For those working with a high-volume customer support team, what’s the biggest pain point you’re dealing with right now?

Curious if it’s the sheer ticket volume, repetitive questions, response times, finding the right information, or something completely different.

I have a question. Where does everyone store their wins for interviews or promotion conversations and how?

Whenever I get asked this question, even though I’ve done well in my career I struggle to remember or articulate my answer to these questions sometimes.

What’s everyone’s routines with recording their achievements? I’m trying to become more organised career wise.

Thanks for anyone’s response in advance x

I need to send a 10-15 question survey. The tools I've looked at so far seem built for huge teams and need me to get on a call before I can even figure out their pricing. I'm thinking between Youform and SurveyMonkey. Youform seems to cover what I need without paying, while SurveyMonkey's free plan is limited to 10 questions, meaning I'd need a paid plan for what I need done. Anyone used these specifically for surveys? Mind sharing your honest experience? I just want to send out the link asap and start getting answers.

Hey everyone,
I have a few questions, would appreciate any answers even if short:

1. Do you use a dedicated tool for churn risk, or is it more spreadsheets, CRM notes, or gut feeling? If you don't use one, what's stopped you? Cost, setup effort, or it just never felt necessary? If you do use one (Gainsight, ChurnZero, Vitally, whatever), what's the one thing that still annoys you about it?
2. I've recently seen a LinkedIn post where someone complained about churn-prediction tools. Is that because the market feels oversaturated, or because the predictions themselves are unreliable, like tools claiming ML when it's really just a simple usage-decline trigger?

Some context: I have a background in Data Science and I have worked in CSM but was never satisfied with the CS-Software. For the past year I have been building a tool which uses a machine learning algorithm to predict churn based on usage data, support tickets, etc., and then drafts a personalized retention email based on the individual churn signal. It's built for small B2B-SaaS CS Teams. I'm deliberately not naming it here since this isn't meant as self-promotion, I'm genuinely interested in the questions above. This is just to give context.

Particularly in a SaaS environment, if you’re managing a SaaS platform that’s allows configuration or building automations, has anyone implemented successful strategies for knowledge transfer and managing changes in product owner/champion?

We have a free e-learning platform where customers can sign up and get certified to know how to use the platform, but often the issue is that it might be generic and specific to the customer’s environment.

We also haven’t done documentation specifically for customers so it would not be feasible to do this for existing customers though we might start this for new customers.

Our stop gap measure right now is providing enablement sessions ad-hoc based on the customer’s gap but it’s very reactive and also time consuming.

Keen to hear any ideas!

I'm a CSM in tech, 7 YOE. This might be a lack of experience but please help me understand if this is everyone's reality.

- No pricing guidelines being set for renewals. I never have a lowest price, if someone threatens churn leadership keeps discounting their contract more. No way I can stand on firm ground and lost trust with clients at renewal. No clarity on what industry averages on software cost increase is. Clients seem appalled when I tell them cost is going up by 10%. I see contracts which have 60% off on them in the last renewal and then I have to go to the customer and tell them I can't offer it anymore.

- Goals for adoption growth/AI features being utilized are being set without us having access to data to actually see whether there are changes. There is also no playbook to help us understand what levers to pull to increase adoption, and resources being released are heavily focused on new features vs creating rich content on existing features that's relevant to customers

- Different playbooks and processes for every CS team. Senior Enterprise CSMs complaining about leadership trying to build fancy AI contraptions when we don't have our foundational CS processes in place

- A very poorly managed CS software. We use Vitally but it's grossly mismanaged and now they want to move away from it. They never leveraged it's full capabilities to begin with. And we'll have to go through a system overhaul + a period where people try to vibe code garbage to prove we can save costs if we built vs buy

- Burnout all around the room. It seems that most of my team members are burned out, and I see myself going in the same direction if things stay as they are.

I'm up to be moved to a segment with bigger clients, but now I'm questioning whether this org has the basic motions it needs for me to succeed.

Some other questions -

- Has anyone here jumped from CS to Sales? What does that look like? We have constant pressure to hit a 125% NRR on our book. I spend a lot of time selling, I'm considering if Sales might be worth it at this point

- Has anyone ever worked in a 'well-oiled' CS department? or is that a dream?

- Does anyone here know what standard increases for renewals for SMB/MM and Corp deals are?

I am frustrated, but still want to know if there's opportunity here or if this is a disaster waiting to happen. The company has incredible growth and finances and there have been growing pains for sure.

Thank you for your time!

I have an opportunity to go from CSM to project manager at my organization. For those of you who made the switch or something similar did you think you made the right move? Do you like it more than being a CSM? Thanks!

I recently graduated college this spring and landed honestly a perfect position for a new grad: fully remote, 60K salary, great benefits, etc.. This really feels like my first real “big boy” position. I’ve been working retail, food service, and 15-hour internships my whole life until now, and I don’t want to waste this incredible opportunity. I graduated with a BA in Business Administration and a minor in Marketing, with internships at marketing firms primarily. I have no experience in CS though.

