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When Customer Success Costs You Revenue
Turning Customer Success Into a Revenue Engine
“If you don’t view Customer Success as a revenue function, you’re leaking margin every quarter.” - Monty Fowler, AspireSix
THE CHALLENGE
A B2B TECHNOLOGY COMPANY DISCOVERED:
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Customer churn had quietly risen above 15% annually, putting revenue growth at risk and masking deeper cracks in their renewal process
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Millions in unbilled renewal revenue were leaking out the door because customers delayed signing new contracts without penalty.
Success by the numbers:
On-time renewals soared from 34% to 92%
Churn reduced by 70%
Expansion revenue grew 44%
NPS jumped by 50%, reaching 77
To unpack how this transformation happened, we sat down with Monty Fowler, Formerly Head of Revenue Enablement at the B2B technology company featured here, and now Managing Partner of Revenue Lifecycle at AspireSix.
Before we dive into the lessons, can you share some background on your former role at the company?
Monty: I was serving as Head of Revenue Enablement at a B2B technology company in the marketing technology space. The business delivered an API-driven platform that touched both operational and marketing use cases, which meant our customers ranged from finance and compliance leaders to demand generation marketers. At the time, I oversaw the revenue lifecycle including Sales, Customer Success (CS), and parts of marketing, so i had a front-row seat to how these functions worked together... and sometimes didn’t.
At first glance, did it seem like everything was working fine?
Monty: From the outside, yes. Sales was landing new customers, onboarding was happening, and our CS team was busy with QBRs. But when our first external head of Customer Success dug into the numbers, we found a serious problem: churn had climbed past 15%. For a subscription business, that’s not just concerning, it’s fatal if left unchecked.
What was the moment you realized this was an urgent problem, not a minor issue?
Monty: It was when we saw the late renewals were essentially creating a “hidden discount.” Customers knew they could delay for months without consequence. That was millions in unbilled revenue leaking out the door. At the same time, the CS team wasn’t equipped to expand accounts or manage renewals effectively. It became clear this wasn’t just a CS problem...it was a business problem.
What did you uncover behind the scenes that others may have missed?
Monty: CS was too narrow defined. They focused on onboarding checklists and QBRs, not on creating measurable customers value or securing expansions. We also realized valuable usage data lived with engineering ang product, but it never flowed into CS. Without visibility, CS couldn’t connect customers pain to platform value.
What obstacle did you run into trying to fix this?
Monty: The CEO worried about “turning CS into sales." Some CS team members felt that selling would harm their trusted customer relationships. In addition, the broken handoff during onboarding from Sales to CS left customers feeling they had to repeat the same steps twice. These weren’t small frictions, they were systemic.
What did it take to shift CS into a selling culture and make it a cross- department effort starting with onboarding:
Monty: Three things:
CULTURE - We reframed Customer Success as a revenue engine, not a support function.
Every department, from Sales and CS to Product and Marketing, tool responsibility for customer success. And it was essential this started on Day One of onboarding as a handoff checklist, but that’s where chum risk really begins. By bringing Sales and CS together from the first kickoff, we gave customers a seamless transition and made sure the focus wasn’t on checking boxes” but on setting customers up to see business value quickly.
PROCESS - We built processes around customer value.
That Meant CS has to truly understand the customer’s business pains and connect them to better usage of the technology. For Example:
- Showing a marketing team how to expand beyond transactional use cases into demand generation campaigns.
- Helping finance leaders use automation to eliminate manual, error-prone workflows.
- Guiding executives to tie platform usage directly to business outcomes like faster campaigns, higher ROI, or lower compliance risk. The focus shifted from “Are you onboarded?” to “Are you realizing the business outcomes you expected?”
ENABLEMENT - We trained the CS team to sell with confidence via discovery, value propositions, pricing, and negotiation.
And we equipped them with real-time health alerts. These alerts flagged CS when usage dropped off, when a power user stopped logging in, or when adoption suddenly spiked. Instead of guessing, CS had clear triggers to reach out at the right moment, whether to solve a problem before renewal or to capture an expansion opportunity.
How did data play a role in empowering the team?
Monty: We already had usage data. The problem was it wasn’t actionable. We built dashboards so that when a CS rep opened an account, they immediately saw who was logging in, what features were underused, and where expansion potential exited. Health alerts flagged risk or opportunity in real time. That gave CS a roadmap for every conversation
What was the outcome?
Monty: Within 12 months...
Churn dropped 70%, down to 4.5%
On-time renewals went from 34% to 92%
Expansion revenue grew 44%
And NPS climbed to 77, which was a 50% jump
But honestly, the biggest win was fixing on-time renewals. Before, late renewals wrecked our forecasts. Finance never trusted the numbers because revenue slipped month after month. Once we tightened that up, finance was the happiest group in the company. Suddenly they could rely on forecasts, manage cash flows with confidence, and stop plugging holes by borrowing just to cover shortfalls. That stability was a valuable as the top-line growth.
Customers went from dreading boring QBRs to saying,
‘These QBR sessions are some of the most valuable meetings we have. I walk away with ideas I can act on immediately.’ - Technology Customer
What’s the lesson executives should take away today?
Monty: If you don’t view Customer Success as a revenue function, you’re leaking margin every quarter. Churn prevention isn’t owned by one team, it’s cross-department, and it start on boarding. you have to embed a selling culture across the company and equip CS with the tools, processes and data to deliver value consistently.
How does this connect to AspireSix’s approach?
Monty: At AspireSix, we don’t treat CS, Sales, and Marketing as silos. They’re interdependent levers of the revenue lifecycles. We help executives identify where revenue is leaking, architect cross-functional process, train teams to sell with confidence, and put data into action. The result isn’t just lower churn, it’s a durable revenue engine built on accountability, clarity, and value realization.
Would you like to create a revenue-driven, cross-departmental Customer Success culture in your Business?
Learn more about Monty Fowler or book a meeting with him to explore your situation.