AI Is Exposing The Massive Problem With Customer Success
Customer success has lost its way over the past decade, devolving into the "happy department" focused on relationship management and color-coded health scores rather than true business outcomes. Leron, VP of Customer Success at Docket AI, argues that the rise of AI is exposing this flaw by stripping away the administrative tasks that traditionally occupy 80% of a CSM's time. With note-taking, CRM updates, and check-in emails automated, CSMs are being forced to return to their roots as strategic, revenue-driving operators. The post-sale environment is where the true go-to-market engine begins. CSMs must be comfortable having commercial conversations, speaking the language of revenue, and reselling the product's value throughout the customer lifecycle. Leron advocates for killing the traditional 90-minute Quarterly Business Review (QBR)—which clients dread—in favor of frequent, high-impact "value reviews" tailored to a customer's specific operational tempo. Ultimately, a healthy business relies on Gross Retention Rate (GRR) far more than Net Retention Rate (NRR), which can often mask underlying churn. To build a best-in-class CS team today, leaders must hire for curiosity, pattern recognition, and commercial acumen. The modern CSM is no longer a glorified secretary; they are a critical subject matter expert unblocking customer success and driving predictable expansion.
Discussed in this episode
- How the economic boom of 2014-2017 shifted CS into a relationship-focused happy department rather than an outcome-based engine.
- Why AI is stripping away 80% of administrative CS work, exposing CSMs who lack strategic and commercial capabilities.
- The necessity for CSMs to speak the language of revenue and view post-sale as a continuous reselling motion.
- Why the first 30 to 60 days of the customer relationship are the most critical for securing the eventual renewal.
- The death of the traditional QBR and the shift toward cadence-flexible value reviews focused strictly on business impact.
- How Gross Retention Rate (GRR) is a far more accurate indicator of business health than Net Retention Rate (NRR).
- The specific traits required for modern CSMs, including pattern recognition, executive presence, and relentless follow-through.
- Best practices for communicating with customers, including establishing async channels like Slack or texting over buried emails.
Episode highlights
- — Customer success lost its way
- — AI is exposing the CS department
- — CSMs must speak commercial language
- — The GTM engine starts after signature
- — Why post-sale drives predictable revenue
- — The critical first 30 to 60 days
- — Why the traditional QBR needs to die
- — Finding the right communication cadence
- — Top traits to hire for in CS
- — Preventing AI from creating more noise
- — GRR versus NRR in SaaS
Key takeaways
- AI is automating CS admin work, demanding higher strategic value.
- CSMs must embrace selling and commercial conversations.
- The first 30-60 days dictate the success of a renewal.
- Ditch the generic QBR for frequent, impact-driven value reviews.
- Strong GRR is required before you can scale NRR sustainably.
Transcript
Customer success lost its way. Unfortunately, you got a rude awakening. Uh, it started around COVID when everything got tight. And now it is truly coming into the world of AI and AI is exposing CS and it's bad form.
In the CS world, I I think it's not being exposed as much, albe it it should. And so a CSM that says I don't sell, you need to get out. Sell is not a four-letter dirty word. Welcome back to another episode of the Bridge the Gap podcast, powered by Revenue Reimagined.
Today's guest only needs a first name. Today's guest is Leron, the VP of Customer Success at Docket AI, and one of the strongest operators redefining what customer success should be. She's built and scaled post-sale organizations at companies like Reggae.ai and Textio, helping turn retention into predictable expansion and transforming CS into get this, we talk about this all the time, a real revenue engine.
We're going to dig into what's broken customer success, what most companies still misunderstand about post-sale, and why the real GTM system might actually start after the deal is signed. Leon, thanks for joining the show and uh putting up with this guy on the other end. Leon, I we appreciate you taking the time. And actually, I was reading one of your posts today, which is really interesting.
I get back to later on NRR. But um, there's a lot of conversation about customer success losing its all. Like, talk to me a little bit about the impact that customer health scores, check-ins, like, are we getting to outcome-based CS or are we just starting to check boxes? Oh, I love this.
