Can Advocacy Generate Revenue w/ Christian Jakenfelds

Scale Tale - The Customer Success Podcast

No doubt about the fact that Net Revenue Retention (NRR) is vital, but it overlooks a crucial aspect of customer value: advocacy.
Imagine a customer so thrilled with your product that they enthusiastically refer others. Despite this, customer success teams often don’t get the recognition they deserve for this kind of advocacy-driven growth. Even if they hit their NRR targets, they might still face downsizing, simply because their contributions to generating new business through customer enthusiasm aren’t fully appreciated.
In this episode of the Scale Tale podcast, Mausmi Ambastha (Co-founder & COO, ZapScale) is in conversation with Christian Jakenfelds, who has expertly scaled companies from 30 to over 150 employees and achieved a $500 million valuation.
Christian’s journey spans from early-stage startups to leading B2B SaaS companies like Tessian and Planhat. As a Customer Success and GTM leader, he’s mastered the art of growth and team scaling. Now, as a Go-To Network Evangelist at Commsor and founder of Customer Success for Founders, he’s redefining how we view customer value beyond traditional NRR metrics.
0:00 - Preview & Introduction
7:27 - Defining Advocacy
8:27 - The Missing Part
9:14 - Talking About the Big Red Flag
10:26 - Advocacy Sits More Like Marketing
12:11 - Are There Any Good Advocacy Programs?
15:45 - A Lot of Companies Are Doing This Wrong
21:40 - Companies Who Are Doing It Right
22:27 - Why Do You Wait to Have an Expansion Conversation Around Renewal?
25:00 - What Could Be Improved to Ensure You're Getting Those Case Studies?
30:08 - How a New Company Can Start With Advocacy
33:46 - Closing
🔍 What You’ll Discover:
🔹 CS + New Business: Discover how blending Customer Success with new business strategies can fuel growth. Christian explains techniques like rewarding referrals and leveraging impactful case studies.
🔹 Maximize Case Studies: Learn to craft case studies that not only showcase success but also attract new clients.
🔹 Beyond NRR: Christian argues for measuring CS impact on new revenue, challenging traditional Net Revenue Retention metrics.
🔹 Scalable Advocacy: Find out how to make customer advocacy a repeatable and scalable process.
Join us for a compelling conversation with Christian Jakenfelds as he shares invaluable lessons and strategies for scaling and succeeding in the SaaS world. Subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon to stay updated!
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Connect with the guests:
Christian Jakenfelds
Mausmi Ambastha
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