Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights

Hosted by Custify | Customer Success

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Mastering CS – Candid Leader Insights, where I, Irina Cismas, Head of Marketing at Custify, take you on a journey into the depths of Customer Success. Each episode, I sit down with some of the most influential minds in the CS world, from seasoned managers and renowned influencers to dynamic team leaders, to uncover the challenges and opportunities that shape our profession. Our conversations are rich with insights, drawing on personal experiences and innovative ideas to offer practical solutions. Join me as we make every interaction count in the dynamic world of Customer Success!

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September 1, 2026Episode 8516 min

Ep 85 | Noémie Tosser

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Noémie Tosser , Customer Success Manager at Simundia, a digital coaching platform helping organizations move from ambition to action. Noémie works in a world where customer success can't be measured through clicks or logins. She shares how she evaluates whether a coaching journey is truly working, the challenges of understanding complex HR needs, where the CSM role begins and ends when the product is centered on human behavior change, and why taking a step back has become one of her most valuable professional habits. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Simundia does and what the CSM role looks like in digital coaching ☑️ How to measure customer success when outcomes are behavioral, not transactional ☑️ Why understanding complex HR challenges takes time and continuous learning ☑️ Whether industry-specific knowledge is necessary when stepping into a new CS role ☑️ What managing complex accounts at Acolad taught Noémie about Customer Success ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 28, 2026Episode 8420 min

Ep 84 | Freddie Franklin

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Freddie Franklin , Head of Customer Success at zeroheight, a platform that helps design and engineering teams build and manage their design systems. Freddie shares how he structured a team of five CSMs, how zeroheight uses Claude as a reasoning layer across its tool stack, and what AI agents the team has built to support Customer Success. He also discusses what changed when CS took on commercial accountability, how he handles procurement pressure at renewal, and why understanding the “why” is the habit that has shaped his approach to Customer Success. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What zeroheight does and what the Head of CS role looks like across a team of five CSMs ☑️ How zeroheight connects HubSpot, Sybil, Juro, and Claude across its CS workflow ☑️ What AI agents the team has built and the problems they solve ☑️ What Freddie prioritized during his first year at zeroheight ☑️ What changed when CS became accountable for revenue and how SPICE helped ☑️ How to handle procurement pressure at renewal without relying on discounts ☑️ Why the Golden Circle and Five Whys remain useful frameworks for CS leaders ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 18, 2026Episode 8319 min

Ep 83 | Pratiksha Tewari

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Pratiksha Tewari , Senior Customer Success Manager at Tars, a platform for building conversational AI agents. With a background in field operations and Salesforce implementation, as well as experience as a certified Scrum Master, Pratiksha shares how she approaches Customer Success when every customer's definition of success is different. She discusses running onboarding like product sprints, measuring customer health across multiple funnel stages, and why undercommitting and over-delivering remains one of her most important habits. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Tars does and what the CSM role looks like across diverse use cases ☑️ How Pratiksha balances strategy and execution across a varied book of business ☑️ What effective onboarding looks like when building a conversational AI agent ☑️ Why customer health varies by use case and how to measure it across the funnel ☑️ What the operational infrastructure behind CS at Tars looks like ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 13, 2026Episode 8222 min

Ep 82 | Oksana Aloshyna

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Oksana Aloshyna , Strategic Customer Success Manager at ShortPoint. With more than eight years at the company, Oksana shares her journey from Support to strategic Customer Success and what she has learned about building effective CS infrastructure without overcomplicating it. She discusses personalized outreach, customer health scoring, journey mapping, knowledge bases, practical AI use cases, and why strong customer relationships remain one of the most valuable parts of Customer Success. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ How Oksana identifies and re-engages unhealthy accounts ☑️ Where to start when building a knowledge base and customer journey ☑️ How to combine product usage, engagement, and human context in health scoring ☑️ How AI helps customer-facing teams become more independent ☑️ Why personalized outreach works better with disengaged customers ☑️ What Oksana would prioritize when building CS with a team of three ☑️ Why customer and internal relationships remain difficult to replace with technology ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 6, 2026Episode 8124 min

Ep 81 | Lee-El Lewinsohn Primo

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Lee-El Lewinsohn Primo , Head of Customer Success at LayerX (Akamai). Lee-El shares how she leads both Customer Success and Technical Support, why every company should adopt a customer-first mindset, how LayerX measures time to value, and how AI is reshaping the way Customer Success teams operate. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What the Head of CS role looks like when it spans Customer Success and Technical Support ☑️ Why cross-functional alignment with Product, R&D, and Marketing is essential ☑️ Why keeping CS and Technical Support under one team creates greater customer impact ☑️ What effective onboarding looks like at a browser security platform ☑️ How LayerX measures time to value and drives customer adoption ☑️ How to build a CS function: customers first, then knowledge, then processes ☑️ Why a growth mindset is the most important habit for CS leaders ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 4, 2026Episode 8015 min

