Building Your Enterprise CS Framework: From Strategy to Scale Part 5

Leveraging AI – How to Turn Data into Dollars (Not Just Dashboards)

Author

Tomas
May 6th, 2025

In partnership with

Featured Article

Everyone’s talking about AI. But when I look out at CS models, I see a lot of AI strategies that flop. Welcome to Part 5 of 7 for enterprise CS. Moving on from last week’s chat on nailing your tech & data, let’s talk AI. How you should be using it and – more importantly – how you shouldn’t be using it. 

AI isn’t a tool. It’s your new hire.

Most CS teams use AI to automate busy work. That’s all well and good. But the real winners use AI to be their ultimate prediction tool. Here’s how.

1. Think ‘growth’ over ‘efficiency’ 

Why do 90% of “scalable” CS models fail? Because they’re optimized for speed – not impact. I mean, what’s the point of adding tiers and handoffs if you don’t redesign the system to drive growth and evolution? 

Doing the same old stuff but more efficiently is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship is still going down. So start looking bigger and fix the ship itself.  

Where teams go wrong:

  • Leaders celebrating “efficiency gains” as NRR flatlines

  • Getting stuck in “reactive rescue” mode leaving no time for strategic work

  • Customer start to feel like your team is one step behind

How to think about it instead:

  • Outcome-based tiers: Segment customers by strategic impact, not revenue. Let’s say you’ve got a $50K client disrupting an industry – treat them like a unicorn. They’re your key to long-term expansion.

  • AI to predict churn: Let AI be your eyes and ears. Use it to flag accounts that need some love and get on top of issues quicker.

  • Get all hands on deck for fixes: Deploy cross-functional pods (CS + product + sales) to high-risk accounts. Put forward your best people – not your newest intern – when it comes to solving problems.

But wait, how does this align with earlier advice? Think of your AI addition as the key to upgrading your growth strategy. Clean data + adaptive teams = unstoppable growth.

2. Use AI to sniff out churn risk

Let’s be honest: AI isn’t cheap. So if you’re just using it to log tickets and help with the busy work, you’re wasting its potential. And if you’re like other enterprise CS teams, that could mean $500k/year down the drain. 

I know of one SaaS org that slashed escalations by 40% after they implemented an AI system to flag at-risk accounts 60 days pre-renewal.

Here’s how to get there:

  1. Train your AI models to find:

  • Support sentiment (“3+ negative interactions = 73% churn risk”)

  • Feature adoption gaps (“Client X hasn’t touched the ROI calculator in 90 days”)

  • Executive turnover (New CFO? Time to re-pitch cost savings.)

  1. Automate interventions. 

Think: AI detects risk → triggers a personalized “save” playbook → CSM gets a Slack alert: “Call CMO NOW – 68% churn risk.”

Bottom line: Start thinking of AI as your ultimate tool for insight – not just a way to move faster. For example, how about getting AI to start generating data-driven “health scores” tied to board-level metrics so you can approach CS like a mind-reader?

3. Don’t just report – Predict.

Most teams drown themselves in dashboards but they can’t answer the simple questions like “Will this client renew?”

The Fix…

  • Build a “Money Matrix.” Track metrics that actually move revenue:

    1. EBITDA impact (e.g., “Tool saved $2.1M in payroll costs”)

    2. Stakeholder engagement (e.g., “CFO attended last 3 QBRs”)

    3. Expansion signals (e.g., “IT requested API access for 2 new departments”)

  • Nuke vanity metrics. Replace “login rates” with “cost per saved hour.”

Remember: if your customer’s CFO doesn’t care about the metric, then don’t waste time looking there. Get clear about what’s important – then deliver that to the highest standard.

4. Put a swarm team together to fix delivery issues

Here’s the cold truth – Generalist CSMs can’t fix complex problems. 

But what they can do is get the best people together and manage the road towards a solution.

Here’s what that looks like:

  • Assemble a team of experts: 1 CSM (relationship lead) + 1 product engineer (tech fixer) + 1 sales strategist (expansion guru)

  • Assign them to a high-risk account and give them 48 hours to:

    • Diagnose the issue

    • Present a fix

    • Pitch an expansion opportunity

  • Compensate on outcomes: Incentivize your team by offering bonuses when the customer upsells.

Think about issues with high-risk customers like a raid. Get your SWAT team together to find the problem, get it fixed, and impress your customers. 

5. Start small with AI. But keep your eye on growth.

Here’s what you can do this week to get things moving in the right direction:

  1. Kill one vanity metric: Replace it with a dollar-impact KPI.

  2. Train AI on churn signals: Feed it 100+ at-risk accounts from last year.

  3. Launch one swarm test: Pick a shaky client. Assemble your SWAT team. Report results.

Remember, AI isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing what matters. The sooner you stop treating AI like any other efficiency tool and start asking it to help you gain better insights – the sooner you’ll start to drive actual growth.

Next week, we’re looking at managing change for enterprise CS, and getting users to love your product.


Tomas

Check Out Our Newsletter Friends

TLDR Newsletter - TLDR is the free daily newsletter with links and TLDRs of the most interesting stories in startups 🚀, tech 📱, and programming 💻!

Stay up-to-date with AI

The Rundown is the most trusted AI newsletter in the world, with 1,000,000+ readers and exclusive interviews with AI leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Demis Hassibis, Mustafa Suleyman, and more.

Their expert research team spends all day learning what’s new in AI and talking with industry experts, then distills the most important developments into one free email every morning.

Plus, complete the quiz after signing up and they’ll recommend the best AI tools, guides, and courses – tailored to your needs.

Events

Save The Date

SaaStr Annual 2025
📅 Date: May 13–15, 2025
📍 Location: San Mateo Event Center, San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
🌐 Website: https://www.saastrannual.com/​

14th Annual Customer Experience Strategies Summit
📅 Date: May 28–29, 2025
📍 Location: Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Toronto, ON, Canada
🌐 Website: https://www.customerexperiencecanada.com/​

Planhat Open 2025
📅 Date: June 1 – 4, 2025
📍 Location: Stockholm, Sweden
🌐 Website: https://www.planhat.com/open/stockholm-2025
⚠️ Disclaimer: This event is less of a conference and more of a retreat, but touted for its networking abilities

CX Summit EMEA 2025
📅 Date: June 2 – 4, 2025
📍 Location: The O2, London, United Kingdom (+ digital option)
🌐 Website: https://www.forrester.com/event/cx-emea/

Deep Dive

What We've Been Reading

What We've Been Listening Too