How We Turn Churn Into Comebacks (The Revenue Hiding Inside Your Churn) ft. Eleanora White (Supermetrics)

Because again, sometimes it’s like, look, we always know these implementations take longer and 9 times out of 10 when we have a stay alive contract is what we kind of call them. They’ll see that they actually can’t— the product overpromised, is underdelivering, it can’t turn it off and they still have their system live, but it’s in a much more palatable like spend or like place where— and we actually see a lot of success with that. So it’s managing the relationship to its end, and it’s not over even at the end of it.

Jenny Calvert:
Hi, I am Jenny Calvert coming at you live from Pulse Europe in Dublin and really excited to be here with Eleanora White from Supermetrics. It’s nice to see you on this side of the pond as we usually engage over on the stateside. And this is a little bit of home away from home for you.

Eleanora White:
Yes, just a little bit. So, Supermetrics, for those unfamiliar, is based out of Finland. I sit and reside over the customer success and solution architects team globally, but I’m based in Boston.

Jenny Calvert:
Amazing. All right, let’s jump right in. Obviously, we’re at PULSE, conversation’s all about the agentic era and AI. So, how are you prioritizing and strategizing heading into next year, all things AI? What does that look like for you in Supermetrics?

Eleanora White:
Yeah, it’s actually— we’re super fortunate. Um, our internally in our team and our product jumped to brand to market to start actually creating, marking agentic AI into our product directly, which like helps marketers. But because of that, we also have some internal benefits of our team really trying to make some big bets in agentic AI also for internally what that means within our team. So we’ve already hired some individuals like to join the company. We call them almost our like impossible officers, the big hairy kind of projects that some people don’t even know how to start tackling. And that all really begins with agentic AI as well. So, the timing could not be better to start having these conversations because 2026 planning is also happening at the same time. And the way that we’re really going about it in our approach this year is looking at our relatively dynamic customer base.

Eleanora White:
So, we are looking into how does agentic AI actually factor into those account teams at the different segment levels, but also agenic AI being a team member within that as well. So we’re starting out at the different levels and segments. What are the different needs or agentic agents that you really need for customer success? And that definitely does differ when you look across the different segments. Yeah, we’re looking at digital or scaled, you can do a lot more with agents facilitating the interactions, whereas you can have those roles that I guess a big conversation too is like the role of a CSM, a generalist or a specialist. I would say probably in a camp of maybe both. Generally, just because I think you’ll never get away from that at your highest segments, your global strategic accounts, you’re going to have to be specialized. But the way agentic AI flows into that for that level of personalization to crop for those more specialist insights, you’re not sure, is going to be a lot different. Whereas when you look at your longer tail customers, or those are on your entry-level packages or just getting started in their marketing strategies, there are going to be ones that can really facilitate a lot for your agent experience.

Eleanora White:
So I think generally your 4 CSMs these days to me is going to go back to the generalist role. I don’t think we’re going to get away from that, but I think that’s because the specialist information comes through those, those agents that you’re designing to make sure that your cost-to-beat CSMs can work at scale and still deliver.

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense that the expert lens, if you will, being able to come through, through, you know, agentic offerings and things like that. As you’re thinking about the structure of your teams and hiring plans, especially headed to next year, what’s different?

Eleanora White:
So it’s definitely a little bit of still a building year. I think the real impacts we’ll start to see in this team structure is going to be in 2027. But as we built out our plan of how we are going to incorporate AI, we’re looking at it as a three-phase plan. So really the phase one is focused on those internal agents that can serve up and help our CSMs today work smarter, not harder. Also test and try in some safer environments before we really create those customer agents, which are going to be phase 2. And then from there, we want to create those autonomous agents that are going in and also helping to correct or find opportunities, even pressure testing agents that you’ve created. So creating those agents with certain minds that actually like kind of have conversations with themselves and also challenge the data that is being provided, you get much more intelligent even answers. Coming from an insight that you don’t necessarily have to, like, you, Valenae, as a human, will never get away from.

Eleanora White:
But that’s kind of our phased approach.

Jenny Calvert:
How are you, how are you like empowering and enabling your internal teams to be that kind of iterative testing, prove out theories? How is that showing up in, in the ways you’re working within the teams?

Eleanora White:
Absolutely. So I would say today, like, in our planning process, it was getting our, really nailing our philosophy down as a leadership team. So when we kick off next year, We always have a, like, big kickoff to the year, which is awesome, especially for a European country because we’re going to Spain this year. But that’s what we’ll use some of that time for, to really go through, here’s our philosophy, here’s how we can help you, these are the categories and agents we can, we can start to begin, and here’s how you think about it. So we can start to create almost a think tank where we can really capture all these ideas.