Ep 80 | Evgeniya Ioffe

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Evgeniya Ioffe , Head of Customer Success at Bites, a training and communication platform for frontline teams. As one of Bites' earliest employees, Evgeniya has worked across Customer Success, Product, Support, and Sales before stepping into her current leadership role. She shares how those experiences shaped her approach to customer relationships, why Bites built its own Customer Success platform, and why focusing on customer outcomes—not product features—is the key to long-term success. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Bites does and what Customer Success looks like at a fast-growing L&D startup ☑️ How Evgeniya balances leading the CS team while managing enterprise accounts ☑️ What effective onboarding looks like when value starts from day one ☑️ What working across Product, Support, Sales, and CS taught her about customer relationships ☑️ Why speaking in customer outcomes—not features—is a defining CS habit ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

August 3, 2026Episode 7920 min

Ep 79 | Juliette Marland

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Juliette Marland , former Senior Customer Success Manager at Redis, a real-time data platform powering AI applications and agents, and a founding member of the Redis Customer Success team. Juliette shares what it was like to build a CS function from scratch, how Customer Success operates when your product sits on the critical path of enterprise businesses, how she manages multiple stakeholder groups simultaneously, and why focusing on customer value—not just activity—has been the guiding principle throughout her career. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Redis does and what Customer Success looks like for mission-critical infrastructure ☑️ What effective enterprise onboarding looks like—from alignment to value realization ☑️ How to uncover business value when customers struggle to articulate it ☑️ How to manage multiple stakeholder groups without leaving anyone behind ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

July 29, 2026Episode 7820 min

Ep 78 | Erik Törnblom

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Erik Törnblom , Customer Success Manager at PLAYipp, a digital signage platform that helps organizations manage content across screens in multiple locations. Drawing on years of experience as both a football player and coach, Erik shares how that background shaped his approach to teamwork, problem-solving, and customer relationships. He also discusses what effective onboarding looks like across customers of all sizes, how PLAYipp uses AI to track customer sentiment, and why learning to say no is one of the most valuable skills in Customer Success. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What PLAYipp does and what the CSM role looks like across diverse customer segments ☑️ What effective onboarding looks like for customers of varying complexity ☑️ How PLAYipp measures customer health and tailors follow-ups by account size ☑️ How the CS team manages renewals and works with reseller partners ☑️ What skills matter most when supporting both enterprise and SMB customers ☑️ Why saying no is one of the most valuable habits in Customer Success ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

July 14, 2026Episode 7718 min

Ep 77 | Victor Romjin

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Victor Romijn , Customer Success Manager at Runner.ai, an AI chatbot that helps hotels and holiday parks communicate with their guests. Victor brings a unique background in marketing, community management, and improv coaching to Customer Success. He shares what it's like being the sole CSM at a fast-growing startup, how he balances enterprise and SMB accounts, how he uses AI tools like Claude in his daily work, and what improv theatre taught him about building stronger customer relationships. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Runner.ai does and what the CSM role looks like in a hospitality AI startup ☑️ What effective onboarding looks like for customers ranging from boutique hotels to large hotel chains ☑️ How Victor manages a full portfolio as the only CSM on the team ☑️ What a healthy customer looks like in the hospitality SaaS space ☑️ What operational systems keep a one-person CS team running ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠

July 10, 2026Episode 7621 min

Ep 76 | Sarah Young

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Sarah Young , Customer Success Manager at Hoptroff, a precision timing platform for financial services and other regulated industries. Drawing on experience across Sales, go-to-market, Customer Success, and performance coaching, Sarah shares what CS looks like when your product operates invisibly behind critical infrastructure, why energy management often matters more than better processes or tools, and how to recognize when a customer is quietly drifting toward risk. What You’ll Learn: ☑️ What Hoptroff does and why precision timing is critical for compliance ☑️ What Customer Success looks like when your product works behind the scenes ☑️ How a coaching background shapes leadership and team development ☑️ Why many performance issues are rooted in habits, behavior, and communication—not process ☑️ What Sarah would prioritize when assessing a newly inherited CS team ☑️ Which three roles she would hire first when building a CS organization ☑️ How to spot the difference between a healthy customer and one quietly heading toward churn ---- With Custify, you can: ☑️ automate daily tasks through Playbooks ☑️ build individual customer #HealthScores ☑️ create customer segments ☑️ improve your customer communication strategy ☑️ streamline your onboarding process ☑️ track customers’ journeys every step of the way ☑️ get a 360 view of their progress Want to do great things with your customer success initiative? Keep in touch with us below: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Custify Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Contact Us ⁠