Moving from Customer Service to Customer Success with Lena Theres Zimmermann

Aug 6, 2025

Lena Theres Zimmermann, Head of Customer Experience at DoInstruct, shares her journey of transforming customer service into a strategic success function. She emphasizes the importance of curiosity and team collaboration in driving customer success. Lena discusses aligning internal goals with success metrics and the shift from prioritizing customer happiness to focusing on growth. She offers insights on onboarding challenges, educating traditional customers about CSM roles, and managing expectations, highlighting the powerful impact of a proactive approach.

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INSIGHT

Keep CSMs Involved End-To-End

Keep CSM involvement from pre-sales through renewal to reduce handoff friction.
Seamless transitions build trust with traditional customers and lower adoption risk.

INSIGHT

Curiosity Fuels Career Shifts

Curiosity drove Lena from consulting interviews into a CS career and then into leadership.
Building cross-functional lunchtime task forces created the experience that led to promotion.

ADVICE

Align CS With Revenue Metrics

Align your CS team's mission with leadership metrics like NRR before changing behavior.
Build clear ownership, processes, and coach CSMs one-to-one to drive revenue outcomes.

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In this episode, Anika Zubair discusses the transition from customer service to customer success with Lena Therese Zimmerman, Head of Customer Experience at Do Instruct. They explore the importance of curiosity, team collaboration, and the need for a strategic approach in customer success. Lena shares her journey in transforming a reactive customer service team into proactive customer success managers, emphasizing the significance of aligning internal goals with customer success metrics. The conversation highlights the shift in mindset required to prioritize customer success over mere customer happiness, and the strategies for educating customers about the role of customer success managers. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the intricacies of customer success, focusing on the challenges faced during onboarding, the importance of empathy, and the need for effective communication.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:52 Transitioning from Customer Service to Customer Success
05:52 Understanding the Role of Customer Experience
08:51 The Importance of Team Collaboration in Customer Success
12:07 Curiosity as a Key Trait in Customer Success
15:02 Transforming Reactive Teams into Strategic Partners
18:11 Aligning Internal Goals with Customer Success
21:10 The Shift from Customer Happiness to Customer Success
23:53 Educating Customers on the Role of Customer Success
28:38 Understanding Customer Fears and Onboarding Challenges
31:38 Empathy in Customer Success
33:02 Overcoming Customer Hesitation
34:32 Communicating Effectively During Onboarding
36:09 Setting Expectations: The Importance of Honesty
39:33 The Balance of Saying No: Guiding Customers to Success
41:00 Collaboration Between Sales and Customer Success
43:40 Transitioning from Support to Strategic Advisor
47:59 Lessons Learned: Shifting from Service to Revenue Focus
51:25 The Future of Customer Success: Embracing AI
52:59 Changing Perceptions of Customer Success

Connect with Anika Zubair:
Website: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anikazubair/
CSM RevUP Academy: https://thecustomersuccesspro.com/revup

Connect with Lena Theres Zimmermann:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-theres-zimmermann/

Lena Zimmermann is Head of Customer Experience at doinstruct, a fast-growing Compliance Tech startup. With over 7.5 years of experience in SaaS, she has led Customer Success teams across DACH and BENELUX, helping companies create meaningful, long-term customer relationships.

Lena is passionate about turning Customer Success into a strategic growth lever — especially in contexts where customer bases are more traditional and starting their digital transformation. Her leadership approach blends structure with empathy, enabling scalable processes that support retention, adoption, and revenue expansion.

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