I have a feeling that I'll be climbing several of my soap boxes here. So by the end of this episode, folks, I'll be 12 feet tall, uh, and not just 5'5 on a good day. Um, so in my very strong opinion, and I have many of those, customer success as it root and where it started was an outcome-based department and form and motion. And somewhere along the line, mostly I attributed it to the great economy boost that happened between 2014 to 2017, where everybody had money and people were just buying things and renewing because they were happy.
Customer success turned into the happy department. And we measured our success by our customer's happy? And are they green, yellow, red, bright orange? Um, and we started coming up with What's bright orange?
What color is bright orange? That's between the red and the yellow, like they're not really there. I've had so many CSMs make up more colors and my like, listen, Purple for evangelist. Yes.
Like, there was over complication of things, and we came up with platforms that had three-letter acronyms that now we're going to measure ourselves based on this Richter scale of how you are. But I've been in business about as long as the two of you, folks. Um, have you ever met someone who like bought or renewed because they were happy? Maybe it's an extra drink at the bar, but that's about all that happens when you're happy.
You're not putting down six figures on a platform. And so, Dale, customer success lost its way. Unfortunately, you got a rude awakening. Uh, it started around COVID when everything got tight, and now it is truly coming into the world of AI, and AI is exposing CS, and it's bad form.
And it's going to be forced to be rebuilt as its original state, and hopefully even a better state. So, you said, you just said AI is exposing CS, and we see a lot of AI exposing the front end, the sales reps, the BDRs. What how do you how what do you mean about AI exposing CS? Oh, great question.
So, a lot of people I'm about to offend half the world. Hi, happy Monday. Welcome to the Leon show. Um, a lot of CSMs have kept themselves really busy with admin work, and notes, and check-ins, and QBRs, and back to backs, and things that just required administrative work.
AI is stripping all of that. I don't need you to take notes, I don't need you to update the CRM, I don't need you to send a follow-up email, I don't need you to do a checking. And all when you take all of that away, which is transparently about 80% of what's in the calendar for a CSM, and you look around and you're like, what do you do all day? And why do I need you?
And wait, you're really good at managing the admin, but you can't have a strategic conversation about the actual work that the platform that you're selling is helping the customer achieve and do or have a conversation about their industry, and who's winning and why they're winning in it or what they should be aware of. It takes all of that away, because I don't need that because no offense to anyone, but for 20 bucks a month, I have workflows that do the job that I pay you six figures to do. So, why would I pay you to do that? So, when I put AI together to do all of that administrative work, what's left is the real critical work of judgment, and strategy, and human EQ, and when I can see that you can't do it, then questions have to be asked.
I wonder how much we really had in that realm prior to as well, because what I have seen in the evolution of CS is people that didn't necessarily understand revenue, right? They understood kind of like a customer project management process, but they didn't understand the revenue side of the business. So, I spent a good deal of time teaching a lot of CS people how to how to talk revenue. And so, I'm curious as we progress through our conversation, how we can weave in the CS as a project management aspect into revenue.
But I've talked a lot, so I'll let Adam talk a little bit. I mean, you always talk a lot, so that shouldn't surprise any of our listeners on the show. You should see what it's like when we're in client meetings. Um, I was just surprised you you you understand rev.
No, I'm kidding. Um, all all all joking aside, I I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense, right? And we talk about this a lot with sales and we talk about this even more with BDRs, right? Like, okay, so if you don't have to write the email, if you don't have to write the like, what are you actually doing?
Because God knows you're not getting on the phone with people. In the CS world, I I think it's not being exposed as much, albe it, it should. So, what right. So, what percentage of CSMs, and I'm going to use that term very broadly, in your estimation are actually capable of having these strategic-level conversations when we can automate all this admin stuff and similar to a BDR, now I need you to actually work and talk to people and drive revenue.
What are you seeing? So, I'll start by saying we did this to ourselves. So, again, CS has always been part of the go-to market engine. And if you're part of the go-to market engine, you better know how to speak commercial.