Jenny Calvert:
That concept of a think tank is really interesting, right? It’s like anyone can contribute now to thinking about where can agents help, especially from those internal perspectives. Who’s been maybe unsuspecting or surprising in bringing some of the things that agents can do for you internally forward? Any surprises there?

Eleanora White:
That’s actually a really good question. I think they’ve definitely been in line with like some of the, like the directions that we’ve been taking. But I think in general, where the really like niche and interesting ideas come from, and this is maybe where a lot of people in CSMs feel their pain, the truly like built-in-house internal tools that come with some friction. That sometimes we can’t get around a super niche individually to us. And some of those AI ideas of how like our systems that we build internally can work and perform better with AI as well are those ones that are like very cool, sometimes the hardest rocks to move just from an infrastructure perspective. So, but like some light like touches with AI could be 10x better and it improves the daily quality like of your CSMs, which we already know are under fire from so much, of course, internally, externally. If you can remove any of that friction is enormously helpful. Super helpful.

Eleanora White:
I think those are probably maybe the most surprising because as a leader, you sometimes think in your industry context, but it’s, it’s those small things that really move the needle. Looking at where your CSMs spend their time most.

Jenny Calvert:
Amazing. Now I know you’ve got some hiring plans.

Eleanora White:
Yes.

Jenny Calvert:
How has your, I guess your key personas or the profiles of what your ideal CSMs look like, how has that changed as we move into the agentic era?

Eleanora White:
I think it’s, I mean, I think generally always historically, no matter what, you’ve been looking for those CSMs who really have a hunger for learning and understanding their customer’s business, but I think that ability to learn fast and that natural authenticity for wanting to go deeper and understand and prompt the right question to the AI really will set those CSMs apart. Oh yeah, as we grow, having that natural curiosity, that authenticity, those are always the CSMs that I think always succeed because customers can sense that as well. You’re asking those really great discovery questions. So for example, we had used, um, a product earlier this year to like record our calls. And we were going through that and sometimes the quality that you get in the insights is only as good as the questions being asked on those paths. So those like CSMs who are really understanding how to ask those leading questions so AI and agentic AI can do its job are going to be so important and relevant. And I think sometimes because we label it discovery and you like some more junior CSMs conflate that with sales, you don’t really realize that like the entire job of a CSM is doing discovery. Always.

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah, that, that insatiable curiosity, asking the great questions. And to your point, so that the tools that we have at our disposal become even more valuable, right? Again, it’s the data in, insights out that matters in conversations that they’re having with customers.

Eleanora White:
So, and now with AI, it’s changing the game. You can grab the insights and like actually automatically log it, but all you have to focus on is being present in that call, which is great. I remember back in the day, you rushed notes out, you wanted to get the QBR reply out within 15 minutes, you had it preloaded. And he couldn’t actually just sit and really be present on the call because he needed to make sure he went out of destination. So even those small wins that we’re getting with CSMs, it just really increases the value of the human-led interaction. And that is where we need to be placing the most value because CSMs aren’t going away. It’s just what we’re getting out of it is really the human level of that interaction that we’re specifically in that journey, it brings the most effort or impact to the customer.

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah. That’s so, so important. Um, curious, as we’re in Q4, one of the other questions that we love to ask is advice that either you’ve been given or you would give around making sure you hit your GRR targets, all of those renewal numbers to close out the year strong.

Eleanora White:
Uh, so I think it’s two goals, maybe one from a leadership level and one from an individual level. I think from an individual, when it comes to hitting your targets, it’s honestly coming down to on-time renewals. And this is when you need to be ahead of your customers. Maybe dabbling a little bit of like borderline, like, when are your vacations? When are your leaders’ vacations?

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah, so important. Does procurement take 3 weeks off at the end of the year? It’s in their agenda. I think we all have at some point.

Eleanora White:
On time, asking those questions, like, what could go wrong? Those support questions. But from a leadership level, we do have a concept of influx, um, that at Supermetrics where when we have churned a customer, we have a set time period that if that customer comes back to the business, it doesn’t impact GRR numbers for the team, but it does impact that retention. Because really at the end of the day, we know that relationships aren’t lost. So once like we’ve churned, they’re still there. And sometimes we quickly learn the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Uh, so for us, for example, you can see like the classic, do you buy or build in-house? And sometimes once TFs try to build in-house, very quickly learn like the level of effort that’s in their back. So I think Q4 is the best opportunity to have those outreach exercises or hitting a customer that just left the, the business a month or 3 months ago of just, yeah, things like just checking in. It doesn’t have to be like trying to resell you, but it comes much more authentically from the CSM.

Eleanora White:
Of course we timebound that because if we allow that in perpetuity, that nobody would actually select their renewals on time, which is our biggest place. But that is something that we, we offer, which is an approach that I hadn’t seen done like necessarily every company I’ve been at. Yeah, really welcome.

