Starting in 2022, Matik has been hosting dinners with customer success executives to foster collaboration and conversation on topics within the CS field, including challenges, successes, predictions, and more. Read on for an overview of the key takeaways from the most recent executive dinner in March 2024.

AI is still a hot topic

But now the rubber is meeting the road as teams begin to implement it. The onboarding process seems to be the most ripe for change with AI, with some teams being able to reduce the amount of resources needed for implementation since  the product was able to a lot more (con here is that you are then at the mercy of the product). Final verdict is that AI can help automate the mundane, but there will still need to be a human element - that’s not going away. It’s all about enabling CSMs to be more strategic and focus on revenue-generating activities, versus taking notes or building presentations. Gong, UpdateAI, Fathom got shoutouts as tools that use AI to summarize a call and produce something that is good enough to replace reps having to comb through a bunch of calls and emails.

Partnering with product

While CS partners with many different stakeholders at a company, it was the partnership with product that had the spotlight at both dinners. Getting product to prioritize certain features was still a challenge. Which makes sense given how new customer acquisition is usually given more priority - a perennial source of tension. What was new and interesting was that some companies were starting to comp their engineering and product on NRR, including making it mandatory to join a certain number of calls with customers. Being on the front lines, CS is all too familiar with the emotional overhead of unhappy customers, it’ll be interesting to see how exposing product and engineering to it will impact their approach to prioritization.