Not forget it, go learn it, go speak it. Um, my second soap box of the day is everything starts after the signature. And that includes reselling. And so, a CSM that says I don't sell, you need to get out.
Because the second they need to be We've said that for a very long time. Get out. Sell is not a four-letter dirty word. We all sell.
I sell all day to my children, to my partner, to my co-workers, we all sell. Now, is it a different sell than an AE does? Yes, the same way it's a different sell than an SDR does, but you're still selling and you need to be able to understand commercials because you're dealing with a business that has commercials. Therefore, the impact and the work you're doing is impacting their commercials and you need to help them tie all of that.
So, I think that because we turned CS to the happy department, we talked about empathy, and we hire people who are empathetic, and can build relationships, and we hired therapists instead of actual go-to market operators. And so, if you are looking at yourself today in the mirror and saying, I can't speak commercial, or I'm uncomfortable speaking about commercials with customers, you're not going to be in this new world of a customer success. As leaders, we owe that training. So, reach out to Dale and get some training on how to speak about commercial.
Check out YouTube, check out Google, work with an AI. I don't know, but Much much better option. But get the learning. It is out there and it's incumbent on you to do the work, for the company to help direct you in the right places, but you need to do the work.
It is part of the conversation. I think unfortunately, we're going to see, this is my prediction, don't put money on it unless you're a betting person, but I think the world of CS actually grows and changes. So you'll see more people in CSM roles that are like the previous Bane McKinstry analyst of data who can go deep into analyzing, seeing patterns, cross-pollinating from customers what they're seeing, preventing that, deep expertise in the industry of what it is that you're selling to understand that. So subject matter expert.
If you're selling to a sales department, you're going to hire former VPs of sales to come be that CSM to help guide you into that. From my experience, here's how you build that, here's how you do it. It gets elevated. You're no longer a relationship manager, you're not a ticket creator, you're not a secretary taking notes.
You're the key element to unlocking and unblocking the customer success. It's such a critical role that has been pushed to the back of the the theater and just kept behind the scene. So if if I hear you right, the CSM role which unfortunately, I feel is viewed in a much more menial way than it should be right now in a lot of orgs. Um, I feel like it is just like, oh, this is the check-in person, right?
They're not really responsible for driving growth and revenue, albe it they should be. Um, if I hear you right, that role gets elevated to where it really should be, and you are truly looked at as part of the strategic go-to market team where you are responsible for driving revenue, understanding why that revenue gets driven and what the signals are. And Leron, you said something that it's funny looking at my notes, it's actually what I wanted to go into next, that the GTM engine starts after the signature. And Dale and I are big believers in this, right?
The day you listen, all that I I don't want to minimize sales. Sales is hard. You have to close the deal. But it's got to be the right deal and then, you know, you have to deliver on it.
Um, and the sales reps often forget that because they sign the deal and go walk away and sign another one and that likely is the right thing. But you still have to make sure that that's a good customer. So tell me, why does post-sale architecture, the sale starts after the signature, drive more predictable revenue than new business pipeline? Oh, I love this.
Um, a couple of reasons. One, we have a longer runway, I'll say it that way, right? Like you you have to go through the sale fairly quickly. Most of us go through it at a certain timeline, but once the signature ends, you have at least 11 months to get to where you need to go.
So you have time to really get there and really build it. Within that time, um, your board is now going to expect you of like, hey, Leon, listen, Adam just brought a $100,000 deal. What did you do to secure the 100 and then make sure that either Adam or yourself or someone else on the team can grow that even more? Because this is the sustainability of a business is not just new logos signed.
Awesome. The board really loves that deck. Don't get me wrong. Sales is hard and the board loves the shiny deck where like, here's the new logo.
But what they really care about is like, can you stay in business? That means that customer grew. They're doubling down, they believe in what you actually provided them. It's the reality after the dream that sales brought forth.
So the reality is what you're selling them. Can you grow that? Do you understand the conditions they're in and how to make that work? So the architecture of that is so critical.
