CASE STUDY • CUSTOMER SUCCESS
Customer Success &
Retention Strategy
CORL Technologies • Cybersecurity SaaS
Building scalable Customer Success operations through customer health intelligence, standardized business reviews, retention strategy, technology evaluation, and cross-functional process improvement.
IMPACT AT A GLANCE
THE OPPORTUNITY
Building the systems behind strong customer relationships.
As a founding member of CORL's Customer Success team, I had the opportunity to help define how the organization would understand customer health, identify retention risk, measure engagement, and communicate value to clients.
Rather than inheriting a mature Customer Success operating model, I helped research and develop many of the foundational practices the new function needed.
CUSTOMER HEALTH
Defining what a healthy customer relationship looks like.
I researched Customer Success use cases and practices from other organizations to understand how established CS functions evaluated customer health.
I then translated those concepts into recommendations appropriate for CORL's environment, including ways our existing tools—such as HubSpot and Power BI—could support customer health tracking.
I also evaluated where existing tooling had limitations and researched dedicated Customer Success technology that could strengthen the model.
TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION
Evaluating technology around the process—not the other way around.
As part of the customer health initiative, I piloted the implementation of ChurnZero to evaluate whether a dedicated Customer Success platform could improve visibility into engagement, health, lifecycle activity, and retention risk.
The objective was not simply to introduce another platform. I wanted to understand what information the team actually needed and determine whether existing systems or specialized technology were best positioned to provide it.
QBR STRATEGY
Creating a dedicated conversation about outcomes and value.
Customer health conversations and discussions about the state of the customer's contract had previously been combined.
I proposed separating customer health discussions from contract-focused conversations and developed a formal Quarterly Business Review framework to standardize strategic account engagement.
The framework created a dedicated opportunity to review customer outcomes, risk reduction, business priorities, and demonstrated value while supporting more informed retention and account growth conversations.
KEY INSIGHT
We could not demonstrate value effectively if we were not measuring what customers themselves considered valuable.
I incorporated an important question into the process: What data and outcomes does the customer find meaningful?
When appropriate, those answers could then inform what we tracked going forward, allowing future reviews to connect internal reporting with customer-defined value.
Combined Conversation
Health + contract status + operational discussion within the same touchpoint.
Strategic QBR
Dedicated review of outcomes, progress, risk, priorities, and customer-defined value.
RETENTION STRATEGY
Turning customer risk into structured action.
I piloted a structured retention framework designed to translate recurring customer risk indicators into actionable account management workflows.
The framework established a repeatable approach for identifying risks, investigating root causes, developing corrective actions, coordinating remediation, and monitoring customer health over time.
Identify Risk
Recognize behavioral or relationship indicators.
Understand
Determine the underlying concern or source of friction.
Correct
Create an actionable corrective action plan.
Remediate
Address the customer's immediate concerns.
Exceed
Identify opportunities to go beyond remediation.
Monitor
Evaluate whether customer health improves.
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Scaling the model through a changing organization.
As organizational priorities evolved, Customer Success transitioned into a broader Customer Experience function, requiring changes to team responsibilities, service delivery workflows, and customer ownership.
In a senior operational role, I supported team enablement by training associates on customer lifecycle management, account health, strategic reviews, retention workflows, and escalation procedures.
During workforce reductions and portfolio transitions, I helped coordinate customer handoffs, supported associates assuming new account responsibilities, and served as an escalation resource for complex issues.
These efforts focused on maintaining service continuity, preserving institutional knowledge, and helping the team adapt to organizational change.
BUSINESS IMPACT
Developed structured customer health and retention practices to support proactive account management.
By introducing more structured customer health monitoring, strategic business reviews, and retention workflows, I helped strengthen the organization's ability to identify risks, communicate customer value, and coordinate proactive account management.
Sustainable retention requires operational discipline.
This work connected customer intelligence, standardized processes, cross-functional coordination, and structured intervention into a repeatable operating model designed to support retention, account growth, and long-term customer relationships.