VP, CX Insights & Community at PartnerHero | Talking about creating your customer experience from scratch. I build and scale customer-facing teams that give a shit and can help you do the same.

I transitioned from being a barista to working in customer experience 20 years ago, and life hasn't been the same since.

I've been fortunate enough to work at companies like Wistia, Atlassian, Trello and Appcues. I've worked with amazing customer-facing folks to create scalable strategies and delight customers. 

Now, I spend my time helping to elevate leaders of teams and empower them to create the best customer experience. Employee-centered teams with simple, beautiful processes are where I find my joy.

Outside of my work with Boldr, I also consult and write for businesses such as Help Scout, HubSpot, and others. Let's work together!

Mercer Smith

Every so often I see someone say: “Customer support just doesn’t want to help.” And I am almost always like "wait wut."

No one wakes up thinking, “You know what would really make my day? Getting yelled at by a stranger on the internet.” or “I hope this escalates so I can do more emotional labor for the same pay.” There is absolutely zero incentive for a support rep to not help you. Helping you = resolution. Resolution = fewer follow-ups. Fewer follow-ups = a better day.

Do you really think a human would rather be trapped in a hostile, circular conversation than just solving the problem? What people interpret as “they don’t want to help” is usually just policies they didn’t write, tools they didn’t choose, rules they can’t override, and systems that make everything harder than it needs to be.

Most support people want to help, but might not have the tools or privileges required to do so. Beyond that, they literally just want to keep their job. It's not that deep and they don't have a personal vendetta against you.

CX Strategy & Solutions at Boldr; Author of CXOXO | Talking about creating your customer experience from scratch. I build and scale customer-facing teams that care and can help you do the same.

Pro-tip: if you are going to travel wearing your work gear (branded etc), maybe don't be a grossy.

Example: talking about how to make foreign people sound "less foreign" because "no one wants to talk to them."

If you were in the Manila Silver Kris lounge at 8.31am on Saturday, Jan 17th, this is for you: accent "translation" software is gross. The folks that "no one wants to talk to" usually speak like, probably (on average) two more languages than you do. You suck.

Imagine getting upset about something I wrote on LinkedIn, and meanwhile I’m over here typing with fingers that look like this 👀

No alternative text description for this image

new year, same me.  A bad CSAT score is not a reflection of your team members.

Customers use CSAT to say:
 – “Your policy is garbage.”
 – “Your product is jacked.”
 – “I had to reach out when I'd rather just be NOT doing that.”

Stop judging humans by metrics that measure company failures. Use it if you want, but be clear about what you're actually trying to measure.

Last night was the kind of dinner that makes a few hours disappear.

Boldr and Richpanel hosted a small, invite-only conversation on CX Transformation Through AI: Humanizing the 2026 Experience and it was exactly what we hoped for: candid, practical, and genuinely human. Huge thanks to everyone who showed up ready to share real stories (and real opinions), ask better questions, and build on each other’s thinking. Tagging ya: Alex, Kellie, Colin, Jason, Olivia, Ashley, Ashley M., Jordan, Ken, and Sid.

I pulled together a short report to accompany the night: a mix of fresh research and anonymized field notes from the conversation. If you’re thinking about how to scale CX with AI without losing the human connection, it’s worth a skim.

A few themes that stuck with me from the convos:

1. Customers want AI when it’s simple, and a human when it’s not. The “best” experiences weren’t fully automated. They were well-designed blends with a clear escape hatch.
2. Agent-side AI is where a lot of the real wins are right now. Summaries, drafting, translation, routing make for less cognitive load, better consistency, faster resolution.
3. Context handoffs are still broken far too often. If customers have to repeat themselves, the experience feels colder instantly no matter how “smart” the bot is or how kind the human is.
4. Human connection is becoming a premium differentiator. The stories people shared about handwritten notes, thoughtful follow-ups, and community moments were a reminder: loyalty is emotional.

If you're curious for more, here's the Gamma link to the report that I will send out to all of our attendees as well: https://lnkd.in/gYFkPfG6 If you read it, I’d love to hear what resonates (or what you disagree with).