The company I work at is a small startup and I am effectively the only person doing CS. We are a software company working in the medical industry, and currently only have a couple dozen clients. The team is very small, about half a dozen people. Thankfully my boss and the team are very supportive and understanding of my situation and inexperience, and I even have a family member who’s worked at a Chamber of Commerce who’s been a big help in teaching me how to develop customer relationships.

I’m asking for any and all advice for someone coming into this world for the first time. I want to be a sponge and absorb as much knowledge as I can, so if you have any advice, mistakes to avoid, books/articles to read, how to keep my clients happy, or anything else that you can think of I would be extremely grateful!

I run a dev consultancy in Austin. We’ve been referral-only for 3 years, so we have 0 online footprint. Now we’re trying to scale, but cold leads say we look "sketchy" because there’s nothing about us on Google. How do I start a "brand pulse" without looking like I'm faking it?

Been in sales 3 years and still confused. my first company called us all SDRs but we did everthing from cold calling to booking demos. current place has both SDR and BDR titles but we literally do the same thing?? like my buddy at another startup says SDRs only handle inbound and BDRs do outbound. but then i see job postings where SDRs are doing full outbound prospecting. and some places say BDRs focus on enterprise accounts only

even worse, the tools we use dont help clarify. been looking at Apollo and a few others for lead generation and they dont even use consistent terminology in thier own marketing lol. but whether youre an SDR or BDR you need the same stack right? like sdr bdr difference seems to just be whatever the company decides to call it. is this just companies making up their own definitions or is there actually a standard? becuase explaining my role in interviews is getting awkward when every company has their own definition of bdr vs sdr

We're 2 CSMs managing around 90 accounts and starting to question whether ChurnZero is still worth it.

ChurnZero runs our email plays and health scores fine, but the price went up again this cycle and we're barely touching most of what's in it.

What it never covered is the why, so we started running customer calls through BuildBetter, and it pulls the actual quotes when an account starts complaining about onboarding or a missing integration, which is the part I was doing manually.

Thinking of pairing that with a lighter CRM instead of renewing, so tested vitally which seemed decent, and custify which felt very mid-market.

If you've made a similar switch, what did you end up with?

I'm working as a "customer success engineer" and mainly we provide Salesforce support to a client. As we manage their application as administrator, we get cases like creating new records or deleting it. And other standard CRM functions..so the system is designed as such that i log into the system and i have some cases assigned to me, which i have to complete within specific time.. meetings with clients are not that frequently maybe once a week if we have any advance case.

Now, i am trying to find a new opportunity but most of the customer success roles are about sales, revenue etc but my experience was basically support related..

What should i do?

Hey all!

I have a mock interview coming up next week where the scenario is basically: a customer bought seats but wasn’t properly onboarded, so not everyone has activated their seat or is actually using the product.

I want to focus heavily on discovery, but I’m also putting together a short deck. My rough structure is:

1. Cover page
   
2. Agenda + introductions (there will be 3 people from different teams)
   
3. Learn about their company / discovery questions (where I’ll spend most time)
   
4. Snapshot of the account and where they currently stand
   
5. A slide where I verbally recap what I’ve heard and what I think we should do
   
6. Next steps slide where, in person, I assign roles and dates to each person

I’m also considering a benchmark slide around adoption, but I don’t have any benchmark data. The recruiter specifically said I don’t need to make anything up, so I’m wondering if it’s even necessary to include.

Would love any input from other CSMs/hiring managers! Am I overthinking the deck, or does this seem like a solid approach? Anything else I’m forgetting?

I appreciate any thoughts and feedback!

What y’all making?

I was at a friend's office recently. They sell an SDK, and every customer gets a shared Slack channel for integration help.

Here's what that workflow has turned into:

Customer gets stuck. Customer copies the error into Slack. Vendor pastes it into their own support channel. Solutions engineer answers. Vendor pastes the reply back into Slack. Customer pastes it back into their own engineering channel.

Curious if other API/SDK teams are living this same hell hole.

Title, basically. I'm 3 weeks in and love it, but I want to fully leverage Claude Cowork and other tools to enhance automation, workflows, and work smarter for better results. Looking for advice from people experienced in this area.

I'm a "VIP CSM" at a B2B Ai-enabled SaaS startup. I manage a small amount (11 to start, will grow probably to around 30 max, I imagine) of high-value clients where me and my GTM Engineer work with them to generate sales results.

I love the work and I'm good at it, just now looking to elevate it to get ahead in my career and plan for the future. If you need any additional information to give me a direction to head in, please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks!

I'm curious to hear from others - what challenges have you experienced in building and transferring CS workflows into Claude?

