Why deflection is the wrong metric for AI in customer success

Deploy AI to solve one problem the wrong way and it can create more problems for your business. Rebecca Holland, Founder at GTM RH Advisory and VP of Global Customer Success at Vimeo, has worked through five acquisitions. She explains what always breaks in customer success during a merger, and why customers do not care that you just got acquired.

She makes the case for customer success as a revenue engine, why deflection makes her stomach turn, and how repurposing people the way IKEA did turns automation into new revenue. Let AI handle the slog, she says, but never outsource your brain.

Topics discussed: 

• Why deflection is the wrong customer success metric

• What always breaks in customer success during acquisitions

• Treating customer success as a revenue engine, not cost

• Using AI to unify disparate customer data systems

• The three tests every AI tool must pass

• Repurposing specialized people into new revenue, like IKEA

• Writing playbooks for 80%, leaving 20% for nuance

• Resourcing AI adoption with an internal enablement specialist