It is one of the hardest roles because a lot of times, I have to hold a mirror to your face and have an honest conversation and say to you, and one of my favorite analogies is, thanks for coming and signing up for our gym. I understand you want to be one of our highlights and lose 150 pounds in three weeks. Given. Given that what you're coming in with, and your starting weight, and also that you just stopped at the taco truck outside and doubled down on three.
That's not going to take three weeks. It's going to take us three months. And here's why, and here's what I'm going to do to help us get there, and what are you going to do to help us get there? So it's when you're build the partnership and it goes beyond what I'm going to give you and how you're going to be better because of me, but actually how we get to that point together, and there's work to be done.
And so reality's going to hit you and my and myself, and your changing business conditions, the economy, a new CEO, all of that has to be taken into account because things will change in that really long runway that we have. There's something I keep seeing with sales teams I work with. Generic sequences don't work anymore. We've all gotten so good at turning out the noise that even your own buyers are ignoring you.
The problem isn't your reps. It's that your sequences are static and your signals are somewhere else entirely. That's why our clients use Nooks. And the thing that stuck with me is that their sequences actually stay fresh because the signals update them automatically.
Right buyer, right moment with no manual babysitting. If your outbound feels like it's shouting into a void, go check them out at Nooks.ai/bridge the gap. Yeah, and I'm so I'm going to disagree a little bit with you on this one.
And I was just talking to a client, um, recently and they they're working through their renewal process right now. They they've never had a renewal process. Their their um, CSMs are like, they're really doing implementation project, which is another whole subject in itself. But then they're like, yeah, just go renew them, but there's no process.
They weren't in Hubspot. But I would argue that you actually have probably three to five months to secure the renewal. And it's the first three to five months, not the last three to five months. And I say that because you you go through this honeymoon phase after the sale.
So everyone's happy, everyone's got this process. And then you hand it over probably the decision maker is not the one implementing, and the sales person is not the one implementing. So now you have new people uh interacting with each other on this thing that we're calling a implementation. And in sales, they promised to deliver value, and in CS, we actually have to deliver the value.
Like there's fundamental challenges in that. And so, I always when I talk to CS groups, I always say like, the first three to five months are the most important to know whether you're going to get a renewal or not. Does the product work as advertised? Are we going to deliver the value?
Even if you have to recast the value. So it's like, this was the value we thought we were getting, the executive thought we had this problem. We had X problem, but they had Y problems. So now we recast and we realign expectations, which always screw up a lot of things.
Um, but I would say you don't really have as much time as we all think we have for renewal. I I agree with you, and I actually think it's less than three months. So, it's during the honeymoon period that you would lose them. So, whether you have a CSM that's full cycle and doing everything after the signature, through renewal, you have different departments doing it.
Those those increments, first 30 to 60 days are the most critical, because you will lose everything. Again, I just married you and now you're showing up at the honeymoon and I'm like, oh, what did I do? Like that's where breakups happen. The beautiful thing about customer success is if you look at it through stages, you have your onboarding stage, and you have your implementation stage, and then you have your actual putting things together.
Each one of those stages gives you a little bit of room to recertify that you brought value. So even if you messed up, I don't know if we're allowed to cuss, so I'll say messed up. Yes, you you can. So if you, in the first stage, you could fix some of it in the second stage.
Now, it depends because one of the critical pieces is you have different stakeholders for each one, which is why I keep saying you're reselling at each stage. The runway is longer, but you have to do it so many different times with different stakeholders. And the hardest piece is tying it all together for all those stakeholders to take that up. So, you have to redo it again and again.
I like to look at the customer lifecycle in about 90 days, because every 90 days something changes in their business. They messed up their quarter, they hit the quarter, the economy shifted, they have new people in. Every 90 days, you have to resell. And so you have an opportunity to fix some of the problems you have, but you also have to get the early wins, there's nothing.
