Have People Forgotten About Customer Success? — Cameron Legge

Executive Summary

The one-paragraph brief, extended

Why this conversation matters — and who should spend the hour.

In one of the earliest LeanScale Podcast episodes (April 2023), co-founder Anthony Enrico sits down with Cameron Legge — a former customer-success professional, then a LeanScale Engagement Manager, and a part-time basketball coach — to ask a deceptively simple question: have people forgotten about customer success? The premise is that sales and marketing soak up nearly all the organizational attention while CS is left as an afterthought, both at the companies LeanScale works with and at the companies Anthony worked in before founding the firm.

Cam's diagnosis is that early-stage companies are enamored with new logos — the logo wall on the pitch deck that signals product validation — and in chasing them they overlook the existing customer base, which is really a 'farm' for expansion revenue. CS is also genuinely hard to measure: there are no by-the-book metrics like closed-won pipeline or MQLs, so its value rarely shows up cleanly for a board or investors. His central metaphor reframes the whole function: just as college athletics is the 'front porch' of a university, customer success is the front porch of your business — the daily face the customer sees, hears, and feels outside the product itself.

The tangible upside runs well beyond retention. Cam walks through expansion and upsell from the installed base, case studies and referrals that hand marketing and sales real fuel, word-of-mouth branding that can't easily be measured but is invaluable, and the highest-fidelity product feedback in the company — because CS sits directly between the revenue organization and the product organization. The prescription is to hire and over-resource the best CS leader you can afford, since that leader's values trickle all the way down to the end-user experience. Anthony pushes it further with a deliberate hot take: make the customer-success leader the best-resourced seat on the entire revenue team, ahead of sales and marketing. From there, define the customer journey, measure churn and the leaky bucket, and codify what 'good CS' looks like at your company so the value becomes legible.

Who should listen: founders, revenue executives, RevOps leaders, and customer-success leaders who want to turn an underfunded, hard-to-measure support function into a compounding growth engine — and anyone who has watched CS get short-changed in the boardroom relative to the revenue it quietly protects and expands.

Key Takeaways

9 things worth stealing

The load-bearing ideas, each with the business implication and who should care.

CS gets forgotten because companies are enamored with new logos

Early-stage teams fixate on the logo wall — new customers that signal product validation on a pitch deck — and treat the existing base as a given. Cam argues that existing base is actually a 'farm' for expansion revenue that most companies never fully harvest.

Why it matters: Rebalance attention and budget away from new-logo obsession toward the installed base, which is the cheapest and most reliable place to add revenue.

FoundersRevenue ExecutivesCustomer Success

Good customer success is genuinely hard to measure

Sales and marketing have 'buy-the-book' metrics — closed-won, created pipeline, MQLs — but there aren't many widely accepted metrics for what good CS looks like. That makes it hard to interpret CS performance to a board or investors, which is part of why it gets undervalued.

Why it matters: Define and instrument CS metrics deliberately so the function's value is legible in the boardroom rather than invisible.

RevOps LeadersCustomer SuccessRevenue Executives

Customer success is the 'front porch' of your business

Just as college athletics is the front porch of a university — what people see far more than the academics — CS is the front porch of a company. CSMs are what the end user hears, sees, and feels every single day outside of the product itself.

Why it matters: Invest in CS as a brand and perception surface, not just a support cost — it shapes how customers experience and talk about you.

FoundersCustomer SuccessMarketing Leaders

The clearest upside of CS is expansion revenue from the existing base

The first opportunity companies miss by underinvesting in CS is straightforward: expansion and upsell. Getting more out of the customers you already have adds directly to the bottom line and is what everyone ultimately cares about.

Why it matters: Treat the existing base as a growth engine with its own targets, not a maintenance function — net expansion is revenue you already earned the right to.

Revenue ExecutivesCustomer SuccessFounders

CS is a fuel source for sales and marketing

Beyond revenue, a strong CS function produces case studies marketing loves to publish, referrals (both direct leads to hand to sales and diffuse word-of-mouth branding), and advocacy — a happy customer at a trade show talking up your product is invaluable even though it's hard to measure.

Why it matters: Fund CS as an input to pipeline and brand, and build the motions to route referrals and case studies into sales and marketing.

