Account Management Secrets

Your customers are polite to your face. That politeness can hide the churn risk you need to hear about months before renewal. Too often, teams only ask questions when a renewal or upsell is on the line, and customers can tell. Learning how to build a voice of the customer program can help account managers identify churn risks earlier, understand what customers actually value, and find opportunities to improve.

 

Alex Raymond sits down with Joey Yagoda, CEO of Westing Ventures, on Account Management Secrets. Joey runs hundreds of customer feedback interviews every year for companies and private equity firms. He explains why account managers aren't always the best people to conduct feedback interviews, how to encourage customers to be candid about their experiences, and what most companies miss when collecting NPS scores.

 

Collecting customer feedback is only useful if something happens with it. Joey shares practical ways to use customer insights to inform decisions in account management, product, and leadership teams. He also shares two questions worth asking customers who have left, explains how to follow up on negative feedback without damaging the relationship, and discusses what private equity firms look for when assessing customer retention and churn risk.

 

Press play for practical advice on how to build a voice of the customer program, starting with a simple 10-call pilot and building a process that supports long-term customer retention and growth.

 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Joey Yagoda on Year-Round Customer Listening

05:26 How to Build a Voice of the Customer Program

07:47 Why Account Managers Shouldn’t Lead Feedback Calls

10:15 How to Invite Tough Feedback From Customers

11:21 The NPS Blind Spot and Interview Guides

18:44 Joey’s Go-To Churn Interview Questions

22:10 Turning Customer Feedback Into Company-Wide Action

28:09 What Private Equity Firms Listen For in Diligence

36:31 What Customers Wish Their Vendors Understood

40:19 Start Small With a 10-Call Pilot

Connect with Joey Yagoda:

Connect with Joey on LinkedIn

Visit the Westing Ventures website

 

Connect with Alex Raymond:

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Visit the AMplify website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Most account managers open with the same question their customers have heard a hundred times. “What are your goals?” gets a polite, forgettable answer and rarely earns a second meeting. The best questions to ask clients as an account manager show you did your homework before you walked in the door.

 

Alex Raymond sits down with Jubal Sarvis, Relationship Development Manager at Granite Telecommunications, on this week’s Account Management Secrets. Jubal’s department was built after one of Granite’s biggest customers said they only heard from the company at renewal time. His job now is to show up between sales cycles, often in person, with a real reason for the visit.

 

Jubal explains how he lands a first meeting with customers who keep saying no, and why a box of donuts sometimes gets him through the door. He shares the difference between learning questions and leading questions, and how a curious chat about remote gas pumps in West Texas turned into a pilot nobody planned for. You’ll also hear why one account can need three separate quarterly business reviews, and how a single assumption nearly cost him a major deal.

 

If you want customers to treat you as a trusted partner, press play. You’ll walk away with sharper questions for your next customer meeting and a clearer path to grow existing accounts.

 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why Great Account Managers Earn the Partner Role

01:59 What a Relationship Development Manager Actually Does

05:46 Getting In-Person Time With Reluctant Customers

08:03 Leading With a Specific Reason to Call

10:38 Curiosity, Gas Pumps, and Learning vs Leading Questions

13:59 Questions to Ask Clients as an Account Manager

16:21 Why “What Are Your Goals?” Falls Flat

19:13 Preparing With Quarterly Filings and AI Tools

23:46 The Meeting Between the Meetings

31:35 Why Assumptions Are Kryptonite in Complex Deals

 

Connect with Jubal Sarvis:

Connect with Jubal on LinkedIn

Visit the Granite website

 

Connect with Alex Raymond:

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Visit the AMplify website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Your customer may have decided to leave six to 18 months before the renewal quote ever went out. By the time the 60-day playbook starts, some have already switched to a competitor. That gap explains why customers churn so often without warning.

 

Natasha Narayan, CEO and Co-Founder of IcebergIQ, has conducted more than 3,300 customer and buyer interviews for B2B companies, uncovering what drives churn, renewals, and buying decisions. Her career runs from Xerox sales training to the first Canadian hire at Gainsight. On Account Management Secrets, she tells Alex Raymond what customers say to a neutral third party that they rarely say to their account manager. In one study, 62% of the lost-deal reasons a client logged in its CRM didn't match what buyers told her team.

 

Natasha shares the one question that exposes renewal risk six months out and why 36% of former customers take the call simply to help the vendor. She explains why the sales-to-services handoff is where so many accounts start to slip, how do-it-yourself AI builds are pulling customers away, and how a pilot of nine interviews turned into three win-backs.

