The Digital CX Podcast: Driving digital customer success and outcomes in the age of A.I.

Kari Ardalan of Qualtrics is a staple in the CS community and has been leading scaled motions for YEARS - which is sometime that not a lot of people can say. She also sits on Gainsight's Digital Advisory Board - so yeah, she's qualified to talk about this stuff. :-)In this fantastic conversation, we talk about:Building digital first with humans coming in off of the back of those motionsThe evolution of ‘scaled’ from just email and outbound events to a push to come inboundBuilding one place portal where customers can go for everything and where CSMs can interact with their customersHow Digital is structured at Qualtrics across various departmentsInternal cross-collaboration on digital motionsWhat to look out for in a digital leader - specifically cross-collaboration and a varied backgroundFocusing on Support deflection metrics and areas to automateOther interesting metrics in use at Qualtrics: % CTAs launched, penetration rate of closed success CTAs (conversation), Monthly Active Users, Monthly Active Customers, Flow Completion, % of Renewals Not Assisted by Humans Balancing being tactical and strategic as a leaderUsing special interests among the team to drive career growth and creativity - including HackathonsCool examples of digital motions including customer-facing scorecards, micro-learning, AI and self-serve portals.AI bot & recommendation engine implementation at Qualtrics Letting data tell you who the customer personas areThe dependency on operations work streams to get things doneEnjoy! I sure did...Kari's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kariardalan/Link to Kari's post about the qualities of a Digital CS Leader: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kariardalan_digitalsuccess-leadership-recruitment-activity-7175101395631570944-qujn?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktopShoutouts:Delores Cooper (Zendesk): https://www.linkedin.com/in/delorescooper/Austin Kwon (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinkwon/Kelly Bray (MongoDB): https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-bray-1684166/Rimple Patel (Eightfold): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rimpledpatel/+++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Christine Raby, Founder of DeliverDelight, brings the heat in this episode where we cover off a very wide range of topics - some CS related and some non-CS related. Christine's background is absolutely fascinating and I've been a fan of her presence both on LinkedIn and TikTok for quite some time now. This episode is full of practical examples and advice for both ICs and leaders alike as we talked about:How CS is now experiencing similar maturation to what marketing experienced a decade+ agoLeaders need to be super focused on the benchmarks and metrics vs. how they ‘feel’ things are goingThe opinions of whether CS should own revenue or not is completely irrelevant as the goals are similar, the team should be united and therefore measured (and compensated) on the same/or similar metricsHyper-personalization  together with client success stories is a powerful combination for New Logos and expansion alike (N&E)Test your "ways of working" in an unscalable manner first and then figure out how to automate & scale it upAI is a tool - not a replacement for you role - it needs to be leveraged in order to help you get out of reactive mode and into proactively growing your accountCurrent state of startup economics and how that relates to Customer Success within these businessesThe trend towards de-centralizing CS into a strategy instead of just an orgTaking lessons from B2CTransitioning PS from a cost center to a revenue centerEquality and Equity in the workplaceLike I said, a wide variety of topics. Enjoy! I know I sure did...Christine's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christineraby/DeliverDelight: https://www.deliverdelight.xyz/Shoutouts:Sara Roberts (Bayview Talent): https://www.linkedin.com/in/saralynneroberts/Jess Osborne (GoCardless): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicareserosborn/Diana De Jesus (The Customer Success Project): https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianadejesus/How to Break Into Tech: https://howtobreakintotech.com/by Charlotte Chaze: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottechaze/+++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Irit Eizips has been in and around CS for a long time. From being in on the ground floor at Gainsight to running her very successful consultancy, she has been a staple in the CS community and consistently produces fantastic content that we all benefit from! In this episode, we get into: Irit’s days at the early-stage Gainsight and the culture of startupsHer home in consulting (CSM Practice) vs. being a full time employeeBeing part of CS from the ground floorThe advancement of CS to where certification and degree programs have enabled college grads an entry into the fieldDigital motions should support the work of humans in CSImplementing too much digital without touchpoints along the way can actually have negative customer implicationsIdentifying risk in customers who are disengaging with digital programsOver-use of email via redundancy and simultaneous emails from multiple organizationsThe use of avatars in digital for communications to make things more fun when appropriateProtecting revenue and expansion via process automations to flag risk early before renewal and even close it earlyA few examples of great digital motions and practical advice around designing themDesigning digital-first motions with client outcomes & a customer journey front and centerLoads of great info in this one. Enjoy! I know I sure did...Irit's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eizips/CSM Practice: https://www.csmpractice.com/CSM Practice YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CSMPracticeResources:Seven Pillars of Customer Success by Wayne McCulloch: https://amzn.to/3TLXYogCCO Playbook by Rod Cherkas: https://amzn.to/3TLXYogOnboarding Matters by Donna Webber: https://amzn.to/3TRk9cuShoutout:Yair Bortinger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yair-bortinger/Yair's episode on CSM Practice Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pwj634-qu0+++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Maarten & Michiel Doornenbal are not only brothers, but