If you don't get to like aha moments and big wins in the first few weeks, no one wants to sit through 90 days of implementation, and connecting integrations, and meeting. There's no value in it, the same way no one wants to sit through your 90-minute QBR. I'd rather go do something else. So, I I'm going to Dale, I'm I'm going to go off script here.
Uh, we talk about this a lot. The 90 the 90-minute that I'm going off script here that we talk about this. Or both. No.
There you go off script. Um, the 90-minute QBR, right? So, every every org we walk into, and Dale works a lot more on the CS side than I do, but every org we walk into, And hence why CS is more important than sales, so absolutely, it totally makes sense. Um, every org we walk into, when we start talking to customer success, you know, well, what are you doing?
How are you doing? What's your workflow? How are you Well, we do QBRs. Yes.
with such pride, right? We do these great QBRs. And as someone who has bought millions if not tens of millions of dollars of software, um, who transparently for all of our clients typically controls the entire tech spend. There is nothing I want to do less than sit through your QBR showing me stats of how much I've used your product and where I've clicked and what I've done because I know all this.
Yes. Where did the QBR come from and how the hell do we get away from a QBR to what I like to call and what Dale likes to call a quarterly impact review where is even that bullshit. So, one, if you're a CSM, wake up. No one has ever woke up in the morning going, yay, I have a QBR with Leon today.
Cuz you never called your bank for them to sit through 90 minutes of reading you your your last month's statement line by line, which is every QBR out there. I would rather I love that analogy. Heard raging cats. Um, I I it actually came from the world of, well, we should do a quarterly business review because that's what businesses do.
And it came from the early days of SaaS when we sold seats and how many people logged in was important. There were no dashboards, so we had to tell you. But last time I looked, it's 2026 and we're not doing that anymore, right? I don't say send fax machines over or dial the rotary phones.
So let's kill it. Today, we're killing the QBR. Do people still have fax machines? Actually, yes.
My my bank asked me to fax them something the other week. And I was like, how do you do that? How about email? Yeah, how about I scan and email it to you?
Um, it needs to die. I I'm not a big on like killing things in SaaS, but QBR needs to die. Now, I will even challenge that anything that has a date on it has no meaning to me. So, you want to do a quarterly whatever, I don't care.
My business doesn't move on a quarter. I call these value reviews. I can do them on a weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, it doesn't matter. What I'm coming into that meeting with is value that you've received.
Here's the value you've gotten with us over enter period. Here are great things for us to celebrate because of this value, and the impact it has had on your business. So if you can't tie that value to a KPI that business has, uh, they don't care. Um, and then here are opportunities for either experiments or things we can improve to get more value.
Here is what I'm proposing. Do you have anything else to propose? So these can happen. And with some of the customers I work with today, these happen on a weekly basis, because they're moving fast, we're moving fast.
Others, it could be monthly or every 52 days. Avoid the quarterly because nothing in a customer life cycle or a sales cycle happens because a date on your calendar shows that. Yeah, and I think it's only it's only quarterly because like people don't even do them quarterly. And one of the big things I hear from clients is like, well, my client doesn't want to talk to me quarterly or they don't want to talk to me every three months.
And it's like, well, that's that's a that's a problem. Guess what, Dale, it's because what you're bringing to the conversation is boring. You add zero value. You add zero value, so I don't want to meet with you.
I've been saying this like, customers are ghosting you? That's a you problem. Yeah. Yeah.
Dale, that explains why when you text me and want to talk, I don't answer. You add me no value. If the truth must be told, Dale ignores my text much more than I ignore his. Maybe I need to see what value I'm adding to this show.
Um, I so it's it's very interesting going down this path and like, we do we talk about quarterly impact reviews. I think, if you're only waiting quarterly, then you're you know, you're already starting from behind. I do think you have to set up a cadence that makes more sense for the customer. I think you have to one of the things that we do a lot when we work with our clients is we do a lot of spiced training.
So, situation, pain, impact, which is the QIR, uh, compelling event decision. So, the biggest thing that I see is in the handoff between sales and CS, and I actually even hate that word because in most places where we try to build processes, I want the CS in the pre-sale motion and like at least proposal negotiation, so they have some interaction with the customer, they understand what what what we're promising to deliver, and we can like ramp ourselves because we don't want to distract or say no to people, but we want to know like what we're getting ourselves into. And so, if we all if we don't all align on what the impact is where our product or service is going to deliver the customer, you're in trouble to begin with. So, you're never going to renew, you're never going to go through that process.
So, Yeah. And I would say that again, if you go back to those um, periods in the customer lifecycle, during onboarding, we might have to meet weekly. Later on, we might be able to move it to bi-weekly. So, what I tell customers is during this period, which we are right now, and we define it by how long this next phase is, we typically meet with customers on one or two of the cadences.
Which one works best for you? Yeah. If you're choosing the furthest out, then I will say, great, I need a better way to also async work with you in between in case something happens. Do you prefer Slack, Teams, emails?
How can I communicate in between so you and I are always prepared when we're coming? My job is to make you look really good to whoever comes in. I love I love that line. We use that line an awful lot, right?
Like, all I want to do is make you look great to your leaders. How how enable me to help you do that? How I love that you just said that's so important that people are afraid to ask. Like, email gets bogged down all the time, Leon.
Like, what's the best way for us to communicate? Slack, Teams, text message. I promise I'm not going to spam you and give your text number to anyone, but like, what works best for you? Because if you're like me, you're not going to see that email till three days later.
And certainly in the sales process, and I I would be very curious if you feel the same in the CS process. I tell every rep if you're not on at least a Slack, but preferably a texting basis with your prospect, that deal is not going to close. Same. And and it's I think for me the texting hurts because I've yet to figure out a platform that can connect the text message to a CRM and so we can all see it.
So I've I've tried to avoid it because there's that. But if you don't have a way to get a hold of the person you're working with, and I'm not going to call them stakeholders because they change. Your point of contact for right now, or multiple points of contact in the account, to a place where like, I can send a message and you're going to reply within 24 hours, it is not a sale, it is not a healthy account, there is no renewal, and they're just avoiding you for different reasons. And they don't have to come back with an answer, but they can at least acknowledge, saw this traveling, or we'll get to you on Tuesday.
But to a point where someone with the ability to make things happen, can reply to you, then you've done nothing. Adam only communicates via fax, though. It takes a couple of days. Only, and Smoke signals.
Don't forget, don't forget the smoke signals. Pigeons. Listen, I love a good carrier pigeon. Uh, Leron, so this is very Timely.
Leron's almost 60. Um, this is very timely because, you know, we talked about CSMs turning them into like revenue, GTM, revenue consultants, versus like project managers. But one of the things I'm curious about is, when you're hiring CSMs, what's the what are some of the traits that matter the most when building that CS team? Uh, great question.
And um, I will say this might actually resonate with you from a sales perspective. Um, so things that I look for in a CSM, um, are curiosity, pattern recognition, objection handling, executive presence, relentless follow through. If you're going to say you're doing something, Holy moly, please for the love of God, do it. Right.
I was just going to say, for the love of all things, please. And then you have to be comfortable with commercial conversations. Yeah. Everything else, I can figure out.
But if if you can't do those basics, and I say that because customer success is just this much different in every single company. Cuz if we could have 15,000 flavors of what customer success is, which is part of the problem. Yeah. Then but those stick no matter what company size I work in, and no matter what platform I'm in.
If you can hit those six for me, there's hope for you. Adam, no hope for you. Zero. None.
None. You've you've used the word commercial a lot. Um, and I think that's a term that dates the three of us, cuz I use it as well. And I think a lot of the newer folks in CSM and sales don't understand what commercial means.
Can can you clarify even for our newer founders, dare I say? Like, when you say commercial, speak commercial. What are you referring to? Um, that as a person, you have no problem talking about money.
Where is the money? Show me the money. Where it's coming from? Who owns it?
Where does it get released? What line item is it connected to? I I used to have a pipeline stage called commercials and I had people pull it out because they're like, what is that? So, as a CSM, when a contract comes to you, you should understand where that contract came from.
