Maria Bross

Your best CSM just burned out. They were good at their job. But the problem was they were REALLY good at saying yes. - Every off-scope request? Yes. - Customer wants to extend the call by 45 minutes? Sure. - One client eating 60% of their calendar? They'll make it work. And now they're gone. Because people-pleasers make incredible CSMs until they completely fucking implode. This keeps happening. CSM thinks their job is making every customer happy all the time. Customer asks for extra time, extra support, extra everything. CSM delivers. Book grows. Time doesn't. Something breaks. Usually it's the CSM. You're not serving customers well when you're overdelivering to three accounts and under-serving the other 47. You're just choosing which customers get screwed. Here's how you enforce boundaries without sounding like a robot: - Use the pilot move. Customer wants to extend calls indefinitely? Say this: "Happy to extend the next call by 30 minutes. After that, let's stick to our regular cadence so I can stay consistent across all the teams I support." You're not saying no. You're saying "I'll flex once, then we're back to structure." Most customers don't push back because they get it. They just needed someone to set the boundary. - Name your support model early. Week one, say this: "You'll have 30-minute check-ins every eight weeks. For anything in between, here are your best resources and contacts." If you don't define the model upfront, they'll define it for you. And their version will involve you on Slack at 9pm answering questions about password resets. - Train your internal stakeholders. Exec wants white-glove service for their pet account? Coolio. Ask: "If I shift time here, what would you like me to deprioritize?" Make them choose. Because you shifting 10 hours to one account means 10 other accounts aren't getting what they need. Force the trade-off conversation early or you'll be the one making impossible choices later. - Always get the agenda 24 hours in advance. Customers love extra time until you run out of things to talk about. Email them: "Can you send over your top 3-4 topics by EOD tomorrow? That way we can make sure we cover everything in our scheduled time." If they can't send an agenda, they don't need the meeting. Or they need a different kind of meeting. Either way, you just saved yourself from 30 minutes of "So... anything else?" If you're a CSM reading this, you might think boundaries make you look difficult. You'd be wrong. :) Boundaries make you sustainable. And sustainable CSMs deliver better outcomes because they're not constantly buried under one client's bullshit. You're not difficult for having a boundary. You're protecting every other customer in your book from getting half your attention because one account took all of it. Say yes when it matters. But say no when it doesn't. Burning out doesn't help anyone.

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18 Comments

Your CSM just renewed 95% of their book, but their expansion revenue was 3%. So you're paying someone $85K to be a really expensive customer support agent with a fancier title? Most CSM comp plans reward one thing: keeping customers from leaving. So that's exactly what you get. At the same time, more and more leaders are pushing their CSMs to focus on driving expansion revenue. If you want CSMs who actually drive growth, you need to pay them like growth matters. Instead of $75K base + 10% of renewals, try: - $65K base + 5% renewals + 15% expansion revenue. - $1K SPIFF for every expansion conversation that moves to proposal stage. - $500 bonus when they identify and introduce a new stakeholder to the AE. - Quarterly bonuses tied to account health scores that predict future expansion. Some teams add expansion readiness gates: - 80%+ of accounts with documented expansion opportunities unlocks 1.5x expansion multiplier. - <50% expansion pipeline coverage? Your renewal rate drops to 5%. With this structure (and the proper enablement), your CSMs will stop avoiding pricing conversations. They'll start thinking like account managers. They'll map org charts. They'll identify budget cycles. They'll become expansion hunters, not just churn preventers. One team we work with made this shift last year. Their CSM-driven expansion went from 12% to 43% of total growth. Same people, different incentives. If you pay CSMs to prevent churn, they'll prevent churn. If you pay them to drive growth, they'll start driving growth.

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89 Comments

The coverage model is a churn machine dressed up as a CS strategy. Nobody says this out loud because the metrics make it look like it’s working. You know this CSM. Owns 80 accounts. Knows every client’s first name, their kids’ names, their renewal dates. Responsive to everything. QBR completion rate: perfect. Health scores: green across the board. (Health scores are always green right up until they aren’t.) Then Q4 comes and three of those accounts are offboarding. The thing the coverage model can’t produce isn’t effort. It’s access. The client who tells you the relationship is cooling before it becomes a decision. That conversation only happens with the CSM they trust enough to have it with — and that trust requires depth, not volume. Maile Collmer — a referral networking coach who rearranged how I think about this — said something I’ve been applying to CS ever since: stop thinking about what you want from the room and start thinking about what the room needs from you. The wide-net CSM is optimizing for the room. The deep CSM is doing something the coverage model has no metric for: becoming a genuine business partner. On Thursday’s episode, Anika Zubair said the CSMs driving 120% NRR aren’t managing the most accounts. After 14 years scaling CS teams at hypergrowth SaaS companies, her read is clean: the ones hitting those numbers are the ones their clients treat as actual partners in growing the business, not just contacts at the vendor. AI can write the QBR deck. It cannot be the person your client calls when something is going wrong before it’s officially going wrong. That’s the deep CSM’s job. You can’t do it across 80 accounts. Your coverage model didn’t create this problem. Your metrics did. #KarlTheBridge P.S. The wide-net CSM gets recognized at the SKO. The deep one gets the call at 4pm on a Thursday before the client talks to anyone else.

