GTM 123: Customer Experience Fuels Business Growth, Build a Customer-First Culture with Kim Peretti

Kim Peretti is an experienced Customer Success executive with over 25 years in the technology industry. Her most recent role was as Chief Customer Officer at Klaviyo, where she transformed the customer success organization during the company’s hypergrowth, and played a key role in preparing the company for its IPO. Prior to Klaviyo she was the Group Vice President of Customer Success at DocuSign, where she built and lead successful strategies that delivered key customer outcomes and results. Kim’s extensive background also includes leadership positions in Customer Success at renowned technology companies such as Adobe, Qlik, and Symantec. Her career reflects a strong commitment to driving customer impact and achieving business results.

Discussed in this Episode:

  • The importance of building a customer-first culture from day one
  • Strategies for aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams
  • The role of data in understanding and driving customer health
  • How to implement an effective voice of the customer program
  • The misconception that customer success managers alone can solve churn
  • The impact of shared compensation goals on cross-functional collaboration

Highlights:

(1:56) Kim’s journey through top tech companies and the power of networking.
(5:39) The importance of customer experience from the first marketing touch.
(8:38) Shifting focus from new logos to customer retention and expansion.
(15:10) Implementing shared compensation goals across teams.
(20:37) Building a voice of the customer program.
(35:17) The role of partnerships in customer success.
(40:37) Using data to understand what makes customers healthy.
(45:58) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Kim thinks is bull$***.
(47:58) One thing that is working for Kim in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Kim Peretti):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-peretti-2b719730/

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: www.gtmnow.com/tag/newsletter/

Product Recommendation: Apollo
The revenue tech stack is messy right now. 

If you are one of those leaders, I would recommend that you take a look at Apollo. Maybe you think you know Apollo, maybe you’ve taken a look at them in the past but I’ve looked under the hood recently and if your goal is to reduce and simplify your tech stack AND have best in breed data layered in with AI – they would be at the top of my list. There’s a reason Rippling and Stripe switched over.

We worked with their team to create an interactive demo page. You can check it out at: https://www.apollo.io/gtm

Almost all I hear these days is “we need to figure out how to best leverage AI in our sales process” and “how can we consolidate/simplify our tech stack.” With Apollo I believe you can accomplish both.” – Scott Barker

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with the top 1% of tech executives, VCs, and founders – the experts who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories – revealing what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

Before helping found GTMfund, Scott spent 4 years at Outreach as Director of Strategic Engagement. He was in charge of aligning key relationships with VCs, BoDs, ecosystem partners and community members to drive revenue and strategic initiatives across Outreach. Scott initially ran revenue/partnerships for Sales Hacker (which was acquired by Outreach in 2018). Prior to Sales Hacker, he led and built outbound Business Development teams at Payfirma and MediaValet. Scott also advises for a number of high growth start-ups and is the host/author of The GTM Podcast and The GTM Newsletter. At GTMfund, Scott leads all fundraising efforts and runs the media arm of the firm. He’s also responsible for assessing investments, team management, LP/community relationships and GTM support for founders.

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Insider access to the GTM network and the best minds in tech.