Customer Success
& Support
Ready to connect with your peers in customer success and support? Grab your free ticket for Startup Boston Week 2025 on Sept 8th - 12th today!
More sessions are still being added to the SBW2025 agenda!
All sessions are available BOTH in-person at Suffolk University and virtually.
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MASTERING VALUE FRAMEWORKS: UNLOCKING RETENTION AND FUELING CUSTOMER GROWTH
Perfect for: early-stage founders looking to build a repeatable retention strategy, Customer Success leaders seeking to communicate ROI more effectively, product managers aligning roadmaps with customer outcomes, and sales teams aiming to highlight product value during the buying process
Building a great product isn’t enough - your customers need to see and experience its value at every stage of their journey. This tactical session will demystify the concept of “Value Frameworks,” showing you how to define, measure, and communicate the value your product delivers across the entire customer lifecycle.
This session will cover the key elements of building and implementing a Value Framework, including:
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What exactly is a Value Framework and how it differs from standard KPIs and metrics
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Tailoring Value Frameworks to different customer segments and use cases
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Onboarding best practices - from welcome emails to milestone markers and health tracking
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Identifying critical “aha moments” during onboarding to drive faster adoption
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Retention strategies rooted in customer value - ensuring customers experience benefits at every touchpoint
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Operationalizing Value Frameworks without overwhelming your lean team
You will leave with a clear blueprint for creating a Value Framework that strengthens customer engagement, drives higher retention, and fuels long-term growth. This session includes real-world examples, practical quick wins, and actionable insights to help you immediately enhance your customer success strategy.
FOUNDERS-FIRST CS: A CRASH COURSE IN BUILDING CUSTOMER SUCCESS FROM THE GROUND UP
Perfect for: founders wearing multiple hats, very early-stage teams (pre-seed/seed) looking for the basics, and anyone needing a do-it-yourself playbook in the absence of a dedicated CS hire
Customer Success (CS) isn’t just for mature companies - it’s a game-changer for early-stage startups looking to drive retention and growth. This hands-on workshop is designed for founders new to CS, offering a streamlined introduction to the essential building blocks of an effective customer success strategy.
This session will cover the core elements of CS that every founder should know, including:
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The key functions of CS - what you can’t afford to ignore, even with a small team
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Setting up essential metrics with minimal tools and effort
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Creating a simple customer journey map that supports product adoption and growth
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Low-cost or free tools to monitor customer interactions and health
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Building feedback loops that align customer insights with product improvements
You will leave with a mini-CS roadmap tailored to your startup’s stage and resources, helping you build a scalable and effective CS foundation. This workshop includes guided exercises, real-world examples, and practical takeaways you can implement immediately.
FORCING PRODUCT-MARKET FIT: TURNING FEATUR REQUEST INTO PRODUCT INSIGHTS THAT STICK
Perfect for: founders on the front lines of customer complaints, early-stage CS and support staff looking to sharpen their soft skills, and product managers overwhelmed by urgent or unrealistic feature demands
Handling demanding customers and endless feature requests is part of the startup grind - but how you respond can make or break customer relationships. This tactical session will help you turn challenging customer feedback into valuable product insights, strengthening customer trust and long-term retention.
This session will cover practical strategies for:
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Calming heated customer demands with the right language and tone
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Tactfully saying “no” to feature requests without alienating customers
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Creating frameworks to turn negative feedback into positive product momentum
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Knowing when (and how) to escalate issues to the right team member
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Using proactive communication to prevent conflicts before they start
You will leave with a clear process for handling feature requests and customer conflicts, plus real-world insights on how to balance customer feedback with strategic product decisions.
BUILDING YOUR CS DREAM TEAM: HIRING AND GROWING FOR EARLY-STAGE SUCCESS
Perfect for: founders making their first CS hire, startup leaders unsure how to structure CS roles, and anyone interested in building career development pathways within a fast-growing startup
Customer Success (CS) can be a game-changer for early-stage startups - but when and how should you start building a CS team? This panel will dive into the strategic side of hiring and growing a CS function, helping founders and startup leaders make informed decisions about structuring and scaling their teams.
This session will cover key insights on:
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When to hire your first CS professional and how to spot the right fit
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Defining CS roles and responsibilities in a small, resource-constrained team
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Scaling your CS team over time as your startup matures
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Crafting clear career paths to keep CS talent engaged and motivated
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Essential skills for early-stage CS roles and how to evaluate them during hiring
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Setting up success metrics that align with business outcomes and team growth
Panelists will share real-world stories about establishing early CS roles, aligning them with company goals, and nurturing long-term success in lean environments.
THE CRYSTAL BALL: MASTERING HEALTH SCORES TO PREDICT (AND PREVENT) CHURN
Perfect for: founders needing to prioritize resources, early CS hires tasked with building health-scoring models, and product and data teams working without a full-blown analytics stack
Spotting at-risk customers early can save your startup time, money, and momentum. This panel will cover practical, no-frills methods for tracking customer health - even if you don’t have a dedicated analytics team—so you can predict churn before it happens.
This session will cover key strategies for:
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Defining simple health metrics that early-stage startups can track easily
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Setting up a basic health score without expensive tools or complex systems
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Identifying red flags - the usage and engagement trends that signal churn risk
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Knowing when (and how) to intervene with high-risk customers
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Collaborating across product and CS teams to align on churn prediction and prevention
Panelists will share real-world examples of how startups have built effective health-scoring models with limited resources - and how those insights have driven higher retention.
Meet Rob Zambito! Rob is our Customer Success & Support Track Lead for Startup Boston Week 2024. This is his first year on the Startup Boston Organizing Team.
Some fun facts about him: the TV or movie character that they feel best describes their personality is Doc Brown. and they are most likely to be famous for drawing cartoons that are ugly yet charming. Look them up and connect with them on LinkedIn.