The future of Customer Success (CS) is evolving rapidly, shaped by market dynamics, product complexities, and – of course – AI. To explore these shifts and trends, we at Statisfy brought together senior industry leaders to discuss AI in CS and how you can build an “AI-infused” 2025 plan that your C-suite loves. This is the first in a series of blog posts we will share from the in-person event.
In this blog post, we share key insights from the first session: “Building the Right Annual Plan for Customer Success: Aligning Priorities and Incentives”
For a balanced perspective (and to avoid the CS echo chamber), we had voices from across the C-suite. Moderated by Larry Augustin, Investor and Former CEO of SugarCRM, Our panel comprising Christy Augustine, COO of Bloomreach; Deepak Rohida, CFO at Atlan; Peter Kim Head of GTM at WestBridge Capital; and David Sakamoto, former Global VP of Customer Success at GitLab — discussed what it takes for Customer Success to thrive in this new era.
The panel got together to discuss:
Here is a quick summary of the conversion with our top takeaways from the discussion.
The value proposition for the Customer Success function varies significantly across organisations. Plus, there’s the evolution that comes with changes in go-to-market, growth, new product introductions, and the function’s maturity.
Is your CS team tasked with retention, expansion, customer outcomes —or all three? Clarity drives better incentives and ensures CS metrics align with overall business goals.
Measuring success is only meaningful with a shared understanding of the purpose. First, secure C-Suite buy-in on the purpose of CS, then craft metrics and incentives that reflect these shared goals. Align your CS strategy to the core outcomes your business currently needs, evolving the scope as you grow.
Ideas and Inspiration: Christy highlighted how Bloomreach’s Customer Success function shifted from just retention to fueling new growth channels through customer referrals.
As a leading data workspace company, Atlan’s CS team acts as a linchpin, aligning cross-functional goals to maximize customer impact. It’s this collaboration at the top level that ensures that CS is empowered to deliver scalable value
Not all CS roles are created equal. When designing a CS team, evaluate the balance of skills required—technical expertise, domain experience, relationship management, and cross-functional skills such as collaboration and program management.
Each company’s needs depend heavily on its product’s DNA. For example, GitLab, with its highly technical product used by technologists, requires them to land customers correctly from the start, involving professional services for migrations, and using sales engineers in CS roles.
Their structure extends beyond standard CSMs to include CS Engineers and Architects, fulfilling specific functions based on customer scale and complexity.
Ideas and Inspiration: CS can play a critical role in both retaining existing customers and enabling new sales by ensuring successful onboarding, migrations, and technical support.
Structuring teams to support these dual goals optimizes both revenue and customer outcomes.
Deepak from Atlan shared the “pod” model—a team with diverse skills serving a single account—to balance technical expertise with consultative support.
Traditional metrics often fall short of capturing the holistic impact of Customer Success. Metrics like Net Revenue Retention (NRR) may dominate conversations, but they aren’t the only story.
For instance, the Bloomreach team started tracking referral-generated pipelines and found their win rate on referrals to be 75%! This was a sign that KPIs for CS must extend beyond customer revenue metrics.
It’s why understanding customer satisfaction (CSAT) across different personas is crucial—knowing what keeps practitioners engaged may differ from what converts executives.
Match your metrics to your company’s maturity, your customers’ needs, and market conditions.
Ideas & Inspiration: Christy shared Bloomreach’s emphasis on "earned growth" as a metric that tracks tangible outcomes like churn reductions, upsell opportunities, and customer referrals.
This metric put a tangible value on long-term customer loyalty and advocacy—something the C-suite couldn’t ignore.
This focus on ‘earned growth’ made it imperative to focus on CSAT and
The book Winning on Purpose explores the evolving focus on customer success and retention. The book underscores the concept of NPS 3.0, which combines multiple commercial metrics to measure customer experience more holistically.
Misaligned incentives can – and will – sabotage CS efforts. Prioritize the behavior you want to promote rather than solely focusing on compensation percentages. Your compensation plans should promote desired behaviors, from generating leads to enhancing customer satisfaction.
Align CS incentives with Sales for cohesive goals, balancing retention, growth, and acquisition.
The key is to add incentives like SPIFFs to drive specific initiatives, such as referrals or customer satisfaction improvements.
Ideas & Inspiration: At Bloomreach, compensation is 50-50 between base salary and bonus, with additional incentives. When they noticed gaps, such as the desire for more referral incentives, they used SPIFFs (short-term sales incentives) to reinforce specific behaviors, focusing on change management rather than creating competition between team members.
GitLab approaches compensation with a 70-30 or 80-20 split, emphasizing retention and aligning CS compensation with sales objectives. Compensation plans iteratively evolve, using retention as a core component while factoring in variables like gross renewals.
Atlan customizes its CS metrics based on retention and expansion, with most team members operating under a 70-30 or 80-20 incentive split. Their approach also accounts for unique situations, such as inheriting high-risk accounts, to ensure fairness across the CS team.
A massive thanks to the panel for their insights, ideas, and inspiration. Stay tuned for additional insights, expert takes, and practical strategies to keep your CS plans ahead of the curve.
