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  "description": "Join hosts Kimberly Ayala and Raymond Otero for an engaging series exploring the fast-changing world of customer experience and customer success.",
  "path": "/the-cx-cs-happy-hour/",
  "publishedAt": "2025-09-17T11:45:13.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.customersuccesscollective.com",
  "tags": [
    "Kimberly Ayala",
    "Raymond Otero",
    "Start streaming with our free membership",
    "Stay relevant or get left behind: Reinventing yourself in the age of AI, CX, and constant change - employee experience factor",
    "The future of customer success",
    "Hiring and developing the best",
    "The art of AI in customer experience and feedback",
    "Paul Christin",
    "Suzanne Hitcho",
    "Get instant access",
    "Shilpi Sharma",
    "Péroline Moran",
    "Slack Community"
  ],
  "textContent": "Join hosts Kimberly Ayala and Raymond Otero for an engaging series exploring the fast-changing world of customer experience (CX) and customer success (CS).\n\nEach episode brings together leading voices to share real-world challenges, big wins, and proven strategies for building stronger customer relationships.\n\nExpect actionable insights, inspiring stories, and expert perspectives to help you take your CX and CS game to the next level.\n\nDid you know that all historic episodes are **free to stream OnDemand** for all members.\n\n\n\n   \nStart streaming with our free membership\n  \n\n\n* * *\n\n\n**Episode 4:** Stay relevant or get left behind: Reinventing yourself in the age of AI, CX, and constant change - employee experience factor **[Coming soon]**\n\n  * **📆 May 27 | Part 1:** The AI reset: Framing the shift and the reality check\n  * **📆 June 10 | Part 2:** The new currency: From effort to authority (hard truths)\n  * **📆 June 24| Part 3:** Breakthrough: reinvention, rapid fire, and defining the future\n\n\n\n\n\n**Episode 3** : The future of customer success **[Watch now]\nEpisode 2:** Hiring and developing the best**[Watch OnDemand]\nEpisode 1:** The art of AI in customer experience and feedback **[Watch OnDemand]**\n\n* * *\n\n## _Episode 4:_ Stay relevant or get left behind: Reinventing yourself in the age of AI, CX, and constant change\n\n\n**Episode 4 (Part 1 ): The AI reset: Framing the shift and the reality check**\n\nThis episode explores the rapid changes in Customer Success and CX, featuring a \"reality check\" on staying relevant and overcoming misconceptions in the generative AI era.\n\n📆 May 27\n⏰ 10am ET | 3pm GMT\n\n\n#### ****Guest Speaker:**** Paul Christin  | CX & Success Thought Leader & Tech Evangelist\n\n__I’m a sixty-year-old software release still running on original architecture, stable, well-documented, and only occasionally prone to sarcasm with a splash of bad dad-jokes. I’ve spent decades navigating big tech’s shifting terrain, from Motorola pagers to AWS’s cloud-native buzzwords, surviving layoffs, reorgs, and more acronyms than a government agency. I specialize in turning corporate chaos into clarity, usually through satire, claymation, or a well-placed metaphor on Teams chat during lost-in-translation weekly meetings. I don’t chase trends, I debug them. And while I may be approaching end-of-life on the roadmap, I’m still fully operational, with a few upgrades in progress, hoping to find what is out there awaiting me on the horizon.__\n\n\n**Episode 4 (Part 2): The new currency: From effort to authority (hard truths)**\n\nThis installment provides a 90-day action plan for future-proofing careers by shifting from intuition to data-driven thinking with tools like Gemini, emphasizing authority over mere effort.\n\n📆 June 10\n⏰ 10am ET | 3pm GMT\n\n#### ****Guest Speaker:**** Suzanne Hitcho | Advisor & former Director GTM Value Strategy and Transformation at FirstUp\n\n__Suzanne Hitcho is a Customer Success and GTM value strategy and operations leader with 20+ years of experience driving measurable business outcomes across enterprise B2B SaaS, Fortune 500 organizations, and global consulting. Most recently as Director Value Strategy & Transformation at Firstup, she led the architecture and adoption of value realization frameworks, ROI tools, and business case consulting engagements that equipped customer-facing teams to better connect platform outcomes to customer business priorities across the full lifecycle. Known for bridging strategy and execution, Suzanne combines consultative depth, cross-functional alignment, and a passion for AI-driven innovation to accelerate retention, expansion, and revenue growth. She co-founded Firstup's AI Working Group and was named Customer Success Manager of the Year in 2020.