Marketing LeadersSales LeadersCustomer Success

CS is the highest-fidelity source of product feedback

There's no better way to get product feedback than the regular engagements CSMs have with customers. Cam and Anthony frame CS as sitting between the revenue organization and the product organization — nobody is better equipped than the team working through problems with customers daily to tell product what to build next.

Why it matters: Wire a deliberate CS-to-product feedback loop; it turns frontline customer conversations into a prioritized roadmap signal.

FoundersCustomer SuccessRevOps Leaders

Build a world-class CS org by hiring — and funding — the best leader you can

The single biggest lever is bringing in the best possible CS leader and making sure the budget is there to attract that top talent. What that leader values and the pillars they set trickle down through the CSMs to the end-user experience.

Why it matters: Over-index on CS leadership talent and give them real resources; the quality of that hire compounds across every customer relationship.

FoundersCustomer SuccessRevenue Executives

Measure what matters: the customer journey, churn, and a definition of 'good CS'

A world-class CS org defines the customer journey, measures where customers are and where they're headed, watches for the 'leaky bucket' of churn, and codifies what good customer success actually looks like at that specific company — so new business isn't just backfilling churned revenue.

Why it matters: Stand up CS measurement and a shared definition of success early, so you can tell whether you're retaining and expanding or just replacing losses.

RevOps LeadersCustomer Success

Hot take: make the CS leader the best-resourced seat on the revenue team

Anthony pushes past 'hire a great leader' to a deliberately controversial position: have the customer-success leader be the best person — and the most-resourced position — on your revenue organization, ahead of sales, marketing, or other revenue roles. Cam, biases aside, agrees.

Why it matters: A concentrated resourcing bet on CS leadership can pay outsized dividends across expansion, referrals, brand, and product feedback — but it requires the conviction to fund CS above the functions that usually win the budget fight.

FoundersRevenue Executives

Frameworks Discussed

3 named models

Every framework Jimmy names, defined and time-stamped.

Customer Success as the Front Porch

02:56

The idea that customer success is the 'front porch' of a business — the surface the customer sees, hears, and feels on a daily basis outside the product — the same way college athletics is the front porch of a university.

The metaphor reframes CS from a back-office support cost into a highly visible brand and perception surface. Because CSMs are the daily human face of the company, investing in them shapes how customers experience and talk about the product in the marketplace.

The Existing Base as a Farm

01:34

The reframe that a company's existing customer base is a 'farm' for growth — a renewable source of expansion revenue, referrals, case studies, and product feedback — rather than a static account you simply try not to lose.

Cam contrasts this with the new-logo obsession of early-stage companies, who chase the logo wall while under-harvesting the base they already have. Treating the base as a farm reorients the org toward net expansion as a primary growth lever.

CS as the Bridge Between Revenue and Product

06:56

Positioning customer success as the connective tissue between the revenue organization and the product organization — the frontline team best equipped to translate daily customer problems into what product should build next.

Because CSMs work through problems with customers every day, they carry the highest-fidelity product feedback in the company. Framing CS as a bridge (not an endpoint) makes that feedback a deliberate input to the roadmap and a driver of retention and expansion.

Best Quotes

11 lines worth clipping

Pulled verbatim. Copy or share any of them.

“In a lot of early-stage companies, people are enamored with the new logos. They don't realize that the existing customer base can be a huge boon — a farm for adding more revenue to the business.”

Cameron Legge 01:34

“It's hard to measure what good customer success looks like. There's not a ton of metrics that people are measuring in a good way.”

Cameron Legge 02:16

“People like to say college athletics is the front porch of a university. Customer success is the front porch for your business.”

Cameron Legge 02:56

“Your customer success managers are what the end user and customer of your business is hearing, seeing, and feeling on a daily basis outside of the product.”

Cameron Legge 03:37

“Referrals are a big one. But also think about all the word-of-mouth branding — that customer at a trade show talking about how great their experience has been. That's invaluable, and a lot of times can't be measured.”

Cameron Legge 05:29

“There's no better way to get product feedback than through the regular engagements your customer success managers are having with their end customer.”

