“If you follow their guidance, ESG will not allow you to fail. Their rigor, experience, and commitment to execution ensured we built Customer Success the right way from the start.”
— Director of Customer Success Operations
Overview
A private equity–backed identity security business was racing the clock and under intense pressure to remediate churn, stabilize retention, and improve valuation before a quickly approaching exit timeline. Failure wasn’t an option. Every customer saved, every dollar retained, and every expansion earned would have an outsized impact on valuation.
The company had expanded through M&A, resulting in a multi-product portfolio and a complex global customer base.
The organization was also undergoing leadership transition while building Customer Success as a core operating capability.
The objective was clear. Protect and expand recurring revenue while reducing cost of sales by shifting post-sale ownership from sales to Customer Success.
Execution had to happen in parallel. The business needed to design the Customer Success operating model, hire and train a global team, create visibility into revenue risk, and establish consistent execution across the portfolio.
ESG partnered with the organization to stand up, execute, and deliver Customer Success as a system while the broader transformation was underway.
The Challenge
Customer Success operated without a consistent system.
Execution varied across regions, managers, and accounts, with inconsistent engagement patterns and unclear roles and handoffs across the Customer Success motion.
Revenue risk was understood conceptually but lacked structure. Leadership recognized churn pressure, but visibility into ACV exposure was largely directional. Customer data was fragmented across systems, limiting visibility into the full customer relationship and preventing consistent translation of health signals into action.
Risk was primarily surfaced near renewal periods, with limited structured intervention earlier in the lifecycle. Execution expectations differed across teams, making it difficult to assess performance or compare outcomes across the organization.
Customer Success was not yet established as the primary owner of post-sale outcomes, limiting the organization’s ability to proactively manage retention and long-term value realization.
The organization also needed to build a full Customer Success capability from scratch, including hiring, training, and enabling a global team.
The Approach
ESG operated as an embedded extension of the client’s internal team, executing across hiring, operating model design, tooling, enablement, and leadership systems.
The work did not follow a linear sequence. Multiple workstreams were addressed simultaneously, allowing the organization to build capacity, generate insight, and operationalize execution within a compressed timeframe.
The impact can be understood across three interlocking layers: foundation, insight, and operational scale.
Accelerating the Foundation: Establishing Capacity and Structure
Under ESG’s program leadership, multiple high-impact workstreams didn’t just run in parallel, they were tightly choreographed to move as one. Engagement models, standardized processes, employee training, and onboarding were strategically launched, precisely sequenced, and delivered in lockstep to accelerate results and eliminate friction at every stage.
The initial focus was to create the capacity and structure required to support Customer Success across the global customer base.
ESG supported the hiring and onboarding of the Customer Success organization at scale, reviewing applications, interviewing candidates around the globe, and performing the onboarding and training for 54 CSMs. This ensured coverage could expand alongside operating model development.
ESG defined the core elements of the Customer Success system:
- Tiered engagement model aligned to customer value
- Clear lifecycle ownership across Customer Success and Sales
- Standardized customer journey from onboarding through renewal and expansion
- Documented workflows and playbooks across core Customer Success motions
Numerous documents including 27 playbooks and supporting artifacts were developed and introduced into the organization.
This work established consistency in how Customer Success would operate while the team itself was still being built.
Creating Insight: Making Revenue Risk Visible Through the Pilot
While the organization and operating model were taking shape, ESG launched a targeted, product-specific pilot to generate a clear view of customer engagement and revenue risk within a defined segment of the portfolio.
Prior to the pilot, leadership understood risk in broad terms but lacked a standardized way to quantify exposure across the customer base. Risk signals were fragmented, and there was no consistent framework to compare accounts or assess execution quality.
The pilot introduced structured engagement, account analysis, and risk identification across that segment.
The findings were material:
- 42% of ACV within the pilot segment was identified as at risk
- A significant portion of that risk had not been actively engaged
- Engagement and execution varied across regions and teams
The 42% figure translated abstract concern into a clear view of exposure and distribution across the portfolio as this highlighted that 34% of customer logos were at risk.
The pilot exposed several critical gaps:
- Revenue risk extended beyond visible renewal windows
- Engagement coverage was uneven across regions
- Execution quality differed across teams
- Customer blocking issues were not consistently identified or addressed
It also validated a key principle. Structured Customer Success intervention can convert latent risk into measurable, actionable insight.
Scaling the Model: Embedding Systems, Cadence, and Accountability
Insights from the pilot were translated into a scalable operating system.
ESG supported the implementation and operationalization of a Customer Success platform, establishing a system of record and a unified view of the customer. This enabled:
- Account ownership and lifecycle visibility across the full customer base
- Standardized tracking of engagement, risk, and opportunity
- Embedded workflows aligned to Customer Success playbooks
- Data consistency to support reporting and decision making
In parallel, ESG introduced structured leadership systems to drive execution:
- Recurring cadence for reviewing risk, opportunity, and engagement
- Standardized expectations for account documentation and action planning
- Clear visibility into engagement coverage and execution quality across teams
- Ability to compare performance across individuals, teams, and regions
Customer Success moved from reactive review to structured portfolio management. Risk and opportunity became part of an ongoing operating rhythm rather than isolated events tied to renewal cycles.
Execution became measurable, consistent, and scalable. Leadership gained the ability to identify gaps in execution, assess capability differences across the team, and prioritize targeted development and training.
The Outcome
Customer Success was transformed from reactive, backward-looking reviews into a disciplined, always-on portfolio engine. Risk and opportunity were no longer last-minute surprises tied to renewals; they became embedded in a continuous operating rhythm. Execution shifted from inconsistent and opaque to measurable, repeatable, and scalable. And for the first time, leadership gained real visibility pinpointing execution gaps, exposing capability disparities across the team, and zeroing in on exactly where to invest in targeted training to drive performance.
The engagement established Customer Success as a scalable operating system aligned to revenue protection, efficiency, and growth.
Key results included:
- 54 Customer Success Managers hired, trained, and deployed across the global customer base
- 27 playbooks implemented to standardize execution across the lifecycle
- Customer Success platform established with full lifecycle visibility and governed data
- Structured leadership cadence and performance management system introduced
- 42% of ACV (34% logo churn) risk identified within a targeted segment and made actionable through defined workflows
Revenue risk is now visible, measurable, and actively managed, supported by a consistent and unified view of the customer.
Customer Success operates with consistent processes, clear ownership, and defined expectations for execution. Leadership can assess performance across teams and regions using a common framework.
The organization is now positioned to improve retention, increase renewal predictability, and dramatically improve bottom-line performance by shifting away from a costly sales-led motion.
The Takeaway
Building Customer Success in a high-pressure environment requires coordinated execution across multiple dimensions.
This organization needed to hire a team, define an operating model, create visibility into risk, and improve retention within a timeframe tied directly to enterprise value.
ESG accelerated that timeline by operating as an embedded team and executing across all workstreams at once, within a constrained exit window where speed and consistent execution were critical and margin for error was limited.
The result is a Customer Success system that provides visibility into revenue risk, consistency in execution, and a structured model for managing retention and growth at scale.
Customer Success now functions as a core operational lever tied to revenue performance and exit readiness.