Most companies are structurally optimized to acquire customers, not keep them successful.
Product teams build features to win new customers instead of fixing friction existing customers hit every day, often adding functionality customers aren’t asking for or ready to absorb.
Sales is incentivized on new logos, not long-term customer outcomes.
Retention functions—success, support, education—serve the majority of revenue but receive a fraction of the investment.
Companies invest like acquisition drives growth…
even though most revenue comes from customers they already have.
And now we’re hoping AI will solve the problem by cutting cost out of customer engagement.
Does anyone else feel like we’re overly optimized to acquire customers—and underinvested in keeping the ones we already have successful?
Check Out Support Leadership, Unfiltered—a series examining how support leaders make this shift through building credibility, proving business impact, and navigating structural constraints.