Cameron Legge 05:59

“CS should be right between the revenue organization and the product organization, because there's nobody better equipped than the team on the front line with customers every single day to tell product what needs to be developed next.”

Anthony Enrico 06:56

“One huge thing is hiring the best customer success leader that you absolutely can — making sure the budget is there to attract that top talent.”

Cameron Legge 07:34

“You want to retain — not just have new business fill the empty void that a customer left by churning.”

Cameron Legge 08:44

“I might take that a step further: have the leader of your customer success org be the best person on your revenue team, and invest the most resources into that position versus sales, marketing, or other revenue positions.”

Anthony Enrico 09:17

“Customer success doesn't get the attention it deserves. It can absolutely unlock the most value in your business if you give it the right focus and resources.”

Anthony Enrico 11:07

Practical Advice

What should you actually do?

The playbook, split by the seat you sit in.

Founders

Stop treating the installed base as a given — it's a farm for expansion revenue, referrals, and product feedback that most early-stage companies under-harvest while chasing new logos.
Hire the best customer-success leader you can afford and fund the role properly; that leader's values and pillars trickle all the way down to the end-user experience.
Wire a deliberate CS-to-product feedback loop — your CSMs are the highest-fidelity source of what to build next.

RevOps Leaders

Instrument what's hard to measure: define the customer journey, track where customers are and where they're headed, and make churn (the leaky bucket) a first-class metric.
Codify a company-specific definition of 'good CS' so its value is legible to the board instead of invisible next to closed-won and MQLs.
Build the motions that route CS byproducts — referrals and case studies — into sales pipeline and marketing.

Customer Success

Own the 'front porch': you are what the customer sees, hears, and feels every day outside the product, so treat every interaction as a brand and perception surface.
Measure retention and expansion together — don't let new business quietly backfill churned revenue and mask a leaky bucket.
Turn daily customer conversations into structured product feedback and expansion opportunities, not just support resolutions.

Marketing Leaders

Mine the CS relationship for case studies and advocacy — customers are usually jazzed to talk about the value they're getting, and CS is the warm path to those stories.
Value word-of-mouth branding even though it's hard to measure; a happy customer talking up your product at a trade show is invaluable earned media.

Revenue Executives

Rebalance attention and resources from a new-logo-only mindset toward net retention and expansion from the existing base.
Consider the hot take seriously: making the CS leader the best-resourced seat on the revenue team can pay outsized dividends across expansion, referrals, brand, and product feedback.

Operations Takeaways

By function

The same conversation, filtered for RevOps, pipeline/marketing ops, and customer ops.

Revenue Operations

CS belongs in the revenue org. Customer success is a growth engine — expansion, referrals, case studies, product feedback — not a support cost bolted onto the side of the business.
Instrument the invisible. Because CS lacks the by-the-book metrics of sales and marketing, build the customer-journey and churn measurement that makes its value legible to the board.
Resource the leader. Over-index budget on the CS leadership hire; that leader's values trickle down through the CSMs to the end-user experience.
Feed sales and marketing. Route referrals into pipeline and case studies into marketing — CS byproducts are direct inputs to the rest of the revenue engine.

Customer Operations

You are the front porch. CSMs are the daily human face of the company outside the product; the experience they create shapes brand perception and word of mouth.
Expansion is the cheapest growth. The existing base is a farm — getting more out of current customers adds directly to the bottom line and is easier than winning net-new logos.
Measure what matters. Define the customer journey, watch the leaky bucket of churn, and codify what 'good CS' looks like at your specific company.
Highest-fidelity product feedback. No source beats the regular CSM-to-customer engagement; make it a structured input to the product roadmap.
Retention isn't backfill. Don't let new business merely fill the void churned customers leave — retain and expand the base as its own mandate.

Entities

Companies, people & tools mentioned

Auto-extracted and linked into the knowledge graph.

Companies

LeanScaleGTM Operations

The fractional RevOps and GTM operations firm behind the podcast; Cameron Legge is introduced as a former CS professional and current LeanScale Engagement Manager, and this is one of the show's earliest episodes.

00:21Company →

People

Cameron Leggeguest

Customer-success professional and early LeanScale Engagement Manager; a CS practitioner who argues customer success is a company's 'front porch' and most underrated growth engine.