And one more thing: I’d love to do more of these. If we brought a small, facilitated dinner conversation to your city, where should we go next? NYC feels like an obvious next stop, but tell us what you’d vote for and if you'd be interested in attending or hosting.

How all of my emails after two weeks of vacation are going to find me tomorrow.

Sixteen years ago, one of my first talks (shout out ElevateCX) was basically about how support people should ingratiate themselves to engineers so they’d help build the tools we needed to do our jobs, and I meant it sincerely. That was the move. You were a “lowly support person,” so you built relationships, baked cupcakes, asked nicely, and hoped your request didn’t get deprioritized.

Later, at Trello, Ben McCormack and I spent an absurd amount of time building janky terminal tools just to get basic visibility into things we needed. It worked, technically. But it was duct tape and vibes. 

Yesterday, I built a small app to fix a really silly manual process in my personal life. From idea to working thing took less than 2 hours. Here’s what the app does: forever, I’ve used a random number generator and a spreadsheet to pick the next book I read. It’s clunky, but it worked. Then, in the middle of the night, I finished a book and absolutely did not have it in me to manually count rows and roll dice like it was 2009. So instead, I built a tool.

It scrapes my Audible, Libro, Libby, and Kindle libraries, pulls all the books into a single list, and lets me press one button to randomly pick what I read next. While I was filming the demo video, I realized there was one more feature that would make my life easier. You can literally see me type it in and it’s implemented moments later.

That’s when it really clicked how outdated our conversations still are.
We keep talking about AI like it’s THE TOOL. Auto-replies. Deflection. Summaries. Fine. Cool. But that’s not the real shift: the real shift is that support DOESN'T HAVE TO WAIT ANY MORE.

As a support person today, you can build the thing you need. You don’t need an engineer’s blessing. You don’t need to lobby for priority. If you understand the problem—and support always does—you can create a solution that works for you. But no one is talking about that?

We’re still framing AI as something that happens TO support, instead of something support can use to build, fix, and unblock itself. The bottleneck isn’t engineering access anymore. It’s whether we’ve updated our mental model of what’s possible.

Support has always been closest to the pain. Now it’s close to the power, too.
If we’re not talking about that, we’re missing the point entirely.

A lot of people replied to my last post with some version of: “Yes, exactly. They want to help. They just don’t have the tools.” Cool, we agree. But like, so what?

If your team WANTS to help but keeps getting blamed for bad experiences, that’s not a motivation problem. We've established that’s a systems problem. and SPOILER: systems are fixable.

Question if your team can actually solve problems, or if they mostly spend their day explaining why they can’t. If most of their job is apologizing for policies, waiting on approvals, or escalating basic stuff, you didn’t build a support team, you built a human buffer.

Ask yourself how often the same issues keep coming back. If the same complaints, questions, and edge cases show up every week, that’s not customers being annoying. That’s a signal. Something upstream is broken, and your team is absorbing the emotional fallout. Quantify that and fix it.

Get curious about what you’re actually rewarding. If your metrics prioritize speed, deflection, or “closing” over real resolution, you’re training people to rush, not help.

Dive in to how much real authority your team has. If every refund, exception, or fix needs approval, you might think you're creating financial safety for your business, but you're actually just creating more backlog. You're making a bigger wall between your team and the customer.

If you want your team to help more, make it easier for them to help. Most support people already care (I say most because there were some folks on the last post that said that wasn't true, hahah). Your job as a leader is to stop making it so hard for that to matter.

Not work-related, but YOLO: My son is doing a science fair project looking at the intelligence of different types of cats (hairless versus non-hairless). If you have a cat and feel so inclined to fill this out, we would really appreciate it! Once per cat:

Open article: 🐾 How Smart Is My Cat? by docs.google.com

Are you trying to get in on this? It's gonna be pretty good! Let me know if you'd like an invite and I'll see what I can do...I might know a guy.

We're hosting an intimate, invite-only panel in Austin with our partners at Richpanel. 

Join Mercer Smith, and Olivia Parker as they explore how AI is reshaping customer experience without losing the human touch.

