Ben Shepherd

A highly accomplished Customer Success Director with 10+ years of experience working within the enterprise SaaS, CX and cloud communication sectors. Well versed in directing functions and driving the development and implementation of customer success strategies across global regions to achieve satisfaction, retention, account growth, expansion and renewal metrics in line with targets. Extensive background in holding responsibility for the customer experience throughout lifecycles, shaping operating models and creating processes / workflows to proactively drive adoption and engagement in collaboration with sales, marketing, product and operational teams.

Strategic Customer Success Director - Smarsh

(2021-06)

• Directing customer success strategy across 3 strategic enterprise and 2 mid-market financial services customers, representing approximately $20m ARR.
• Owning executive relationships and aligning activities with core strategic, commercial and transformation priorities.
• Delivering 100% customer renewal and 137% ARR target attainment through a proactive communication strategy, value realisation and disciplined commercial management.
• Leading complex and commercial negotiations, including a $2.5m strategic renewal involving significant Master Services Agreement amendments.
• Supporting more than $8m ARR through enterprise transformation and platform modernisation programmes, aligning technology investment with measurable outcomes.
• Creating and leading the International Customer Success Runbook initiative, establishing scalable practices, stronger governance and greater operational consistency.
• Championing international customer success QBRs and the Voice of the Region initiative, strengthening leadership visibility, regional alignment and decision making.
• Mentoring Customer Success Managers and partnering with senior leadership to strengthen capability, governance, operating practices and customer success effectiveness.
• Driving cross functional collaboration across Product, Engineering, Support and commercial teams whilst using AI enabled workflows to improve executive reporting and execution.

Senior Customer Success Manager - Moxie

(2019-05 - 2021-06)

• Led customer success across the EMEA region for GoMoxie Digital Engagement customers, focusing on optimisation, adoption, value realisation and commercial growth.
• Spearheaded customer optimisation programmes that improved digital engagement and strengthened user adoption.
• Achieved 98% customer retention through proactive relationship management, value focused engagement and early identification of customer risk.
• Identified account growth opportunities whilst proactively managing commercial risk, partnering with internal teams to support expansion.
• Delivered executive QBRs and strategic customer planning sessions, aligning customer objectives, adoption priorities and commercial opportunities.
• Streamlined the renewal process and refreshed account segmentation to improve portfolio management, commercial visibility and prioritisation across EMEA.
• Created the renewal playbook and refreshed existing customer success playbooks and collateral to strengthen consistency and repeatability across the region.
• Designed the EMEA Tech Touch process to increase scalable customer outreach, improve engagement and provide more consistent coverage across the portfolio.
• Measured executive success metrics and ROI, translating platform performance into clear evidence of business value for senior customer stakeholders.

Senior Customer Success Manager - Aspect

(2015-08 - 2019-05)

• Managed an enterprise cloud customer portfolio exceeding $8m ARR, maintaining strategic relationships and overseeing the overall customer experience.
• Reduced support case cadence by 80% for a major banking customer by improving engagement, coordination and focus around recurring service issues.
• Owned the Best in Class Community section of Aspect’s 2018 We Wills initiative, contributing to programmes designed to strengthen customer experience.
• Identified opportunities to improve adoption, service quality and relationship strength across enterprise cloud accounts whilst protecting retention and value.
• Contributed to the team that redefined customer success processes for Aspect’s transition to cloud services in 2019, supporting a more scalable operating model.
• Maintained regular executive and operational communication with cloud customers, monitoring satisfaction, priorities, risks and service related concerns.

Team Leader & Senior Escalation Engineer - Voxeo / Aspect

(2013-01 - 2015-08)

Earlier Roles - Lastminute.com, Intec Telecom Systems, Nortel Networks, CableData and ABB Forstar

MBA - Technology Management - Open University

BSc (Hons.) - Economics - University of Surrey