I was young, I feel like that I’m not I really don’t wanna go I’m not trying to move backwards. I wanna, like, sleep and eat and spend time with my family. I hear nothing but horrible things about No.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I do agree.

Josh Schachter:
Actually, you know what? I No. So Look. No. No. I I actually agree. I I think that When Asia Mae was a consultant you know, this is your early twenties. Right? This is your twenties you were a consultant. And I I do think, Listen.

Josh Schachter:
They are more creative. They are more fun. They’re more diverse, blah blah blah, things you can do in life, in your career. But if you wanna give yourself

Mickey Powell:
Join BCG today.

Jon Johnson:
Yes. If you if you wanna

Josh Schachter:
give yourself, like, the ultimate or or Accenture or, you know, if you wanna give yourself the ultimate Foundation, I do agree. Consulting as as as much of is my thing still working here?

Kristi Faltorusso:
I just wanna look at this, like, screen is someone screenshotting this right now?

Jon Johnson:
Oh, no. Yeah.

Kristi Faltorusso:
No. But I agree. It’s that foundation that you’re gonna get in and I think if you’re willing to make that investment early in your career and do that, I think you’re gonna learn so like, I just feel like that’s such a strong foundation for any Any career path. I agree. Alright. That’s why I’m a little jealous.

Josh Schachter:
Well but you’ve ended up just Fine, Christie. Yeah. I’m I’m doing okay.

Kristi Faltorusso:
I’m doing okay.

Ejieme Eromosele:
You’re doing alright.

Josh Schachter:
What’s been the biggest challenge of becoming a GM coming from Customer success as opposed to coming from product management or marketing or sales or other functions.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Mhmm. I think the biggest challenge is not knowing some of the what levers to pull for demand and lead gen. Lucky for me in account management, I had gone through, like, all of our sales training and, you know, I knew all our sales methodology. But I think my biggest challenge, 2 parts, marketing, because I’m like, y’all are just throwing shit at the wall. Sorry. Can I curse on here?

Kristi Faltorusso:
Yes. You can. Fuck, yeah. You can.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Being the fix. And I’m like, that’s weird. And then partners. So one of the things is that a lot of even the new business that we close right now in the US is driven by inbounds and partner referrals. Having come here with no infrastructure for anything. We don’t have imbalance in partner referrals. Right? So now I’m like, how do I get imbalance in partner referrals? And so the marketing piece is just like a black box that I’m still, picking and and trying to learn more about. So, I do wish that, I had a bit more just experience.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Like, I’m I’m learning. Right? You learn fast and try things, but it just seems very nebulous. Yeah. Yeah. Not a lot of play, but is that SAS is SAS is also fast moving. Right? Like, you know, 2 years ago, you could, like, send thousands of emails and, like, you know, x percentage would respond, x percentage would talk to you, x percentage would close. Right? Like, those numbers just, like, aren’t working anymore for anyone. Right? So I think it’s yes.

Ejieme Eromosele:
I I don’t know marketing, but also the dynamics in which lead to demand gen are evolving are like, everyone’s trying to figure it out. So it’s really challenging.

Mickey Powell:
Sounds like you need a CSM who sits in between you and marketing And play plays translator towards outcomes.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Yeah. I guess. We just hired a new marketing leader. Today was her 1st day, so I’m excited to to partner with her. But, yeah, there’s a lot of a lot to to unpack there.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Benjamin, what’s next for you? Right? Obviously, not tomorrow, not next week. I don’t assume that you’re interviewing actively today unless you are. Tell me separately. I’ll help you. But what like, where do you where do you wanna grow your career to next? Right? Like, you’re you’re in a great spot here. You’ve done a lot. What’s next for you as you think about your future?

Ejieme Eromosele:
You know good question. I I I’m also an angel investor. I get a lot of, personal satisfaction from working with very early stage founders who, you know, more like precede. Right? So, like, have an idea, have a little bit of a product seed, and just helping them think about, you know, their customers even when they barely have any. Right? And it’s like, well, let’s think about that. And, you know, I get asked a lot about, you know, the 1st CS hire. Right? How, you know, product experience should they be versus industry experience? Do they have, you know, more experience, having done customer success before? Right? So I get a lot of pleasure and joy out of that. So I might lean into that a little bit more.

Ejieme Eromosele:
It’s just like advising early stage founders on on thinking customer first and customer led. But aside from that, I mean, my focus right now is to grow this business. You know, I’ve got a lot of things I still want to accomplish in this role, I think I’m a have a ton of learnings that, you know, will hopefully help me in my next thing.

Kristi Faltorusso:
That’s awesome. Well, you’ve had such a tremendous career, And, honestly, you’re watching your journey is inspiring. And I I love that we’ve had our conversations going since early days of Success in Black, and, like, you’ve grown that into a wonderful venture. And I I don’t know. Personally, I’m just kind of, like, in awe of you and all you’ve done so far, and I know there’s only greatness to come.

Ejieme Eromosele:
Thank you.

Josh Schachter:
I’ve never heard you so humbled, Christy as on this episode.

Kristi Faltorusso:
Because I like, I got to like, I feel like I had a front row seat to watching her over the past couple years And all she’s done with the success in black before she went to London, before she took on that new role, like, I don’t know. We we’ve our conversations go back a bit. So The past couple years to see that exponentially, like, grow her to where she is today. I don’t know. It’s pretty inspiring. I love it.

Ejieme Eromosele:
That’s great. Thank you.

Josh Schachter:
John, you’ve been so quiet, and it’s creeping me out. I wanna give you the last word to wrap us up here.

Jon Johnson:
Happy New Year, everybody.