What to expect:

• Practical insights on designing human-centered CX enhanced by AI
• A look at what CX leaders are prioritizing for 2026
• A thoughtfully curated group of 20 DTC and tech leaders

And after the conversation, we’ll slow things down with great food, drinks! 

Drop an “I’m interested” in the comments to save your spot (limited seats).

📅 January 29, 2026
📍 Austin, TX (venue shared upon approval)
🎟️ Invite-only | 20 seats

Customers don’t think in channels. Your data shouldn’t either.

In this co-written blog with Richpanel we show how to build a minimum viable omnichannel data model that finally keeps context where it belongs. We also include a channel map template to help you get started.

For CX leaders who want to go deeper, we're co-hosting an event in Austin with Richpanel at the end of January focused on building continuity across human + AI interactions.

Hope to see you there 👀

Read the full article here: https://hubs.ly/Q03ZZYL50

Open article: One customer brain for 2026: building the minimum viable omnichannel data model by hubs.ly

One customer brain for 2026: building the minimum viable omnichannel data model

Have you heard me talk about how you need to change your presentations to be more executive-facing if you want to actually get buy in and budget? And have you simultaneously been like "yeah okay sure but how?" (I hope not because I always try to give examples and steps to follow along, but fine.)

WELL LUCKY FOR YOU Craig Stoss AND I ARE OVERACHIEVERS AND not only are we going to give you a framework, but we also have examples of before and after slides USING the framework.

Don't snooze, we're going live in a few hours: https://lnkd.in/gKk3ufiE

New year, new Masterclasses! We are back fresh and reloaded with new sessions for our CX leaders. 

Join us and KODIF this January 22nd for a masterclass on how to turn CX data into executive-ready stories that drive buy-in, trust, and investment.

This session is ideal for CX, operations, and customer support leaders who need to communicate impact clearly, influence decision-makers, and consistently win investment for their teams.

See you there! 👀

Tyler Sellhorn, Aitana Rangel Garibay and 32 other attendees

View event: Executive-ready CX storytelling

so stoked to be able to support Gruns. <3

It's a new year. Six months ago, I shared a list of software and service partners who have supported our staggering growth at Grüns. 

I want to spotlight some new partners and continued heavy hitters who are making an impact in this next chapter of growth.

None of this is sponsored. Our team is simply grateful for the individuals behind these platforms, who are putting in the work to support Grüns.

Skio - subscriptions
Postscript - sms
Haus - incrementality
Northbeam - MTA
Siena AI - empathic CX
Boldr - CX extension
NoFraud - fraud prevention
Fulfil - ERP
Loop - returns
Numeral - taxes
Gladly - CX
Crstl - EDI connection
onbrand.com - partner activations
NeonPixel - TV performance
ShipNova - supply chain
Hark - voice of the customer
Motion (Creative Analytics)
Replo - site build
Archive - social listening
Order Editing - post-purchase edits
Chargeflow - chargebacks
PLTFRM - retail
Raindrop - creative production
Baker Tilly - audit and tax
J.P. Morgan Disruptive Commerce - LOC & banking
Ramp - credit card & AP
WithCoverage - insurance
Yolodex - persona creation
Hightouch - reverse ETL
AthenaHQ - lifecycle personalization
FrontrowMD - medical badging
Tracksuit - brand awareness tracking
Hetal Retail - retail analytics
Great Northern - retail display

I hope these partners are helpful for your business as well!

Last week on the CXL peer group call, we ended up in a conversation that I SWEAR every support/CX leader has had in some form but somehow we all keep treating it like a personal failing instead of shitty biz practice.

How many times have you been told that to be considered for a promotion, you need to do the work of the new role (plus your existing role). Your calendar fills up and the “extra” work starts showing up without clear role evolution or compensation. It's "for your development."

One person said something that stuck with me: if someone wants you to step into a bigger lane without paying you for it yet, the only sane move is: “Cool. Help me understand how this role evolves over time.” Not “someday.” Not “we’ll see.” Literally: what changes in 6 months, what changes in 12 months, and how will success be evaluated. Because if the company can’t answer that, someone else in the market will.