Engagement Manager, LeanScaleProfile →

Anthony Enricohost

Co-founder of LeanScale and host of The LeanScale Podcast.

Co-FounderProfile →

Tools & software

Related LeanScale Services

Where this shows up in the work

Fractional RevOps

Embedded, field-facing RevOps leadership and execution — the operator model Jimmy describes, delivered as a service.

The episode's core thesis — CS belongs inside the revenue org as a growth engine — is exactly the embedded, field-facing operator model LeanScale delivers.

Forecasting & ARR Definition

Define a raise-worthy ARR and build a reliable consumption forecast across finance, data science, and go-to-market.

Measuring 'good' CS through the customer journey, churn, and retention is the net-retention data any reliable revenue forecast and ARR definition depends on.

Consumption & Usage-Based Modeling

Quota design, hunter/farmer structures, and unit economics for usage-based businesses.

The expansion-and-upsell focus on the existing base is fundamentally the net-revenue-retention economics LeanScale models for growth-stage companies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Straight answers

Generated from the conversation, marked up for search and AI extraction.

Why do companies neglect or forget about customer success?

Because early-stage companies are enamored with new logos — the logo wall that signals product validation — and because good customer success is genuinely hard to measure. Sales and marketing have by-the-book metrics like closed-won pipeline and MQLs, but there aren't many widely accepted CS metrics, so its value rarely shows up cleanly for a board or investors and it gets treated as an afterthought.

What does it mean that customer success is the 'front porch' of your business?

Just as college athletics is often called the front porch of a university — what people see far more than the academics — customer success is the front porch of a company. CSMs are what the end user hears, sees, and feels on a daily basis outside of the product itself, so the CS experience heavily shapes how customers perceive and talk about the business.

Why is customer success so hard to measure?

Unlike sales and marketing, which have standard metrics such as closed-won revenue, created pipeline, and MQLs, customer success lacks a widely accepted metric set for what 'good' looks like. That makes CS performance hard to interpret to a board or investors, which is a big reason the function is chronically undervalued and under-resourced.

What growth opportunities do companies miss by underinvesting in customer success?

Several. The most direct is expansion and upsell revenue from the existing base. Beyond that: case studies marketing can publish, referrals (both direct leads for sales and diffuse word-of-mouth branding), customer advocacy at events, and the highest-fidelity product feedback in the company — because CSMs work through problems with customers every day.

How do you build a world-class customer success organization?

Start by hiring the best CS leader you can and funding the role properly, because that leader's values and pillars trickle down through the CSMs to the end-user experience. Then define the customer journey, measure where customers are and where they're headed, treat churn (the leaky bucket) as a first-class metric, and codify what 'good customer success' looks like at your specific company.

Should the customer success leader be the highest-resourced role on the revenue team?

Anthony Enrico makes exactly that case as a deliberate hot take: have the customer-success leader be the best and most-resourced person on your revenue organization, ahead of sales and marketing. The reasoning is that a dynamic CS leader compounds value across expansion, referrals, brand, and product feedback — so concentrating resources there can pay outsized dividends.

Why is customer success the best source of product feedback?

Because CSMs are on the front line with customers every single day, working through real problems and helping them get value from the product. That positions CS as the bridge between the revenue organization and the product organization — no one is better equipped to tell the product team what needs to be built next.

Timeline

Jump through the conversation

Click any chapter to open it in the transcript.

00:00Cold open: everything RevOps 00:21Welcome and meet Cameron Legge 00:57Why does CS get treated as an afterthought? 01:34Enamored with new logos vs. the existing-base farm 02:16Why good customer success is hard to measure 02:56The front-porch analogy 04:15What you miss without CS: expansion, case studies, referrals 05:59CS as the product-feedback line and bridge to product 07:34Building a world-class CS org: hire and fund the best leader 08:44Retention, churn, and measuring the customer journey 09:17Hot take: make CS the best-resourced seat on the revenue team 11:07Wrap-up

Full Transcript

The whole conversation

Broken into chapters, searchable, verbatim from the audio. Speakers inferred (not diarized).

Transcript as markdown ↓ Whole episode as markdown ↓

00:00Cold open: everything RevOps

0:00 Hi, I'm Anthony. Welcome to The LeanScale Podcast where we talk about everything RevOps. Thanks for listening.

