Some people want me to just “focus on CS.” Cool. Let's talk about CS.
Customer Success exists to get customers to stay longer, buy more, and advocate for you. That's what drives higher NRR, LTV, and more efficient CAC.
Customer Success Management ensures customers achieve their goal through their Appropriate Experience (AX). Get the AX right and customers do the things CS exists to deliver. Get it wrong and no amount of health scores or check-in calls saves you.
If you think talking about AI, automation, and agentic workflows is somehow at odds with that, you're getting in your own way. And I say that with love.
Because here's what I see in most CS operations:
CSMs who know something is wrong but can't surface it fast enough because the signal is buried in three different systems. Onboarding that should be bespoke but gets templated because there's no other way to scale it. Renewal conversations that should be about value but become about justifying a license count because that's what the platform tracks.
That's not an AI problem. That's a Customer Success problem. It has always been a Customer Success problem.
If you think agentic workflows are just tech touch 2.0, next-gen Digital CS, chatbots at scale — you're not seeing the big picture.
Unless your customer's AX has shifted, throwing a bot in front of someone who needs a human conversation is a perfect way to send them packing. That's not agentic CS. That's just bad CS with a better tech stack.
Agentic workflows close the gap between what your team knows needs to happen for a customer and their ability to make it happen. The agent executes. The CSM owns. The customer gets the AX they need.
That's not AI for AI's sake. That's Customer Success finally getting the infrastructure it always deserved.
This is the first time in fifteen years I've seen something that actually closes the gap.