Jenny Calvert:
I’d imagine that gives them a little bit of, I mean, just relief, if you will, right? That it’s like, yes, we don’t want them to ever churn, but should it happen, we know that there’s an opportunity to win them back. Let them go test and iterate whatever they need, and it doesn’t totally kill them from a performance metrics perspective. How do you fit that into their KPIs and OKRs and whatnot at an individual level?

Eleanora White:
Yeah, so at an individual level, we previously had it coming back into like GRR. We had to change that this year where it comes back as a net retention, like, lover. So especially if, you know, your pipeline looks a little dry that quarter, it’s a really great lever to go back to the customer relationships you were building. Um, and I think the, the biggest thing there that we don’t get always valued or maybe compensated on well enough is the value of the relationship you’ve built. And then like, of course that shows in the final numbers that if you were able to retain the customer, but sometimes there really were like situations outside your control or a CSM, you put so much effort in. And I think that is the one way we reward our CSMs for practicing the right behaviors in dragging real relationships into the relationship. Will bring a customer back is the relationship, how you handled like escalations, and that the customer, they’ll want to come back to that service level. It’s not necessarily they left for a reason, maybe from a product or thinking they could do it in-house.

Eleanora White:
So those objections may still be there, but they’ll return to the relationship.

Jenny Calvert:
Also allows them to continue to do the relationship building as we’re moving into this phase where it’s like, oh, retention and you’re owning your revenue and you own all, all the metrics to allow them to still do what they do best is really to build, maintain, and expand those relationships and focus on that, not just on the other pieces that are also important, but it gives them that, that really like full, well-rounded kind of approach to being a CSM.

Eleanora White:
And I think the one final piece I’d add in there is it changes the offboarding experience because the CSM isn’t, I’m on to the other customers that actually matter to my GRR. Never thought of that. Yeah, it like leaves the door open in a more welcoming way. We’ve definitely always been a proponent of when a customer says they’re going to a competitor, how can you make this easier for you? Can we put an offboarding plan together? Because again, sometimes it’s like, look, we always know these implementations take longer, and 9 times out of 10 when we have a stay alive contract is what we kind of call them, they’ll see that they actually can’t— the product overpromised, is underdelivering, they can’t turn it off, and they still have their system live, but it’s in a much more palatable, like, spender-like place. And we actually see a lot of success with that. So it’s managing the relationship to its end, and it’s not over even at the end of it.

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah, I was going to say, what What does that come through as from a metrics perspective? How have you seen that successful?

Eleanora White:
It’s definitely, I feel like, a number that when we analyze and present churn, it’s really important to then talk through penetration and some of the exceptions that we, like, that sometimes we issue, but it’s, was it, is this a part of an offboarding plan? Because what we’ve actually seen, it’s a fairly successful success rate. We were, we’ve highlighted this first actually in North America, but we had a, like, pretty fair, like, success rate that at the time it was a small sample set, But I want to say at least like 4 out of 10 customers actually ended up going into another enterprise package from like this stay alive like approach. So it was a short dip if you look at the normalized GRR of it lowering, but then they came back and even at times they expand like that would potentially— wow. Looking at that lifetime value metric and doing a number analysis on that will, will like obviously show you some amazing numbers. But again, sometimes when you’re reporting financials and not showing the same immediate book value. But if you show the long game instead of the end game, you can really start to like see the impact over time.

Jenny Calvert:
Yeah, incredible. I just love that, that perspective, that point of view and how it is enabling not only the organization but your teams and all of that. So our final question for you, Eleonora, what are you most excited about heading into next year?

Eleanora White:
Actually, and the whole reason we’re at Gainsight as well as we’re advocating to purchase a CSP for Supermetrics. So obviously Gainsight is up for consideration or they’re definitely high on that list. So getting to see all the really cool features and functionality and even the art of like world of the possible and what we can do in terms of just our team’s efficiencies where we know the pain points are. We have a really large customer base actually, and the bulk of them are actually more in our self-service business.

Jenny Calvert:
Sure.

Eleanora White:
So as we’ve been talking about today, treating every customer like your best customer, I’m very like adamant about that as well. And how do we make sure that that digital backbone that we have, if you will, is a journey we’re carrying through even to the enterprise segments. So then we can make those human-led engagements even more valuable.

Jenny Calvert:
Talking the talk, walking the walk. It’s incredible. It’s been such a pleasure hanging out. Eleanor White from Supermetrics. Loved getting to hear just about how you’re engaging with AI, your strategic approach, building in-house, thinking externally, empowering and enabling your teams.

Eleanora White:
You’re a gem.

Jenny Calvert:
Thank you so much.

Eleanora White:
Thanks. Thank you.