__\n\n\n\n\n\n**Episode 4 (Part 3): Breakthrough: reinvention, rapid fire, and defining the future**\n\nThe final episode offers a practical playbook for reinvention, featuring an unfiltered back-and-forth between the two guest experts and a rapid-fire round on essential skills and tools to navigate the current market \"filter.\"\n\n📆 June 24\n⏰ 10am ET | 3pm GMT\n\n**Guest Speakers:** Both Paul Christin & Suzanne Hitcho will return for the finale of this mini-series.\n\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n**You can watch our last episode of CX and CS Happy Hour right here 👇**\n\n##  _Episode 3:_ The future of customer success\n\n\n**Customer success has come a long way - but where is it going next?**\n\nIn our latest episode, The evolution and future of customer success, Kimberly Ayala and Raymond Otero dig into the real history, present state, and bold future of CS.\n\nFrom the early days when “success” meant closing tickets faster…\n\nTo today, where 73% of high-growth SaaS companies tie ARR growth directly to CS (Gartner, 2024)…\n\nTo the future, where AI-native workflows, revenue ownership, and global lifecycle orchestration will define the next decade.\n\nWe also share a Future of CS Skills Toolkit — including a skills map, curated AI tools, and example org structures to help CS leaders get future-ready.\n\nTune in to episode 3 of our series and walk away with insights (and a few laughs) that can reshape how you think about Customer Success.\n\n**Meet your hosts:**\n🎤 Kimberly Ayala, Director of Customer Success at Akeneo\n🎤 Raymond Otero, Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft\n\n\n\n* * *\n\n##\n_Episode 2:_ Hiring and developing the best\n\nHiring the right people is only the beginning—how do you truly set them up for success and keep them motivated? In this in-depth conversation, Ray Otero and Kimberly Ayala dive into every stage of talent management: from identifying red flags and running behavioral interviews to onboarding, recognition, and long-term career development.\n\n**Key takeaways:**\n\n  * **Interviewing for impact:** Ask open-ended behavioral questions, dig deep with follow-ups, and focus on measurable results to see how candidates think, pivot, and reflect.\n  * **Onboarding and engagement:** Build mentorship, skill development, and recognition into the first 90 days and beyond to retain top performers.\n  * **Career growth and personalization:** Understand what motivates each team member – whether leadership ambitions, personal goals, or long-term vision – and create tailored pathways to help them succeed.\n\n\n\n\n**Meet your hosts:**\n🎤 Kimberly Ayala, Director of Customer Success at Akeneo\n🎤 Raymond Otero, Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft\n\n\n\n   \nGet instant access\n  \n\n\n* * *\n\n## _Episode 1:_ The art of AI in customer experience and feedback\n\n\nAI is transforming customer success and experience - but are we keeping it ethical, human, and truly valuable? In this must-watch session with Deepgram, Ray Otero, Kimberly Ayala, Perline Moran, and Shilpi Sharma, industry leaders reveal how to harness AI for smarter insights, better personalization, and stronger customer trust.\n\n**Key takeaways:**\n\n  * **AI can’t run on autopilot** : Clean data, feedback loops, and human oversight are critical to avoid bias and misinterpretation.\n  * **Personalization at scale is possible:** AI tools help analyze sentiment and predict customer needs across the entire journey.\n  * **Governance matters:** clear frameworks and ROI checks ensure AI delivers real value without compromising privacy or compliance.\n\n\n\n\n**Meet the panelists:**\n🎤 Kimberly Ayala, Director of Customer Success at Akeneo\n🎤 Raymond Otero, Director of Global Customer Experience at Microsoft\n🎤 Shilpi Sharma, Head of Transformation at Innovation Nexus\n🎤 Péroline Moran, Global Director of Customer Experience at HiBob\n\n\n\n   \nGet instant access\n  \n\n\n\nIncase you didn't know - we have a Slack channel for this series. Join the Customer Success Collective Slack Community and find us in the **#cx-and-cs-happy-hour channel** to continue the conversation.",
  "title": "The CX and CS Happy Hour",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-20T10:58:37.292Z"
}