How did they buy this? With what funds? Is that renewable or is that like dead? Did you replace Was this a was this a one-time special here some money?
Yeah. Someone said we need to do this AI initiative and gave you some money and like this is not going to come back. Who owns that budget? Oh, our ops manager bought this for us.
Great. I should go meet with that person because they have a set of KPIs that have to hit that doesn't matter what Adam says to me and I need to make that friends. Um, is that a line item? Are you sitting under technology?
Are you sitting under services? What's paying for this thing? Is there more room in the budget for this? How are they thinking about it?
So, if you're selling seat-based today and they bought 100 seats, do they have plans to grow the team? Do they have plans to pay for that growing team in that budget? Uh, when is that team growing? How does that go?
So, not being afraid to ask those questions because you need to understand that. Without that, we're just walking around the awkward thing in the room and then you're like, so, we're 90 days away from the date that says renew. Um, do you want to renew? Always.
And you don't even know who to send that email work to and it's like the most awkward thing and they're afraid. I ask these questions on day one. If my salesperson doesn't know that then it is my job to go back in and discover that because we need to know where that comes from. At the end of the day, I need to know who makes the bottom line decision and know that most of the time it's a CFO, CEO that make those decisions.
So, everything needs to trickle upward economics to them. And you need to understand where it's coming from. Upward economics. I love that.
Leron, when we talk about and we started the show by talking about like AI and what AI can do and can't do and shouldn't do, um, in the world of CS. How do you and I I ask this to everyone regardless of where they are in GTM, but how do you prevent AI from creating noise instead of insight? Ooh. Great question.
Let's start with the basics. I asked a great question. Great question. It's only when you it's only when she says it's a great question the whole time, so we're only a half an hour in.
Listen. It takes time to warm up. Um, I think we need to start with the basics. AI is a multiplier.
So, if you've got something working and you put AI on it, you get more. If you put it on shit, you're just about to have one and you get more shit everywhere. Um, warning signs that I give to folks is, one, know where shit is and know where things are working. Two, you can't plaster AI on stuff.
AI is a platform. And so, you need to understand your operating system and where it might fit into that operating system, cuz it's supposed to make that operating system work better, not interfere, not interrupt. AI should not be the new ticketing system that you have that just creates a bunch more tickets, cuz that's not gonna last. It is there to remove noise, not create noise.
And so, if you don't have a clear understanding of your operating system, how do the different platforms fit into that operating system? What's broken between them? Maybe AI can be that connective tissue. What are the pain points for your team?
What's working and not working? And not just because someone on the team said, I hate doing that. So sorry, Johnny, that you hate putting notes in salesforce. You're still going to do it, cuz that's what we do.
I didn't remember asking if you liked it when I bought it. Do it, cuz I said so. Or you didn't like that it's purple. Yeah, just do it, cuz I said so.
But what's working and what's not working? And so, it's not I think where it's breaking and people are frustrated with it is because you had a leader that's like, someone told me I need AI, so now I'm going to have AI. And it doesn't fit into anything. And it's just another tool, another system, another thing that's creating more noise and more shit and more problems than actually solving them.
Yeah. It's uh, I think so many people don't realize that. Um, crap in is crap out and we say it over and over and over and over again, but we were working with a client who was trying to implement some AI for prospecting, um, was not proofreading any of their signals or anything, um, and literally sent a message to someone congratulating them on their SEC investigation. Yeah.
That's a bad day. That's a bad day. Or your sexually harassed. I saw on Google.
Yes. Yes. Bad day. That's gonna be a very bad day.
And I remember those days. And again, that's why humans have to stay in the loop, like you need to put judgment. Not everything can and should be automated because if you say to AI, hey, search all these data sources and write me messages and then send them, you're about to congratulate someone for getting arrested or some sexual harassment lawsuit that's coming or, congratulations, we saw you went bankrupt. Yeah.
