Episode 004 • January 29, 2026 • 47:10
Jay Nathan, Jeff Breunsbach
Listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
About This Episode
Jay and Jeff dig into why customer success teams remain one of the most confused functions in SaaS—where they report, how they're paid, where they sit on the P&L. Using data from CJ Gustafson's Mostly Metrics survey, they show the three-way splits that plague CS organizations and argue for a clearer path: you're either sales or you're services.
Meanwhile, Sam Jacobs makes the case that gross revenue retention is now the gating factor to liquidity for private equity exits. The takeaway?
GRR is what matters—and CS teams don't own it alone. Plus: Jeff's real-time decisions at Junction on separating hunters from farmers, and Jay's case for premier success plans as the answer.
Key Takeaways
Customer success is a three-way split—everywhere. Who CS reports to (CCO, CRO, COO), where it lives on the P&L (COGS, Sales, or split), and how CSMs are paid (MBO, commission, hybrid)—there's no consensus on any of it.
You're either sales or services. Jay's thesis: very few companies charge for customer success, but at maturity it should be a paid service—premium support or consulting—alongside an account manager who owns the commercial relationship.
GRR is the new gating factor. Sam Jacobs argues that gross revenue retention is now a prerequisite for private equity exits. You can't hide bad GRR under a net retention number anymore—investors see through it.
Specialize early. By $10M in revenue, you should have separation between onboarding, support, and account management. The catch-all CSM role creates generalists—and generalists don't scale.
Separate hunters from farmers. Jeff's approach at Junction: CS owns renewals and expansion so sales can focus on new logos. But that requires giving CSMs commercial skills and comp structures to match.
Build rubrics, not bottlenecks. Create pricing and negotiation guardrails so your team has autonomy within bounds. Get CFO buy-in—solutions built in a vacuum won't stick.
Chapters
00:00 – Intro: Claude Cowork for website design
01:51 – Claudebot: texting interface for AI agents
06:04 – The future: agent-to-agent negotiation
08:30 – CJ Gustafson's CS metrics survey
09:54 – Three-way split #1: Who does CS report to?
13:40 – Three-way split #2: Where does CS live on the P&L?
20:44 – Three-way split #3: How are CSMs compensated?
23:08 – Jay's thesis: sales or services, pick one
23:35 – Sam Jacobs: GRR is the gate to liquidity
26:49 – Jeff's approach: separating hunters from farmers
32:14 – When to specialize: support, onboarding, renewals
37:26 – Building rubrics for pricing autonomy
39:58 – Private equity, liquidity, and the rule of 40
46:01 – Premier success plans as the answer
Mentioned in This Episode
CJ Gustafson – Mostly Metrics, CS survey data
Sam Jacobs – "Retention is the Gate to Market Liquidity"
Claude Cowork – Anthropic's desktop co-pilot tool
Claudebot (now Multbot) – open source AI texting interface
Beehiiv – newsletter and website platform
Amp It Up (Snowflake) – book reference on CS team structure
About Our Hosts
Jay Nathan – CEO of Balboa Solutions and co-founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.io
Jeff Breunsbach – Head of Customer Success at Junction and co-founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.io
Subscribe
The Chief Customer Officer is all about keeping the customer at the center—strategies, tactics, and real ideas in the era of AI that leaders can execute. From practitioners actually doing it.