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3 Comments

Most churn doesn’t happen at renewal. It starts happening in the first 30-90 days. Customer Success teams often spend months trying to “save” accounts that were already set up to struggle. Here’s what typically happens: A customer signs the contract. They’re excited. Expectations are high. But then onboarding looks like this: • No clear success plan • Too many features introduced too quickly • No defined “first value” milestone • Stakeholders not aligned on goals • Training without context for their business The result? Adoption slows. Confidence drops. The product feels complicated instead of valuable. By the time renewal comes around, the real problem isn’t pricing or competition. It’s that the customer never fully realized value. Great onboarding solves this. Strong onboarding should: • Define success metrics early • Deliver a clear Time-to-First-Value moment • Focus on outcomes, not features • Establish a cadence with key stakeholders • Build momentum in the first 90 days When onboarding is done well, three things happen: Adoption accelerates. Customers trust the partnership. Renewals become predictable. Retention isn’t saved at the end of the customer lifecycle. It’s designed at the beginning

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7 Comments

The most undervalued CS skill isn’t empathy. It’s content creation. Most CS teams pride themselves on: → Being responsive → Knowing the product → Building relationships one call at a time And those matter. But they do not scale. Content does. When a CSM stops only answering the same question 15 times and starts building something that answers it for hundreds the entire motion changes: - Short “how-to” videos customers can watch anytime - One-pagers and templates champions can share internally - In-product guides that catch users right where they get stuck - Customer community threads that live long after the meeting ends It is not about replacing human touch. It is about multiplying it. Because your team’s best insight should not stay hidden in Slack threads or call notes. It should become an asset your entire customer base can use whether they meet you or not. 𝘊𝘚 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦. If every CSM could create just one piece of content each week, what would help your customers most? #customersuccess #contentstrategy #csleadership #retention #scalability

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5 Comments

🔥 “Your CSM Can Be a Game-Changer—If You Let Them”🔥 Let’s be honest—most QBRs are a waste of time. You sit through a 40-slide deck, hear about “green” health scores, and leave wondering if any of it actually moved your business forward. Here’s how to get more from your CSM: 🧭 1. Anchor the Relationship in Business Outcomes “We didn’t buy your software—we bought a result.” Make sure your CSM knows exactly what your success looks like—whether it’s reducing churn, increasing speed to market, or improving efficiency. Push them to report progress in those terms, not vanity metrics. 📌 Pro Tip: Share your top 2–3 strategic goals and ask them to map success efforts to those, not product usage stats. 📉 2. Kill the Deck. Demand Relevance. “If it can be emailed, don’t bring it to a meeting.” Tell your CSM that you don’t need a slide presentation every 90 days. You want ongoing, lightweight, insight-driven engagement—the kind that makes you smarter and helps your team move faster. 📌 Pro Tip: Replace QBRs with ad-hoc strategy calls, async updates, or drop-in sessions aligned to real events (launches, adoption plateaus, renewals, etc.). 🔍 3. Ask for Insight, Not Information “You talk to hundreds of customers like us—what are they doing that we’re not?” The best CSMs are pattern-recognizers. They know what works (and what doesn’t) across their customer base. Don’t let them just report your metrics—ask them to interpret them. 📌 Pro Tip: Prompt your CSM to challenge you: “What would you do if you were in my seat?” 🧠 4. Make Proactivity the Minimum Standard “If you see something, say something.” A great CSM doesn’t wait for red flags to become fires. They surface risk before you ask. They bring opportunities before you spot them. But that only happens when you signal that early, unfiltered feedback is welcome. 📌 Pro Tip: Tell your CSM: “Don’t protect me from the truth. Tell me early, even if it’s messy.” 🤝 5. Treat Your CSM Like a Strategic Partner—Not a Support Liaison “If I just needed someone to answer questions, I’d open a support ticket.” The CSM isn’t there to manage your inbox. They’re there to optimize your investment and drive results. But they can only do that if you invite them into strategic conversations, not just operational ones. 📌 Pro Tip: Bring them into planning cycles. Let them know what’s coming 6–12 months out. That’s when they can be most valuable. Final Thought: The CSM’s job is to help you win with the product. Your job is to tell them what winning means—and hold them to it. The relationship is most powerful when it’s outcome-first, insight-rich, and refreshingly low on ceremony. So skip the QBR. Skip the slides. And build a partnership that actually drives value. #CustomerSuccess #ExecutiveLeadership #SaaS #DigitalTransformation #CustomerExperience #OutcomesOverActivity

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This. This times 100. If I could make this post from Marija a flag to hang above my teams desks I would. Just saying “you have CSM!” is not enough. As a CSM (and I’d argue AE’s should also do this when pitching the full package) you need to sell to your customers the value of working with you. But you also need to bring that value to the heart of every single call you have with them. The moment that value is lost, that customer is not going to join you on Zoom again.

