https://sixteenventures.com Expansion revenue and customer lifetime value by Lincoln Murphy, who named and popularized Customer Success in 2010. Fifteen years on growth and retention. en-us Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/it-doesnt-have-to-be-resolved-on-this-call/ https://sixteenventures.com/it-doesnt-have-to-be-resolved-on-this-call/ Calling somebody up rather than out requires knowing what is being defended. Without that material the gentler version lands worse, which leaves two options, and debating the merits is not one of them. Mon, 24 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/active-listening-is-a-filter/ https://sixteenventures.com/active-listening-is-a-filter/ I took an objection at face value in a client meeting and got it wrong. Active listening isn't a posture, it's a framework you run what you hear through, and being present is not the same as having it loaded. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/automating-the-first-touch/ https://sixteenventures.com/automating-the-first-touch/ A customer pays you real money and the first thing your company does is work out how to message them without a person involved. That's a throughput answer to a question about what the moment is for. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/the-uncertain-yes/ https://sixteenventures.com/the-uncertain-yes/ They said yes. Three weeks later they hadn't done it. The confidence question's real job isn't measuring confidence, it's defeating a yes that was never one. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/why-youre-stuck-downstream/ https://sixteenventures.com/why-youre-stuck-downstream/ Everyone says move upstream. Teams keep not doing it, and the reason isn't discipline. The upstream problem usually isn't a customer success problem to fix, which leaves the save as the only lever anyone actually owns. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/you-have-never-been-your-own-customer/ https://sixteenventures.com/you-have-never-been-your-own-customer/ Two things happened to me as a customer this month, and both are the kind of problem the company causing it will never find out about. A vendor's software with your logo on it is you, and it isn't optimizing for your customer. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/your-welcome-email-is-a-requisition-form/ https://sixteenventures.com/your-welcome-email-is-a-requisition-form/ Read the last one you sent and count what you asked for before you gave anything. Nobody designed that message. It accumulated, and the ask is the part the customer experiences. Sat, 22 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/where-your-customer-context-actually-lives/ https://sixteenventures.com/where-your-customer-context-actually-lives/ The sales conversation holds everything Customer Success never gets. But it isn't one thing: calls, email, phone, messaging apps and in-person meetings are captured at completely different rates, and which ones matter depends on where you sell. Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/automate-the-work-keep-the-pace-human/ https://sixteenventures.com/automate-the-work-keep-the-pace-human/ A personalized welcome email can be in the inbox seconds after signature. It shouldn't be, and I've been saying so since 2014. What changed is that every other tell has been closed, which leaves pacing carrying all the weight. Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/exposing-uncertainty-beats-finishing-onboarding/ https://sixteenventures.com/exposing-uncertainty-beats-finishing-onboarding/ Two questions, asked right after you lay out what the customer is responsible for. If surfacing their uncertainty means onboarding doesn't finish today, that's the correct outcome, because a completed onboarding with hidden uncertainty in it is worse than an unfinished one. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/good-delivery-makes-cs-look-optional/ https://sixteenventures.com/good-delivery-makes-cs-look-optional/ Bad delivery makes Customer Success look like a drain. Good delivery makes it look unnecessary. The second mistake is quieter, more expensive, and it removes half of what the customer actually bought. Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/theyre-not-disengaged/ https://sixteenventures.com/theyre-not-disengaged/ A customer who stops engaging usually gets filed as not invested. More often they lost the thread early, and deciding it doesn't matter is the cheapest way out of feeling like they should have understood. Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/retention-number-measuring-your-calendar/ https://sixteenventures.com/retention-number-measuring-your-calendar/ Two people can pull defensible retention numbers from the same data and reach opposite conclusions. Usually it is metrics built for one revenue model applied to a different one, plus cohort windows nobody checked. Thu, 06 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/qualify-against-a-role-that-doesnt-exist/ https://sixteenventures.com/qualify-against-a-role-that-doesnt-exist/ Most companies hiring their first CS person write the scope before they meet anyone, which means there was never a bar to screen against. Willingness becomes the criterion by default. Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/the-confidence-question/ https://sixteenventures.com/the-confidence-question/ A leading indicator of customer success. Churn is a decision about the future, so ask customers what they believe about next quarter. Anything less than 100% confidence is a red flag. Thu, 06 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/a-tool-for-everything-a-system-for-nothing/ https://sixteenventures.com/a-tool-for-everything-a-system-for-nothing/ Building customer-facing tools is close to free now, which is genuinely good. Then three people build the same logic in three places, it drifts, and one day somebody leaves with it. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/bring-proof-not-feelings/ https://sixteenventures.com/bring-proof-not-feelings/ For the individual contributor who can see a customer getting a bad automated experience and lacks the authority to halt it. Concerns do not travel upward. Proof with a number attached does. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/fast-garbage-is-still-garbage/ https://sixteenventures.com/fast-garbage-is-still-garbage/ Agentic workflows learn. The problem is what yours is learning from. A closed loop reviews its own prior output while every real signal the customer gave you sits outside the system, and it calls that improvement. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/looks-like-ai-is-a-context-problem/ https://sixteenventures.com/looks-like-ai-is-a-context-problem/ When a customer says your work reads like AI, they are almost never pointing at formatting. They are pointing at generic, and generic is what thin input produces. The AI did not fail you. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0000 https://sixteenventures.com/slow-down-to-speed-up/ https://sixteenventures.com/slow-down-to-speed-up/ AI can deliver the appropriate experience at a scale we never had before. It delivers the wrong one just as fast. Three traps from real engagements, and the rule underneath all of them. Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0000