00:21Welcome and meet Cameron Legge

0:21 Welcome, everybody, to The LeanScale Podcast where we talk about everything RevOps. Today, we're going to be talking about the seeming lack of attention to customer success. And I have a special guest with me today, former CS professional, current LeanScale Engagement Manager, most importantly, part-time basketball coach, Cameron Leggi. Cameron, welcome. Thanks, Anthony. Pumped to be here. Obviously, super excited about starting the podcast. It's a huge venture for LeanScale and excited for all the things to come. I know we've got some awesome guests coming up soon. So the train is on the tracks and we're ready to keep rolling with the podcast.

00:57Why does CS get treated as an afterthought?

0:57 Absolutely. I think we're going to have a lot of good topics, especially timely for the customers that we work with. And for those listening, if you have topics you'd like to talk about, feel free to send them our way anytime. But let's dive into it. So I see this not just with the customers we work with, but even before starting LeanScale, companies that I was working in, there always seemed to be a lot of attention to sales, a lot of attention to marketing, and CS always felt like a bit of an afterthought. And I want to take, I want to know your take on it. Why do you think that is?

01:34Enamored with new logos vs. the existing-base farm

1:34 Yeah, I think from a customer success standpoint, I think people just take it for granted, right? People are, you know, in a lot of early stage companies enamored with the new logos, right? We've all seen the pitch decks where a company shows their logo wall, right? And they want those new logos to be able to speak to, you know, the buy in and the value of their product and service. And so they think that that's the best way to expand. And they don't realize that the existing customer base can be a huge boon of a farm for being able to add more revenues to the business and just being able to unlock more out of the existing customer base.

02:16Why good customer success is hard to measure

2:16 It's also tough to measure good customer success and what winning looks like. So we know from a sales and marketing angle, everybody knows the buy the book metrics, right? Your closed one, your created pipeline, marketing, creating MQLs for the sales team to go out and look at and convert. And it's hard to measure what good customer success looks like. There's not a ton of metrics that people are measuring in a good way of good customer success. So I think that also makes it difficult to interpret, right, to your board or to investors of what good customer success looks like and how you're winning with customer success.

02:56The front-porch analogy

2:56 I also think just to use an analogy, right, I think about and you mentioned I was a basketball coach, so I'll use a sports analogy with a championship win. Mentality, mentality, first of all. But I think, you know, an analogy that I like to use is I use an analogy where people like to say college sports and athletics is the front porch of a university, right? It's what people see a lot more than a lot of the academics, honestly, that goes on a lot of times. And customer success is the front porch for your business, right? And people don't really think about that or lock in on that a lot of times because your customer success managers

3:37 are what the end user and customer of your business is hearing, seeing, feeling on a daily basis outside of the product, right? So it's so important to make a huge investment into customer success and also just being able to report on how you're doing with the existing customer base, I think is really important. That's a really good point. I didn't even I didn't even really think about that, but you're right. If you invest in a football team, if you have a winning football team or right now, the Phoenix Suns are doing well, too. So maybe Phoenix is getting some good attention just based on investing there.

04:15What you miss without CS: expansion, case studies, referrals

4:15 And I think you're right. I think the CSMs that are on the front line with customers every single day are working with the customers who are also talking about your product or service in the marketplace, too. So having the level of visibility there has a lot of different effects that I don't think come up in the boardroom metrics necessarily and are not typically measured that well. So for companies that aren't investing as much in customer success. Tangibly not not high level, you know, not not the typical strategic things that you're talking about, but but tangibly, what opportunities are they missing out on?

4:57 Yeah, well, one I already hit on is revenue, right? Expansion upsell. Those are the things that everybody is going to care about as it relates to customer success and getting more out of your existing base and adds to the bottom line. But also think about all the other great things that can come from it that are going to help sales and marketing straight out of your customer success function. So things like case studies, right? The marketing team is always jazzed to get on a call with a customer and hear about all the great things that they're doing with the product and putting it on the website.

