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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.
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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
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Timestamps
0:00 - Preview & Intro
0:58 - Meet Rebecca Nerad (VP of CS, Advantive)
1:22 - 17 acquisitions in four years
3:52 - Playbook for post-merger customer success
5:12 - Handshake deals and undocumented contracts
6:51 - What acquired companies do better
7:46 - Running CS post-sales motion
11:15 - Staffing CSMs by industry, not product
13:41 - Hiring for curiosity and EQ
14:28 - How you actually coach empathy
17:48 - Taking an agentic AI course as a VP
18:55 - Building an objection-handling agent
22:05 - The AI measurement problem
24:00 - Time to response as the real lever
25:32 - At-risk tickets, save plays, and QBRs
28:24 - Grading the long-tail segment
29:19 - AI adoption as the CS opportunity
30:23 - The dashboard-at-scale trap
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Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com
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Where to Find the Guest
Rebecca Nerad (Advantive): https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccanerad
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Where to Find the Hosts:
Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/
Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/
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