And here’s the piece I feel annoyingly strongly about: don’t let yourself get into the pattern of doing the bigger job without being compensated for it. The first “sure, I can cover that” is the easiest moment to set a boundary. After 6–8 months of wearing the extra hats, it turns into debt. And businesses are gonna business; if they can juice you, they will. 
I liked the flipped perspective though, too: sometimes it is less about immediate comp and more about increasing your luck surface area. However, if you take on this “extra,” what are you no longer able to do that might be worth more?

We also got into a super useful comp angle that I don’t hear enough leaders talk about: if base salary is capped, get creative. Stipends tied to projects. Variable comp tied to outcomes. Commission if you’re helping with pre-sales. A defined time-boxed trial with an explicit renegotiation date. There are ways to avoid the “just keep doing it forever” trap that don’t require a dramatic ultimatum.

Anyway: I’m sharing because I think everyone talks about career growth and comp negotiation, but we don’t talk enough about the patterns that quietly trap support leaders: the title band-aids, the unpaid scope creep, the “you’re so capable” tax, the way helpful people accidentally train companies to underpay them.

If you’re navigating one of these right now, here are two questions from that call that I think are worth stealing:

1. What does this role look like 6–12 months from now, and what specifically changes (scope, decision rights, comp), if I execute well?
2. What am I agreeing to do temporarily that I might accidentally make permanent?

Perpay Inc.

At Perpay, we believe everyone deserves a chance to improve their financial future. We’re dedicated to building simple and inclusive financial products that help our members create healthy habits and achieve economic stability. We’re hiring and would love for you to join us! Check out our careers page to learn more: perpay.com/careers

Growth Lead

Catalyst Software

Invited to be a Customer Success Coach for the Catalyst Coaching Corner, an application-based program that pairs people who are aspiring to become Customer Success Leaders or who wish to elevate their Customer Success career with experienced industry leaders for monthly coaching sessions. Apply here: https://catalyst.io/coaching-corner

Growth Coach

Revenue Collective

Revenue Collective is an exclusive community for growth operators. A global organization with official chapters in Philadelphia, New York, London, Denver, Toronto, Boston, and Amsterdam.

Member

Thunkable

Leading all post-sales customer experience functions (customer success, product support, community, customer education), with a focus on scaled customer success, to drive net revenue retention and help our 3m+ creators to be wildly successful on Thunkable.

Head of Customer Success

Guru (getguru.com)

Guru organizes your company knowledge and makes it accessible when and where you need it, so your teams are connected, confident, and engaged. 

Played a pivotal role in growing the business from $3m-$30m ARR through building scaled programs and teams that fueled customer retention and expansion, spanning community, customer education, lifecycle marketing, customer advocacy, and technical support.
• Helped achieve best-in-class net dollar retention (NDR, NRR) comparable to that of top performing public B2B SaaS companies (120-130%+), with 50%+ average year-over-year growth
• Accelerated expansion rates consistently, which was critical to “land and expand” product led go-to- market strategy
• Consistently drove industry leading NPS scores (65-70%+)

Built and optimized digital customer success teams and programs end-to-end that drove increased activation, conversion, retention, and expansion rates across the customer base, including Lifecycle Marketing (email + in-app), Customer Education (Guru Academy), Community (online forum, user groups), Customer Advocacy (case studies, reference & advocacy program), and Technical Support (Help Center, 1:1 support); led the PLG Working Group, a cross-functional group comprised of leaders from Sales, Marketing, and Product that helped shepherd Guru’s transition from a sales-led to product-led go-to-market motion.

Sr. Director, Lifecycle Engagement & Retention

I co-created and led the Solidarity Guild at Guru, which was designed to create a more inclusive and equitable employee experience by facilitating opportunities for education, reflection, conversation, and action related to challenging systemic oppression of marginalized groups.

Solidarity Guild Co-lead

Developed the strategy and secured funding and buy-in for scaled, digital customer success programs and teams, detailed above, to drive customer retention and expansion in coordination with high-touch account teams, Sales, and Marketing; hired and onboarded initial team to build out aforementioned programs; oversaw the evaluation, purchase, and implementation of necessary tools, including Iterable, Skilljar, inSided, TechValidate, and Intercom; took on leadership of Technical Support team following a company reorganization; co-founded the Solidarity Guild to support and amplify Guru’s ERGs and DEIB efforts.