5:29 Right. So case studies are a huge one. Referrals are another big one. Whether it's a tangible referral where it's a direct lead and you then have something to hand to sales to start working from a new business perspective. But also think about all the word of mouth branding, you know, that customer that you're working with is at a trade show and just talking about how great the experience has been with your product or service. That's invaluable. And a lot of times can't be measured, but just from a brand perspective, so big right from a referral standpoint.

05:59CS as the product-feedback line and bridge to product

5:59 And then also just the direct line of product feedback that you're able to get by really having a scaled out customer success team and being able to really lock into customer success is just so important. There's no better way to get product feedback than through your regular engagements that your customer success team and customer success managers are having with their end customer.

6:22 So that's just another huge win. You're going to keep evolving the product, make your service better. And all that package together, I think, is just so many of the tangible things that you're able to unlock when you're really focused and investing in customer success. I like the part that you brought up about getting product feedback because that's something that's not easy to do. And you can really get explicit, tangible feedback in the weeds feedback when you have CSMs working directly with customers and your CS team.

6:56 This is how I always looked at it. CS should be really between the revenue organization and the product organization because there's nobody better equipped than the team on the front line with customers working through problems, helping them get the most value out of the product every single day to give feedback to the product team for what needs to be developed next. So at the end of the day, these companies are here to buy your product or service. And if you can make it better, that's the strategy for winning. So we know it's important. We know it might not be getting the attention that it deserves. What should we do?

07:34Building a world-class CS org: hire and fund the best leader

7:34 How do you create a world class customer success organization? Right. So we started with why is CS forgotten about in a lot of the big picture business topics, right? But what should we do about it? I think one huge thing is hiring the best customer success leader that you absolutely can. So from a budget perspective, making sure that the budget is there to attract that top talent. But the trickle down effect, I mean, I've been talking about how the CSMs make a huge impact on the customer experience, right?

8:10 So the trickle down from what that leader values, the tactics that they want to put in place with their team, you know, what are the pillars of that team? That's going to matter. Right. And that's going to trickle down to the end user experience, which is so important. Right. You want to be sticky. You want to retain customers by no means. Everybody thinks about customer success. And I think they want to figure out what churn looks like. Right. That's a huge metric. Do we have that leaky bucket from our customer base? And so how are we going to address that?

08:44Retention, churn, and measuring the customer journey

8:44 But also, you know, how are we going to give them a good experience where we're not adding new logos and focused on growth, right? And adding new business into our book, but then also being able to retain and not just having new business fill the empty void that a customer may have left by churning. So I think that's important. And then also making sure that we're measuring what matters. Right. So are we defining the customer journey? How can we measure where customers are in the journey and where they're headed and how well we're doing in each step that matters?

09:17Hot take: make CS the best-resourced seat on the revenue team

9:17 And then just defining what good customer success looks like at your company is so important. So I think those are some of the big things that you can tackle immediately of, hey, this is this is what we need out of our customer success function. Can I say something controversial? Because I think something that you mentioned at the beginning, I want to dive a little bit deeper and double click on it. Bring in the best leader that you can. I might take that a step further. Have the leader on your revenue organization be the best person on the team.

9:50 Meaning you invest the most resources into that position versus sales, marketing or other revenue positions that you have. What do you think of that? I love it. I know customer success is near and dear to our heart, but let's put that aside and take out the biases. I love it. Right. And as I mentioned in the beginning, that front porch analogy, right? Like there's just so much you can get out of your business by having a really, really dynamic customer success leader and making them a part and a big part of the revenue org as well as giving them the resources to succeed and really not holding back of giving them any resources to succeed.

10:31 It can pay off just major dividends. So I will high five you on that hot take. And yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think I think any sales and marketing leader would agree if you were full of referrals, full of a customer base that absolutely loved your product and your product team had all of the feedback categorized, organized and brought directly from the customer base that you have. I think everybody would be more successful. So let's just wrap it up. I can't think so much for being here. This was a really, really good session. I appreciate it.

11:07Wrap-up

11:07 Customer success doesn't get the attention it deserves. It can absolutely unlock the most value in your business if you give it the right focus and resource. And if you do invest in it, the trickle down effect across the entire organization is going to be profound. So, Cam, thanks again. I appreciate it. And for those listening, thanks for tuning in. Awesome. Thanks.