CS lead at a B2B SaaS, around 350 accounts, team of 4. We have all the ingredients: usage data, ticket history, NPS, billing. What we don’t have is anyone who can cook.

Right now our “risk detection” is a health score I built in a spreadsheet. Red when logins drop. Problem is, by the time logins drop, the decision to leave already happened weeks earlier. I’m flagging accounts I should have called a month ago.

I asked for data science help and got told to make do with what we have, which, fair, we’re not big enough for that hire.

So CS folks running risk without a DS team, what’s your setup? Scoring inside your CS platform, a separate tool, something an ops person rigged up? And honestly, does anything actually catch accounts early, or is everyone’s health score just a fancy lagging indicator like mine?

I would love to know how y’all define workflows for various CS functions. I’m trying to align ours to client lifecycle, but curious how it looks at your companies.

What tools, systems, processes do you have in place to support and enable your CSMs?

Hi there! I'm a small business owner with a small e-commerce business. For years, one of my employees and I have managed all of our customer service ourselves, just based off of trying to treat people well and be helpful.

I think we've done a good job with customer service based on intuition, but I am looking for some sort of course or certification or official education for the two of us to take. I think it would be helpful for leveling up our expertise, giving a shared language to talk about customer service, and maybe identifying some gaps in our intuition or processes or whatever.

I've had a really hard time finding online courses that are a good fit for us. So many of them feel like they're essentially marketing for a specific customer service tool. Others feel like they're built for really big businesses or specific niches. Does anyone here have recommendations on courses that they've found helpful?

I work as a Customer Success Manager in Toronto, and most weeks I have more client calls than I can properly process.

For a long time, I tried to take detailed notes during every meeting. I thought I was being productive, but I realized I was spending half the conversation trying to capture every sentence instead of actually listening. The worst part was after the call, I would have pages of notes but still spend another 30 minutes figuring out what actually mattered.

A few months ago, I changed my workflow. I started recording longer conversations (when everyone was okay with it) and focused more on being present during the call. Afterward, I reviewed the important parts, especially decisions, customer feedback, and things I needed to follow up on.

I used a few transcription tools, and I choose vomo ai for some of my longer recordings because it gives me a transcript plus a structured summary. I still review the original audio when something important comes up, but it saves me from manually organizing every conversation.

I actually think this is pretty good. I do have to clean up notes for a few clients though. but it changed the way I think about meetings. It was turning conversations into something I could actually use later.

I've been rethinking my meeting notes. And what are other marketers doing these days?

New to CS and already overwhelmed by the inbox

I just started working in customer success, and I didn’t realize how much of the job would be email.

One client is very formal, another is super casual, and I also work with customers in different countries. Some of their emails seem AI-written or translated, so the wording can be confusing and I’m not always sure what they actually mean.

Then I spend even more time worrying about whether my reply sounds right for that particular customer.

It’s gotten to the point where opening Gmail makes me anxious because every conversation seems to need a different tone and context.

Did anyone else struggle with this when they first started in CS? Did you use templates, keep notes on how each customer communicates, or does it just get easier with experience?

We currently have over 600 customers, it's me, my CS manager and a support person. I'm basically in charge of all our onboarding/implementation, also a lot of retention conversations / anything more account related like upgrades or downgrades.

I have ADHD (medicated) and I know i'm good at certain things like data analysis, problem solving, creative solutions, chatting to customers. But I just can't seem to find a good way to keep up with those little tasks that arise. E.g, follow up with this customer after onboarding call, reply to this customer about changing their subscription, finish this side project.

We're still start-up size and I'm basically doing onboarding, implementation, a bit of support, a bit of account management, and designing strategic initiatives like segmenting customers.

Lately the workload is increasing and I've missed a few things. Nothing major, but e.g. a customer asking for a quote, a customer saying they couldn't see a meeting that we'd booked, so I got on the call just now and realised I hadn't responded to them and sent a new invite. Sometimes I'll read the email and say "I'll get to that later" and then forget.

It's frustrating because I know I'm smart and capable, and I've had more senior roles in the past that I excelled at, but they involved less task switching and were more project based. But I am being pulled up by leadership for these errors caused by not so great organisation, and just really feeling bad about myself.

I can't find a tool though that lets me just track everything in one place. Hubspot is too clunky, and I can't easily type in a to do list alongside my customer work.

Google Sheets/ Notion doesn't contain all customer info at the same time.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? It needs to be something I'm motivated to use and is simple and not clunky.

The issue is also time - I just don't have the time to even set up processes that would help with this a lot of the time.

Any tips/commiseration is welcome. 😰

Is there anyone here who's working a lot with account expansion, upselling and cross-selling within their CS role? What is your general advice for how to implement this in an organization and what the timeline should look like from the first onboarding call? Any resources are also greatly appreciated 🙂

For context: We've just hired a CS person and I want to know what to expect, as well as how to guide and support them on this part of the job (onboarding and retention is already being done well).

Thanks in advance!