Director of Customer Retention & Engagement

Developed enablement strategy and trained customer-facing teams on Guru’s AI offering; organized and produced inaugural industry conference and piloted successful user group events in key growth markets; spearheaded community strategy and initial launch.

Revenue Enablement & Community Lead

TEDxPhiladelphia

Advisor

Schoolzilla

I served as Director of Community & Events at Schoolzilla - a public benefit corporation that enables K-12 districts to leverage data to run great schools.

Built the community strategy, programs, and team from the ground up that drove increased customer retention and loyalty at scale; launched and oversaw the annual conference (90-95%+ satisfaction), online community (adopted by 85%+ of customers), webinar programs, event series, and crisis communications.

Director of Community & Events

Established and managed the customer support function and team, serving as a key driver for customer success, renewals, expansion, and referrals; evaluated, purchased, and implemented Zendesk; oversaw ticket handling SLA metrics and reporting, root cause analysis, quality control, and coordination with Product and Engineering teams on product releases, bug escalations, and product feedback trends.

Director of Customer Happiness

Empowerkit

Primary responsibilities included building and managing go-to-market strategy and functions, including sales & business development, marketing, customer success and service, and account management. I also worked closely with our product, design, and engineering teams to ensure the best possible service delivery to our clients, optimizing for account retention, expansion, and lifetime value.

Co-Founder & CEO

Freshout

While expanding from a two-person digital product consultancy in 2006, to a 40- person SaaS company eight years later, I led several functions in the company, including customer success and support, account management, marketing and sales, business development, and operations.

Freshout launched several B2B and B2C SaaS products during my tenure, including Empowerkit, Breezi, RecordIt, and PlaceIt, which was acquired in 2018 by Envato.

Co-Founder

Event Marketing Consultant

Consulted clients such as Scion, RedBull, Activision, and Comcast on sponsorship campaign strategy and management, event production logistics, and event marketing.

Executive Director

Hello 👋🏻 I’m a senior CX and marketing leader with 15+ years of experience growing SaaS companies through customer-centric programs that drive revenue acquisition, retention, and expansion at scale. I specialize in doing this through scaled + digital customer success and advocacy initiatives.

After cutting my teeth growing a bootstrapped B2B startup I co-founded that was later acquired, I spent the last 10 years building and leading post-sales teams from the ground up, including lifecycle marketing, customer advocacy & community, CX (support & success), and customer education. 

Along my journey, I’ve helped companies go from $0 - $30M ARR, with industry-leading net revenue retention (NRR) through spearheading customer retention and expansion programs at scale.

Here are a few of the programs and initiatives I’ve owned end-to-end, from developing the initial strategy through to launching a proof of concept, implementing tools and scalable processes, building out teams, and using performance insights to drive continuous growth and improvement:

✉️ Personalized, behavior-driven lifecycle communications (email and in-app) that drove increased activation and product adoption across the full customer lifecycle, starting at sign-up
🎓 Video-based product education academy that enabled scaled onboarding and ongoing trainings for all users, in turn increasing activation and product adoption - leading to increased retention and expansion
🏘 Online customer communities focused on product inspiration, best practice sharing, peer-to-peer support, and product feedback management
🙂 Technical support teams that drove industry-leading NPS and customer satisfaction scores, as well as harnessed voice-of-customer (VOC) insights to build and improve self-serve help documentation and inform product roadmap
🎟 In-person and virtual user group programs and industry conferences that drove customer retention and expansion, as well as influenced new business pipeline and partner engagement

I’m passionate about coaching and developing teammates to have the greatest impact possible, building collaborative partnerships across the company, taking new ideas from zero to one, supporting and leading DEIB initiatives, and growing high-performing teams that embody the company’s core values.

If I can be helpful in anyway, please don’t hesitate to reach out: chris@eduvatek12.com | 717.309.9088

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