EmpathyNerd, a Year in the Making

EmpathyNerd has been humming along quietly for nearly a year now, and I never quite put my print("Hello, World!") out there.

This time last year, I took on a number of new projects, excited to reconnect with old clients from my Amanders Consulting years and reach back out to folks who’ve leaned on me for advisory support long after I retired Amanders. Turns out the demand never waned, just my availability. 

The challenges Customer Success leaders are facing haven’t really shifted since then, even though these days we’re spending a lot of time thinking about the AI of it all. How to best leverage it, how to coach our teams to deliver serious value with it, and everyone’s chewing on how to stay current and serve as real leaders in a rapidly evolving industry. 

Amid all this, there’s still a tendency for Customer Success to serve as endlessly stretchable glue 😅, connecting functions and filling gaps until ICs and leaders feel too overwhelmed to be strategic.

A decade or more ago, I saw this as a symptom of a still-young discipline. That’s true(ish), with some caveats. Customer success isn’t inherently difficult, but it requires a much stronger basis than “build as you go.” Without understanding and directing the span of control from the start, organizations struggle to fix a backward-built function with ever-changing processes and revamped org charts. 

I launched EmpathyNerd to meet leaders where they are. The work we’ll tackle together falls into five areas that can work in conjunction or independently, depending on your stage and requirements:

• CX Foundation is for leaders building a CS function from scratch, focused on doing it right the first time

• Scaling Blueprint is for teams that are working to shift from being reactive to driving clearly understood outcomes that result in measurable growth 

• The Friction Audit surfaces churn risk before it hits your dashboard and maps out what to do about it

• The Smokejumper is for active relationship crises where you need someone to get directly involved with customers. 

• Finally, CS Leader Lab provides direct 1:1 coaching for newer leaders or leaders who have inherited a team that hasn’t quite reached its potential  

If you're a CS leader trying to figure out why other people's playbooks don't work for your situation, or you’re in the early stages of designing your function, or even if you can just use a hand with the tricky leadership challenges you’re wrestling with, book a free consultation.