[Un]Churned – The No. 1 Podcast for Customer Retention

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.Can a nine-year-old SaaS company reinvent itself as an AI-native services business before the market leaves it behind?On this episode of Unchurned, Josh Schachter, SVP of Strategy and Go-to-Market Development at Gainsight, sits down with AJ Bruno, Co-Founder and CEO of QuotaPath. AJ started QuotaPath after years of reps asking why they couldn't get paid correctly. Today the company serves more than 1,000 customers and over 50,000 reps. Now it's making its biggest bet yet: running commissions for customers instead of selling them software seats, and eventually pricing on outcomes like improved GRR and lower cost of sale.AJ and Josh compare notes on how Gainsight and QuotaPath are both moving to AI-native services. They discuss why trust is the real barrier, how to prove causality when many factors drive revenue, why buyers resist outcome-based pricing, and what it's like to build a startup inside your own startup while still hitting plan for the board.AJ is candid about the stakes: if QuotaPath doesn't make this move, it becomes another forgotten SaaS tool.---What You'll Learn- Why so many companies deliberately keep comp plans confusing, and what that costs them- Why product-led growth failed for a sensitive category like commissions- How QuotaPath is moving from seat-based SaaS to AI-native services- What "selling outcomes" actually means, and how incentives can move metrics like GRR- Why outcome-based pricing is a hard sell, and how a crawl-walk-run approach reduces risk- How Gainsight is applying the same model to end-to-end renewals- What it takes to rediscover product-market fit inside a mature company---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Meet AJ Bruno3:35 - What is QuotaPath? The compensation & commissions problem5:15 - Why companies keep comp plans confusing6:20 - Why product-led growth didn't work for comp8:20 - 10 years in: founder envy and wild pivots10:34 - The return of hustle culture and in-office startups13:00 - The pivot: from SaaS seats to AI-native services16:48 - Selling outcomes: incentives that move GRR19:19 - What QuotaPath actually runs for customers21:53 - Why nobody wants to pay for outcomes23:20 - Building a startup within a startup25:15 - AI-native services unite---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestAJ Bruno: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/---Where to Find the Hosts: Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.The future of customer renewals is here. And it's AI-native. Josh Schachter sits down with Grant Clarke, EVP & GM of Gainsight Atlas, to explore how AI agents combined with human renewal managers are transforming the renewal landscape. Grant, a 15-year veteran of renewal operations at ServiceSource, explains how Atlas manages entire renewal books through an outcome-based model—not software licensing. Discover why deploying AI agents in renewals is harder than it looks, how Gainsight is pioneering a new category called AI Native Services (AINS), and why the long tail of customers just became manageable. Plus: the surprising story behind Grant's 15 beehives outside Nashville.---What You'll Learn- How AI agents are transforming customer renewals at scale- Why deploying AI agents in renewals is fundamentally hard - The margin economics that make productizing AI agents profitable- Why the long tail of customers is now economically viable to serve- How combining AI + human renewal managers creates better customer outcomes---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Meet Grant Clarke2:00 - What is Atlas?4:50 - Grant's Background: ServiceSource & Dropbox11:05 - How Atlas onboards a new customer13:04 - Data hygiene: "The D word"14:21 - The ideal customer profile for Atlas16:20 A day in the life: the Atlas cockpit17:55 - When the agent hands off to a human19:05 - The learning loop: forward deployed engineers & 2-week sprints20:10 - The business model: avoiding the pure-services trap22:04 - Mirage PMF: go fast, go slow, go fast again23:35 - What's next for Atlas: Agentic judgment and renewal edge cases26:40 - Can AINS hit 70% gross margins?26:35 The renewal action inventory: 10–25 actions per renewal28:38 From 20% to 55% agent-led actions: margin accretion29:43 Grant's 15 beehives outside Nashville32:39 Wrap-up---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestGrant Clarke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grantclarke/---Where to Find the Hosts: Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

Most companies think of customer success as a support function that ships software. The real shift is treating it as a co-build practice that ships outcomes.In this episode of the [Un]Churned Podcast, Josh Schachter sits down with Christina Parra, Ariel Risman, and Kellie Woodin, three members of Notion's Outcomes Architecture team, to unpack how Notion rebuilt its entire customer success motion around AI, workshops, and shared commercial ownership.Christina, Ariel, and Kellie share how their roles evolved from traditional CSM to "Outcomes Architect," why they stopped selling software and started selling work, and how an AI maturity model now shapes everything from onboarding workshops to renewal conversations.They also dive into:The shift from customer success manager to outcomes architect and what it actually means to "co-build" with a customerHow workshops (some with 180+ attendees) replace one-to-many trainingsProving ROI in a consumption-based pricing model, credit by creditWhy CS teams are absorbing commercial ownership and what that's taught them about creative expansion leversNotion's internal multi-agent feature-request pipeline, and why they see AI as abundance, not scarcityIf you're rethinking what customer success looks like in an agentic AI world, or figuring out how to prove ROI on usage-based pricing, this episode is a blueprint for turning your CS team into co-build architects.Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.Chapters00:00 – Intro & Guest Backgrounds01:36 – What Is Notion?04:25 – From Customer Success to Outcomes Architecture08:51 – Ariel's Book: Deep Discovery & the Workshop Format15:10 – The AI Maturity Model21:37 – From Success Plans to AI Transformation Plans23:14 – Benchmarking, ROI & Proving Value in Consumption-Based Pricing28:01 – Becoming Strategic Partners: CS Owns Commercials32:50 – Lessons From Owning Renewals & Hiring for Curiosity37:30 – The Feature Request Pipeline & AI as AbundanceJosh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.comWhere to Find the Guests:Christina Parra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-wills/Ariel Risman's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariel-risman/Kellie Woodin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelliewoodin/Where to Find the Hosts:Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/[Un]churned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.Rebecca Nerad, VP of Customer Success at Advantive, owns retention across four lines of business built from 17 acquisitions in four years. She joins Josh to break down what post-merger integration looks like from the post-sales seat:sitting in on diligence before deals close, inheriting handshake contracts nobody documented, and owning the renewal number for customers she's only just met. Plus the objection-handling agent she built on months of renewal desk recordings, and her candid take on why she still can't measure what it's worth.---What You'll Learn- How to structure a CS org that spans across multiple lines of business - How to not lose customer knowledge from acquired companies- Hiring & coaching for empathy- The internal objection-handling agent built from renewal negotiation history- Why time to response may be the retention metric AI actually moves- The customization trap AI reintroduces---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Intro0:58 - Meet Rebecca Nerad (VP of CS, Advantive)1:22 - 17 acquisitions in four years3:52 - Playbook for post-merger customer success5:12 - Handshake deals and undocumented contracts6:51 - What acquired companies do better7:46 - Running CS post-sales motion 11:15 - Staffing CSMs by industry, not product13:41 - Hiring for curiosity and EQ 14:28 - How you actually coach empathy17:48 - Taking an agentic AI course as a VP18:55 - Building an objection-handling agent22:05 - The AI measurement problem24:00 - Time to response as the real lever25:32 - At-risk tickets, save plays, and QBRs28:24 - Grading the long-tail segment29:19 - AI adoption as the CS opportunity30:23 - The dashboard-at-scale trap---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestRebecca Nerad (Advantive): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccanerad---Where to Find the Hosts: Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.Most CS and sales teams have been told to "be more strategic." Few have been shown how.Josh Schachter talks with customer discovery expert Bob London about what it actually takes to move a team above the line. Bob gets tactical fast: the inverted-pyramid structure that works for a 30-minute discovery call or a 5-minute QBR opener, the setup and board-level question that disarms and differentiates in the first few minutes, and the competitor question that CS leaders tell him is the best churn-risk signal they have.He's also honest about the hard part. Methodologies don't adopt themselves, the ROI case rests on catching a handful of surprise churns, and behavior change only shows up if you track it: one-on-ones, keyword tracking, and AI scoring of real call transcripts before and after.---What You'll Learn- Why "be more strategic" is a directive without a path, and what to say to your team instead- How to structure a conversation as an inverted pyramid- Why "if your renewal were tomorrow, would you renew?" puts customers on the spot and gets you nothing- The "head turner" follow-up that surfaces the gap between what customers have and what they're curious about- How to spot the trigger words that make a question feel like it's about the customer's world- What leaders have to do after the workshop for any of it to take hold- A realistic way to think about ROI when the outcome is prevented surprise churn- How AI call scoring can measure conversation quality before and after training---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Intro1:48 - Meet Bob London 2:28 - Why "be more strategic" is pressure with no path5:18 - The mindset shift leaders have to make first7:45 - The inverted pyramid and the board question that changes the conversation14:52 - Forget "would you renew?" (ask this instead)20:25 - Why customer-world trigger words work22:18 - The board bullet point question23:00 - How to measure ROI on better conversations27:11 - Bob's path from fired CMO to 3,000 interviews---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestBob London : https://www.linkedin.com/in/boblondon/Website: https://www.boblondon.co/---Where to Find the Hosts: Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/