also co-founders of Churned! They join me this week for a fantastic conversation about the platform they've built, AI, scorecards and more! Unfortunately, my audio/video didn't record - so you'll here me narrating the episode - but it's kind of fun to switch formats up here an there. In the episode, we talk about:Their history as brothers and how they work together as co-founders todayHistory of Churned and what they doUsing machine learning models instead of rules-based scorecards to create health scoring and to predict customer churnPart of the role of a CSP is to highlight were data cleanliness issues existVerifying your churn risk alerts by back-testing the data against historical churned customersPersonalization based on user-personasAI is not just Gen AI. The future of AI in CS combines predictive, descriptive and generative models  to auto generate content to free up time for CSMs.What the human involvement will look like with these future AI modelsEnjoy! I know I sure did!Maarten's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartendoornenbal/Michiel's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michiel-doornenbal-98710067/Churned: https://churned.ioResources Mentioned:The Big Exit Show Podcast: https://peak.capital/the-big-exit-show-podcast/Customer Success Snack Community: https://customersuccesssnack.com/Customer Success Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cs-connect/Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell: https://amzn.to/3VN2cP7Scaling Up Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/394xlIBALeAPMEeq1EvJPt++++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Invariably, when you speak to someone in CS about Rob Zambito, the first comment that almost always comes back is, "He's a good guy".  ...and I couldn't agree more.I wouldn't say that I've known Rob for a very long - but the time we've spent both on Zoom and in-person has always been extremely high-quality, funny, impactful, personal and full of great questions.This is the same approach Rob takes with all of his clients at Success Scaled, where he advises seed to B-series companies on CS strategies. He asks A LOT of questions and puts together a good picture of current-state before digging into solutioning.This is also what makes him a phenomenal guest for this episode of the show because he has seen A LOT of stuff work - and a lot of stuff not work!In this episode, we talk about:How his background in ‘consumer psychology’ has helped him in his CS venturesThe parallels between the hospitality/service industry and being a CSMUsing the ‘lunch break test’ to help identify what should and can be automatedCS teams, if structured correctly can and should be catch-allCSMs should know about any interaction their customers have with the company - tickets, ideas submissions, community events, course completions, etc.Part of the digital remit should be focused on providing CSMs with easy access to customer data & telemetry for use in engaging their accountsOnboarding is an amazing first place to focus on digitizing as it is the most formative stage of the journeyRob’s approach to providing guidance and feedback to his clients in a productive mannerSuccessful onboarding will have customers ready to expand immediatelyApproach your daily routine from the standpoint of scaling and making your everyday more efficientDon’t wait for leadership to design your own efficiencies as an ICSetting aside an hour per day to hone in on work that is meaningful to youIncorporate celebration into your digital flowsLeveraging user data to really figure out the opportunities that exist within a customerSet the right expectations early when implementing digital motionsDon’t build a community until it starts to build itself.  Communities can swing wildly between ‘crickets’ and ‘group think’, so building them must be done so cautiouslyRob's LinkedInPodcasts:30 Minutes to President's ClubRevenue BuildersEconomics of Everyday ThingsShoutouts:Ryan Johansen Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Not only does Delores Cooper of Zendesk have a pretty amazing back story, she's also doing some pretty amazing things with a small and scrappy team at Zendesk. Short form video has become an increasingly popular medium for distribution of content and Zendesk is utilizing this as part of their digital enablement strategy.In this conversation, we talk about: Delores' entry into tech from social work & psychologyTiming of digital motions along the customer journeyDealing with variables such as industry-specific differences Team structure at Zendesk to support digital & scaled program Getting scrappy with resources and cross-functional departments to help build the programShort-form content as part of the ‘Success on Zendesk’ programUsing data to determine what content to produceDistribution model for video-based learningTaking learnings from B2C on how to interject more human language into B2BDelores' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delorescooper/DCS Connect Community: https://airtable.com/appLGhZyujOoYp8BQ/shr4ixoZmB8hBoLbMShoutouts:Grace Maxon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grace-lofgren-maxon-a98049156/Cooper Roe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cooper-roe/ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Nik Mijic, co-founder of Matik comes to us this week with not only a fascinating back-story, but some great CS-related content as we discuss a wide variety of very timely and important topics. In this episode, we talk about:How Matik automates the creation of content with personalized data, primarily for CS and SalesThe current state of the ‘digital business review’A good understanding of your data is needed for a quality DBRSending out one-pagers based on usage milestones or monthly project status updates - automagicallyA lot of people are scared of negative data, but using it to highlight customer improvement opportunities is keyThe importance of benchmarking cohorts of customers to help them grow and act on the adoption of the productKeeping a library of common customer objectives and content/measurements to help them along that pathMoving beyond rules-based automations in favor of GenAI improvements of the inputs that would normally feed your automations to make them even better.Savvy sales teams are taking post-sale data and aggregating business value cases out of it to help set expectationsNobody’s data is perfect - don’t let that keep you from getting something in placeFeedback loops are very important in Digital CS to make sure you are constantly monitoring what is working and what is not workingThe Kirkpatrick model, typically used in L&D can also be used in other ways to measure the short and long term efficacy of your programs and contentEnjoy! I know I sure did...Nik's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-mijic-9012201b/Matik: https://www.matik.io/+++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