You literally will do that because you didn't define to AI what good is to a human. And I think one thing to remember, and I say this often to people like, it's not working. Well, you didn't define it. It's doing exactly what you told it to do.
That's the beautiful thing about AI, unlike children, they will do exactly what you tell them to do to the letter. So, if you didn't define it or you defined it wrong, it's going to do that. If you don't like it, fix the prompt. The prompt.
Your children your children do that? Your children follow you? I was just going to say, how how do I get my kid to do what I tell him to do? Make an AI child.
They do not listen to a word I say. I I've been trying to get in touch with my child since 8:00 this morning and he hasn't answered my text message and my thoughts are I I pay for your damn phone. Yeah. Send emojis, then they reply.
But you got to touch base with them on Instagram. No, he's not on IG. Um, so Yeah. I'll tell you this.
You don't you don't think he's on Instagram? No, I know he's not. If you want your kids to pick up the phone and talk to you, upload a really embarrassing TikTok. Um, I will say anytime yes.
Anytime he finds out that I posted something about him or tagged him and anything. Um, that's a whole conversation. Yes, that's me. All right.
We need to shift to rapid fire as much as I don't want to and I want to keep going. But let's have a little rapid fire fun. So, the caveat here is 10 words or less. Um, if you go over, Dale owes me a dollar for every word.
Um, so feel free to take your time. No, I'm kidding. Um, all right, here we go. If you could ban one CS buzzword forever, what would that word be?
Happiness. No more happiness. No more happiness. Happiness never renewed a contract.
Do not. So, I'm going to I'm going to circle back to your posts today. And I want to ask you, what's more important, NRR or GRR? Ooh.
Trick question. But I will say that if you don't have GRR, good luck getting your NRR. Yeah. So your GRR is at 60, 70.
You could get to a high NRR, but you're going to have to work three times harder, which makes no sense on CAC. What what makes a good uh GRR? What's a good what's a good place for people to to target? Uh, so these are not my words, these are much smarter people than myself, uh, but you should be in the 90s.
Hmm. Yeah. Anything below that, I don't know when your lights are going to go off. It's funny because The reason why I I'm asking this question is I'm doing a GRR, NRR analysis right now.
And Dale He's trying to get free consulting. No, no, no. Call me. And NRR is masking the GRR problem.
It always does. And I ask founders and like, oh, our NRR is this. I'm like, I didn't ask that. So, I can tell how tall you are.
Now, take off the high heels. How tall are you really? Cuz I can put you on a pedestal, right? But tell me what it really is.
Now, if your GRR is at shit, we can get to a good NRR, but we really need to work that much harder, and your burn rate's the first thing that's going to burn. Yep. So, my job is to help you stay in business, not burn cash. Leron, other than your own team, who's doing CS and revenue alignment the best in SaaS?
Who's best in class? Ooh, there's a bunch, actually. I'm jealous of a few people. Um, go to market specifically or customer success?
Open-ended question. Either or. Um, right now, I have a not so secret love affair with Civil. Okay.
Hmm. Okay. That's a that's a cool intelligent tool. I I I have I have a little bit of a love affair there.
Um, I I would say there's a bunch of new incumbents that are doing very new things and radical things that are making me go, I kind of want to be that too. I wonder if I could one day. There's a lot to learn from them. So, I'm trying to reverse engineer what could I bring into what I'm doing?
And because they're coming into such a loud and dare I say older outdated world, they have to sound differently and look differently. So, uh, to all you newbies out there, keep going. You're making us old people take a look. Last one is we wrap this up.
Adam's favorite question. Dream vacation destination. Uh, I am an urban creature, so drop me in a beautiful city somewhere where I can walk the streets, eat delicious food, drink amazing cocktails and people watch all day without the need of technology. I love it.
Not the normal answer. I love it. You can't put me on the beach. I'll be like, what are we doing?
Can we do something? Yeah. Fair point. Leron, thank you so much for joining the show.
Thank you for sharing all your CS knowledge and dropping all of that information on how to do CS right. Much appreciate. Thank you for having me. Thank you.
Of course.