Ep 22 - The Top 6 Customer Success Mistakes Most Companies Get Wrong

Customer success is one of the most misunderstood functions in growing companies.In this episode of Scale Without Chaos, Samantha Riel sits down with Matt Sullivan, head of Customer Success at multiple B2B Tech organizations, to unpack the most common mistakes companies make when trying to retain and grow customers.Matt brings a unique perspective shaped by years in SaaS, account management, partnerships, and even a detour into film production that earned him his own IMDb page. Together, they explore how customer success has evolved from a simple support function into a critical part of a company’s growth system.The conversation focuses on six major mistakes that show up again and again inside B2B organizations. Hiring customer success too late. Treating customer success like support. Failing to define what success actually means for the customer. Waiting too long to detect churn risk. Assuming customers are getting value without verifying it. And perhaps the biggest mistake of all, believing customer success alone is responsible for retention.Here are a few of the biggest mistakes we talked about.Hiring customer success only after churn becomes a problemTreating customer success like customer supportNever clearly defining what “success” means for the customerWaiting for lagging indicators instead of watching early signalsAssuming customers are getting value without actually verifying itBelieving customer success alone owns retentionThe last one might be the most important.Retention is not owned by one team.If you lead a SaaS company, manage customer success, or work anywhere in the customer lifecycle, this conversation will likely feel familiar.And if your customer success team feels like firefighters, you may want to ask a bigger question about the system they are operating inside.This episode is a practical look at how companies can move from reactive support to true customer success.