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Your best CSM playbook is trapped in someone’s head. Ever notice how your top CSM handles risk completely differently than everyone else? They know exactly when to: 🔁 Loop in an exec 🚨 Trigger a support escalation 📩 Send the “let’s realign” email 📈 Propose expansion at the perfect time But ask someone else on the team? You’ll get 6 different answers, or worse… 😶 a blank stare. That’s not a people problem, it’s a playbook visibility problem. You have tribal knowledge instead of a system. We're building the Playbook Recommender Agent inside ChurnPilot to fix that. It scans live account signals like: 📉 Usage drops 🧭 Missed onboarding steps 🧑‍💼 New execs joining …and recommends the next-best move based on what’s worked across your team and your entire customer base. 💥 It’s like giving every CSM a strategist in their corner, driving consistency across the team, and turning playbooks from PDFs into proactive actions. CS isn’t just about being helpful, it’s about doing the right thing at the right time. ⏰ Our Playbook Recommender Agent is now part of ChurnPilot’s free plan! Sign up below for early access 👇

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CSM's, if You Don't Have Executive Sponsors at Your Top 5 Accounts by March 1st — Your Renewal Is Already at Risk. 🔥 Here Are 5 Relationship-Building Tactics I've Used to Help Save Millions. Let me be blunt: If you're waiting until Q3 to figure out who's going to fight for your solution, you're toast. 🧨 Renewals aren’t driven by reminders—they’re driven by trust built long before anyone talks about the next contract. Here's what actually works: 𝟭. 𝗘𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Platform owners. Executive stakeholders. The people who own the value. The ones who wrote the check. Get on their calendars regularly — not just when something's broken. Let them know you give a damn. 𝟮. 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 — 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗹𝘆. Understand the bets your sales rep and SE are making. Make sure you can stand behind them long-term when the handoff is complete. Relationships aren't just about your customers, internal alignment matters just as much, if not more. Most CSM's fail to recognize this basic truth. 𝟯. 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘀. Facilitate executive-to-executive relationships between your company and your clients. Make your customers feel valued and give them access to key leaders at your company. Most CSMs fail at this due to a confluence of fear and imposter syndrome. Others realize this is the cheat code for establishing executive sponsors for their own careers. 🏅 𝟰. 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲. Bring real insights. Real experts. Real relationships with your product team or leading strategists. Give them access to things they can't get anywhere else. Give them reasons to keep showing up and partnering with you. Build memorable customer experiences that they are eager to take part in. 𝟱. 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝘂𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻. ✈️ Their offices. Steakhouses. Wherever necessary. Don't hide behind a desk. Executives remember faces, not calendar invites. This is what separates vendors from true partners. March 1st isn't arbitrary. That's when the clock starts ticking. If you don't know who's going to bat for you at renewal, you're already playing a dangerous game. Get on a plane. Make the phone call. Build the relationship. Earn the sponsor. Your renewals might depend on it. ✈️🥩🔥 What's your go-to advice for building executive relationships? Drop it below. 👇 ⸻ 📖 More on relationship-building in my book, Success Plan For Life — available on Amazon: https://a.co/d/du9IBvW 💪 Want help in 2026? DM me about limited coaching slots. 🚀 #CustomerSuccess #CSM #ExecutiveSponsor #Renewals #RelationshipManagement

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💡The AE ➡️ CSM handoff is not a moment, it’s a process. And it starts before the close. This is the knot in the bowtie. The part of the sales process that has the biggest impact on revenue, retention, and renewal. ❓Sellers and CSMs: What ensures a good Sales to CS handoff? #GTMalignment #salesenablement #salesstrategy #salesleadership #customersuccess #bowtie

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Your CSM just renewed 95% of their book, but their expansion revenue was 3%. So you're paying someone $85K to be a really expensive customer support agent with a fancier title? Most CSM comp plans reward one thing: keeping customers from leaving. So that's exactly what you get. At the same time, more and more leaders are pushing their CSMs to focus on driving expansion revenue. If you want CSMs who actually drive growth, you need to pay them like growth matters. Instead of $75K base + 10% of renewals, try: - $65K base + 5% renewals + 15% expansion revenue. - $1K SPIFF for every expansion conversation that moves to proposal stage. - $500 bonus when they identify and introduce a new stakeholder to the AE. - Quarterly bonuses tied to account health scores that predict future expansion. Some teams add expansion readiness gates: - 80%+ of accounts with documented expansion opportunities unlocks 1.5x expansion multiplier. - <50% expansion pipeline coverage? Your renewal rate drops to 5%. With this structure (and the proper enablement), your CSMs will stop avoiding pricing conversations. They'll start thinking like account managers. They'll map org charts. They'll identify budget cycles. They'll become expansion hunters, not just churn preventers. One team we work with made this shift last year. Their CSM-driven expansion went from 12% to 43% of total growth. Same people, different incentives. If you pay CSMs to prevent churn, they'll prevent churn. If you pay them to drive growth, they'll start driving growth.

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