I always love talking with people who work within companies that serve the CS community, and this one is no different. Erica was a fantastic guest to have on the show, partly because of the myriad of roles she's played at the company but also because she has done and is doing some pretty cool things in the realm of digital and customer education.In this fascinating conversation we talk about:Her journey into customer education at PendoThe approach to dealing with a new set of circumstances or ambiguityInterplay at Pendo between digital plays and educational offeringsDriving prescriptive outcomes in customers’ journeys, especially when there are many potential outcomes Identifying users' roles in-product to make sure content is curated for the right audience 1:1 Office Hours - assess, unblock & get out. Customers have availability via a calendar to a resource if they are stuckStart with where you are, what problems you’re trying to solve and what is your inventory of existing resourcesFacilitate the happy path digitally and using your humans to intervene when they strayUsing the resources around you and partnering with other teams to fill in the gaps that you have around subject matter expertise, content creation, etc.Prioritizing content creation based on product roadmap, customer impact of a product change  Instructional designers are underusing heroes in SaaSBrand & design standards - when to adhere to them strictly or notEnjoy! I know I sure did...Erica's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esakroyd/Shoutout: Daphne Costa Lopes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daphnecostalopes/++++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Lane Hart of Contentsquare brings to CS a no nonesense approach to ensuring the renewal via strong data analysis combined with a very human approach of customer engagement. He has taken lessons learned from his years in management consulting at IBM forward into a rocketship trajectory in CS at Heap - now Contentsquare. Be sure to grab a pen and paper for this one as we talk about:Scaling the Heap CS team and starting a CS Ops functionThe importance of knowing what Data is available and how it all correlates to drive customer outcomesAdvice: Don’t get stuck because the data is not perfectUse data in change management by ‘showing your work’ and telling a story of how you got there.Service recovery philosophy: So much of CS is gracefully falling on our sword - and owning up to that can lead to some incredibly real and human moments.Effective interventions on negative sentiment customers can turn these situations into extremely healthy relationshipsContact-level data is so often in very poor shape, not just in formatting but also in whether that contact is still at the company or what role they haveImplementing in-app prompts for new users for them to self-identify what role they playUsing bounced emails to adjust customer contact data - flagging contacts that have left - then reaching out to company to get updated contacts via active usersSurveys are annoying and you have to be very careful not to bombard peopleStandardizing metrics, both product and commercial,  across departments and then putting them front and center in front of the whole company to drive alignmentTracking champions after they leave a company - they can be incredibly valuable CSQLs to land new accounts with minimal effortLane's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanehart/Resources:Lenny's Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/Scaling People: https://amzn.to/3wDVfVHNudge: https://amzn.to/3wDVfVHApp: OmniFocus: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/Shoutouts:Mike MolinetMark KosoglowWes GibsonTodd Busler Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

Dickey Singh, CEO of Cast joins us this week for a bonus episode in which we discover his fascinating journey from a long line of engineering leadership roles to today, where he's leading the charge of AI in CS. We discuss at length what he and his team at Cast.app are doing to help revolutionize digital CS and what the future of all of this technology looks like.Topics covered include:Dickey’s long history with AI and his journey from an engineering background into serving customer success todayHe was ‘there’ at the inception of Customer SuccessHow Cast.app  helps its customers achieve 30x ROI via providing digital CS1:Many vs. 1:1 vs. Many:Many in Digital CSGetting persona-specific in your outreach, but don’t go by titles and go by responsibilities, interests and user profilesDigital provides efficiency and automation to drive efficiency for CSMsExecutive personas are likely not going to be in the app and a lot of C-level execs prefer text messagesSMS is a powerful way to reach certain personas and shouldn’t be as frowned upon as it isThe tendency for AI to hallucinate and how it needs to be verified by the humanCurrent and future state of AI in CS and how adopters stand to gain massive efficiencies. More and more useful AI tools are coming.Prompting won’t be as relevant in the future as it currently isEnjoy! I know I sure did...Dickey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dickey/Cast: https://cast.app/Pure Storage ROI with Cast: https://cast.app/purestorage-roi++++++++++++++++++ Support the show+++++++++++++++++Like/Subscribe/Review:If you are getting value from the show, please follow/subscribe so that you don't miss an episode and consider leaving us a review. Website:For more information about the show or to get in touch, visit DigitalCustomerSuccess.com. Buy Alex a Cup of Coffee:This show runs exclusively on caffeine - and lots of it. If you like what we're, consider supporting our habit by buying us a cup of coffee: https://bmc.link/dcspThank you for all of your support!The Digital Customer Success Podcast is hosted by Alex Turkovic🎬 This content was edited by Lifetime Value Media.Learn more at: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com