Portfolio — Fractional COO engagement Rebuilding Customer Success Operations for a B2B HR Tech SaaS at Series B A ground-up redesign of the customer success function for a US-based HR technology company facing rising churn and a post-sales experience that was undermining an otherwise strong product. Reducing gross churn by 35% and lifting NRR above 110% within nine months.

The challenge

The company had closed a Series B on the back of strong new business growth, but churn was quietly eroding the gains. Gross churn had crept above 18% annually, well above the segment benchmark, and the customer success team was reactive, under-resourced, and operating without clear playbooks or health metrics. Customers were churning not because the product had failed them, but because they had never been properly onboarded, never reached activation, and had no meaningful touchpoint with the company after signing.

Approach

I joined as a fractional COO with a focused remit: diagnose and rebuild the post-sales operation. I started by interviewing churned customers and analysing usage data to identify where and why customers were dropping off. The picture was consistent: onboarding was too slow, CSMs had too many accounts, and there was no early warning system for accounts at risk. I redesigned the entire customer journey from contract signature to renewal, introduced a tiered CS model based on ARR and complexity, and built a health scoring framework.

---

Key deliverables

• Churn diagnostic — structured analysis of churned and at-risk accounts combining exit interviews, usage data, and CSM feedback to identify root causes of post-sales failure
• Customer journey redesign — end-to-end redesign of the post-sales experience from onboarding to renewal, with defined milestones, timelines, and accountability at each stage
• Customer health scoring framework — data-driven health model tracking product adoption, engagement, and support signals, enabling proactive intervention before churn risk escalates
• Tiered CS model — segmented the customer base by ARR and complexity, redesigned CSM coverage ratios, and introduced a tech-touch programme for the long tail
• CS team restructure and enablement — redefined roles and ownership, introduced QBRs and performance metrics, and ran a structured upskilling programme
• Product feedback loop — established a formal process to surface churn signals and feature gaps from CS to the product team
• Retention and expansion playbooks — built repeatable playbooks for onboarding, renewal, upsell, and save motions

---

Results

---

Skills applied