 

If you want a renewal strategy grounded in what customers actually think, listen now. Natasha shows how honest customer churn analysis reveals why customers churn, and what your team can do to reduce customer churn long before the cancellation email shows up.

 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 What Customers Tell Third Parties After Churning

02:05 Natasha's Path From Xerox to IcebergIQ

06:10 Why Customers Churn Six to 18 Months Early

10:48 Health Check Interviews Before the Renewal Date

11:35 Inside the Buyer's Hero Interview Process

13:46 Win Backs and Why Churned Customers Talk

20:52 How Price Increases and Upsells Trigger Churn

24:59 Do Executive Relationships Really Prevent Churn

30:26 How Much CSM Skill Affects Retention

36:29 The Sales to Services Handoff Gap

 

Connect with Natasha Narayan:

Connect with Natasha on LinkedIn

Visit the IcebergIQ website

 

Connect with Alex Raymond:

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Visit the AMplify website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

AI is already drafting your emails and building your QBR decks in twenty minutes flat. So what happens to the CSM role once the busywork disappears? That question sits at the center of this episode of Account Management Secrets, where host Alex Raymond sits down with John Conley, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at SambaSafety, to talk about how AI in customer success is reshaping his team of 40.

 

John explains why he believes the customer success playbook is losing its grip. He built an AI coach instead, one that asks CSMs discovery questions rather than handing them a script pulled off the shelf. He also names what he calls the wasteland of could-ofs, the pile of extra duties that quietly lands on post-sales teams, and shares how his team spotted a correlation between higher gas prices and customer churn.

 

Alex and John dig into the relationship between net revenue retention and gross revenue retention, and why John believes both numbers need to be examined together to understand the health of a business. John breaks down what proactive customer success actually looks like once AI clears space on the calendar, right down to the Traeger grill bet that proved account planning works even without new products or bigger budgets.

 

They close on how the customer success job description is changing, from natural curiosity to AI exposure for CSMs, and why AI in customer success still leaves plenty of room for human judgment. Press play to hear John's case for why making a customer happy and making them successful are not the same thing.

 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why AI Is Reshaping Customer Success Teams

02:31 Adapting to AI in Customer Success at SambaSafety

03:29 Automating Emails and QBR Prep With AI

08:06 The Wasteland of Could-Ofs and Role Creep

11:02 Net Revenue Retention Versus Gross Revenue Retention

14:15 What Gas Prices Reveal About Customer Churn

16:11 Why the Customer Success Playbook Is Dying

26:25 The Traeger Grill Bet That Showed the Value of Planning

34:45 Protecting Your Energy From Endless Requests

45:24 Customer Success Versus Customer Service Explained

 

Connect with John Conley:

Connect with John on LinkedIn

Visit the SambaSafety website

Connect with Alex Raymond:

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Visit the AMplify website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Every account manager job posting pulls in a flood of applicants. So what makes a hiring manager stop scrolling? Knowing what hiring managers look for in account managers can change how you apply, interview, and grow once you land the role.

 

On Account Management Secrets, Alex Raymond talks with Grace Knapp, Senior Manager of the Account Management Team at AdRoll. Grace has spent more than 15 years in customer success and account management leadership. She shares the six traits she screens for and the account manager interview questions she relies on to see past a resume. One of her favorite behavioral interview questions for account managers is about the biggest renewal you ever lost. How you tell that story reveals more than your quota ever will.

 

Grace also opens up about the other side of the job. She walks through three people she promoted and what set each one apart, offering a practical look at how to get promoted as an account manager. Alex and Grace also get honest about the customer success manager renewal quota debate and why a churned customer matters less than a surprise one.

 

If you want to know how to get hired as an account manager, Grace's advice on standing out is worth hearing. She names one simple move almost no candidate makes. Listen now and hear what hiring managers look for in account managers before your next application goes out.

 

Episode Breakdown:

00:00 What Gets Account Managers Hired, Promoted, or Fired

03:18 What Hiring Managers Look For in Account Managers

05:40 Behavioral Interview Questions That Reveal Gumption

10:31 Attainment, Book Size, and Role-Level Hiring Filters

15:34 Quarterly Career Conversations and Clear Performance Expectations

20:39 When CSMs Get Handed a Renewal Quota

25:40 Three Promotion Stories and What Triggered Them

32:34 What Gets an Account Manager Managed Out

35:14 Why the Surprise Hurts More Than the Churn

37:23 How to Stand Out to Hiring Managers

 

Connect with Grace Knapp:

Connect with Grace on LinkedIn 

 

Connect with Alex Raymond:

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn

Visit the AMplify website

Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm