The Evolution of CS in a Startup

Aseem Chandra: [00:00:00] I’ll start with Viviana. So Viviana, you are with language io, you’ve been with the company since it’s very inception, I think employee number three or four. Mm-hmm. . And you know, the conversation today is really gonna turn into a discussion around what does it look like as you take a customer success.

Aseem Chandra: Role from the inception of a company to where you are today. So maybe just start with a little bit of an introduction to language io first and, and what you do, and then we’ll talk more about your role and how that’s evolved over time.

Viviana Bertinetto: Sure, absolutely. So I’m the Chief Customer Officer at language io and we are a software company and we are in the multilingual customer support space.

Viviana Bertinetto: So our software enables global enterprises to communicate with our customers in any languages, any language. We have integrations with multiple CRMs to empower the support teams to essentially. Customers, no [00:01:00] matter the language they speak. And we do live chat machine translations and we also have integrations for email translation, article translation.

Viviana Bertinetto: So we’re really plugged in in that customer support space. We also have publicly exposed APIs so we can really connect into a lot of other applications for our customers. And it’s been a very exciting journey to be with language. I. Absolutely. Very

Aseem Chandra: cool. And so then I understand the product and, and what you’re building and delivering.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. It’s language translation in real time for customer success organizations. Is that, so you probably end up interacting with a lot of your counterparts in the CS community.

Viviana Bertinetto: Is that fair? Yes, exactly. Which is it’s, it’s very cool. I have to say. My background is actually in languages. So I was born and raised in Italy.

Viviana Bertinetto: I am bilingual. So it, this role is, is really great for me because I get to use that background that I have and work [00:02:00] in, in a sense also in the translation and localization space. But because we are a software company that empowers customer support teams a lot of the times. Yes, you’re completely right.

Viviana Bertinetto: Our, our, you know, main point of context are people in the same space as I am. So customer success, customer support, customer experience. So it’s it’s a nice cherry on top, I have to say. . That’s

Aseem Chandra: very cool. Okay. Mm-hmm. . So Tell us a little bit more about the journey of language io. So when did the company start, you know, what got it started?

Aseem Chandra: And you were obviously there in the early days. How did you become connected into language

Viviana Bertinetto: io? . Mm-hmm. . Sure. So I started with the company in 2017. The company had been around for a few years before that. And I got started in a program manager role. But it was very customer facing. And my background before was in, in translation and localization, but also in translation technology.

Viviana Bertinetto: I was already fairly plugged in with the [00:03:00] technology and software side of the business as well. And so when I got started, I was essentially a program manager, but I was again, in, in touch with all of our customers already in my role. So, you know, with the years I, I developed very good relationships with our customers and my role started to grow a little bit more into.

Viviana Bertinetto: Kind of an account manage management role. Right. And we got our series A funding at the beginning around the end of 2020, beginning of 2021. Mm-hmm. . And that’s when I got the opportunity to start a customer success organization from scratch. , which was very exciting. I was actually coming back to work for maternity leave

Viviana Bertinetto: So you know, you already have one challenge at home with your second child and then you know, you’re offered this opportunity and I think it was, it was just very special and very exciting. So, very cool, very

Aseem Chandra: exciting. So So, so help me understand this. So, [00:04:00] you know, you’ve just had your second child and then you come into a startup role.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. , setting up a new department. How do you juggle all those different things? It’s more of a personal question. We’ll get into the workshop in a moment, but like, I can’t imagine doing that at all.

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah, so a lot of deep breaths. Excellent childcare, . Yeah. And a lot of patience. But I, I really think just the excitement was fueling those first few, few months, that’s for sure.

Viviana Bertinetto: And I think just seeing that the company was already going in the direction focusing on the customer, right? And being customer centric and having a board that was actually supporting the creation of these roles was just very encouraging.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah. Yeah. So, I’m gonna go back to 2017, I think, when you joined language.

Aseem Chandra: I, and just to give everybody a sense of scale now, like what, what’s the scale of language IO now? Like how many employees, customers, et cetera.

Viviana Bertinetto: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So when I joined, I believe we. Seven or eight [00:05:00] employees. And today we are 60, close to 60 and, you know, around a hundred customers. So definitely definitely a fairly quick growth, especially if, if you consider that actually right when we got our Series A the company was still fairly small.

Viviana Bertinetto: You know definitely you know, within 20 employees if that. So we’ve, we’ve grown quickly. Got.

Aseem Chandra: Good. Exciting. And so when you first started, you know, in a program management capacity, maybe talk a little bit about that, because I think what I, I think what would be helpful to understand is what are some of the skills that you develop as a program manager that translate into when you evolve into customer success role and chief customer officer.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. . So maybe take us take us to these early, these early years. What did the word Absolutely at language I, in these early.

Viviana Bertinetto: Absolutely. So when I started, I was managing one side of the business, which had to do with content that is translated by human linguists. So I was kind of more in my [00:06:00] traditional role that I had before in many other translation companies.

Viviana Bertinetto: So I was interacting with our customers that had the specific need of translating knowledge-based articles, which are, you know, public facing articles obviously. And in most cases need translation by a human, not just machine. And so I was basically guiding customers through that type of lifecycle for their projects.

Viviana Bertinetto: But in doing so, I was, for one, understanding the product, right? Because a lot of what I was managing was coming direct. The content I was managing was coming directly. from our integrations, right? Mm-hmm. . So I, I had to understand how that was happening. You know, I had to do some troubleshooting with our linguists sometimes that were working in, in environments that were connected to our applications.

Viviana Bertinetto: And and in, in general, I just, I was the face of the company for the customer for these projects, right? And as I developed those relationships, I also. Learned about what their needs were. Right. Maybe there was [00:07:00] something beyond what they were doing that they you know, were looking to do with us.

Viviana Bertinetto: Maybe they were really happy with the product and were wondering if they could use it in a different way. And so, because the company was so small, obviously I, you know, we had. One Slack channel basically with, you know, the engineering team and the c e o and, and the c r O and everyone there, right? And so we, we were just bouncing off ideas very quickly, which I think is what happens right in that very, very early stage.

Viviana Bertinetto: And, and I think that’s why and how I got to. be involved in more strategic conversations too, right? Like, where are we going next? What about our pricing? What about our, you know, our, our structure what do we think is missing? And so it was, it was really great to be able to have my voice being heard in a sense and working for a small organization, but that was also very interested in hearing from their.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. And, and so I think the, the excitement of an early stage company that is not for everyone. I tell folks [00:08:00] anytime they’re thinking about making that switch from big tech to, to a startup if you can thrive in that chaos and uncertainty and find your way through that, then it’s, it’s an exciting place to be because there’s so many opportunities to contribute in, in different ways, not just, you know, I mean, you end up wearing multiple hats.

Aseem Chandra: No, no, no doubt. So now kind of take us through the next step of the journey, maybe closer to, you know, 20 mm-hmm. 19, 20 20 as you’re starting to Sure. Scale up and formalize a little bit more as a company and roles start to get structured, et cetera. What does that look like for you?

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah. So you know, right around that time actually, so maybe a couple of years into into me joining, I really started doing what you’re saying, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: The wearing multiple hats. I actually got involved with our engineering team a little bit. You know, joining sprint planning, sprint reviews and just really taking a deeper peak into our product and how that worked. And, and, and again, luckily, I, I’ve always been interested in technology. I’ve [00:09:00] been you know, I’ve always been pretty good at teaching things myself and, you know, and just Learning pretty quickly how things work.

Viviana Bertinetto: So, so that was exciting too. Right. And so as we, we are getting, you know, closer to, to 20 19, 20 21, at that point I’m also asked to get involved on other tasks that were more related to our other products. Right, right. With the, the live translation, so the machine translation side of the business as well, which, Being in touch with more and more customers at that point, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: So not just the people that were doing the more traditional transition work, but also again, people that had other needs. In their customer support organization. And so, you know, they had agents using our tools, right? And using our product. And so that’s, that was kind of the next, the next step, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: And at that point, I think, you know, closer to 2020 when I went on maternity leave, I, I had really my hands in a lot of things, you know, from, really from pricing to product you know, to, to product suggestions you know[00:10:00] feature. Requests and things like that. So even though a lot of roles were not formalized yet at the time it was yeah, the responsibilities were growing.

Viviana Bertinetto: They were growing in a, in an organic way, I will say. But you are spot on. If you can thrive in the chaos, I always say , early stage startups are not for the faint of heart. I love it. I mean, I, I always joke I say, I don’t know if I could ever work anywhere else, but it, I, I really just enjoy it. So, so yeah.

Viviana Bertinetto: So that’s kind of where, where we got to, you know, closer to, to 20 20, 20

Aseem Chandra: 21. Got it. Got it. Very cool. Okay, so you know, I’m, I, I think one of the questions that I’ve had top of mind, and I’ve heard it from several people who are pursuing a path similar to yours at a startup. Like when you start to formalize different functions, like how did you make the decision that customer success now needs to be a dedicated function and we need to have, you know, someone focus on it exclusively?

Aseem Chandra: Give us a little bit of a sense [00:11:00] for what’s the scale, what are the metrics, what are the problems that you’re seeing? That sort of leads to a conversation in the management team that says, let’s formalize CS as a function and have you take the lead on

it.

Viviana Bertinetto: Mm-hmm. . See, this is where I think, you know, there, there was an approach on one side where, and, and I love this, I love to see this.

Viviana Bertinetto: That we really understood that a lot of the things we were doing were because of our customers. A lot of the great product that we were putting out there was also because of our customer feedback. Or use case or willingness to say, you know, will you build this with us and not just for us? Right?

Viviana Bertinetto: And so I think. They saw the opportunity, you know, the company saw the opportunity there to sort of replicate that, right? And in order to do that, you do need someone who is plugged in and on the ground and understands what customers are talking about and what they need and where they’re going, [00:12:00] right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Where, what are their goals? Like, what are they trying to achieve and how can we continue to demonstrate our values? So on the one hand, I think that was the reason, right? And on the other hand, I. I personally feel very lucky that, that even the board and the, and the investors and got involved in our, our series A were really all about customer success, right.

Viviana Bertinetto: And, and really saw the need to have someone there. I think our c e O is probably still to this day, the best c c O out there because, you know, she. You know, she, she was on the ground and she got those first customers, right? And so, you know, she saw it, the board saw it, and they thought that I was the, the woman for the

Aseem Chandra: job.

Aseem Chandra: Awesome. Very cool. Mm-hmm. . That’s, that’s wonderful. So I think and just as we’ve got a couple more people join us since we started. So if you’re just joining us, let us know which company you’re from, where you’re dialing in from, and if you have questions, please go ahead and pop your questions in the chat forum.

Aseem Chandra: I will since it’s a small group, [00:13:00] I’d be happy to open your line so you can ask your questions. So feel, feel free to jump in at, at any point. Okay. So, so Vivianna, maybe let’s shift gears a little bit now to Yeah. Where you are in the present moment where, you know, we, we talked a little bit the other day where you guys have a lot of customers, there’s a lot of technology, there’s a lot of data going through.

Aseem Chandra: So the infrastructure side of things, right? That you’ve built out at the company, mm-hmm. to support customer success. Maybe take a moment to kind of walk us through that journey on you know, what does that look like for you today and how, I mean, it’s still obviously growth business and, and early stage, so there’s there’s still a lot of messiness, which is to be expected, yes.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. , but but help us understand a little bit more of what that looks.

Viviana Bertinetto: Sure. Absolutely. So when I started out we decided based on you know, our projections and the scale of the company at the time to start with two customer success managers. So, you know, went ahead and, and got them hired fairly quickly within the first, [00:14:00] probably four to six weeks of, of me starting out.

Viviana Bertinetto: Happy to report that they’re still with us, which I think is super important too. As you, we were saying, right? Startups are not for the faint of art of heart. So I’m, I really love working with my team to this day. I think we’ve accomplished so much, but certainly when you get started, I think I that’s when I realized that there were, there was still a lot that I.

Viviana Bertinetto: Wasn’t seeing before. Right. And and there was still a lot of work to be done to really get us in a position where we could support the growth that we were expecting and that we did end up experiencing. Right. So you know, from. Honestly, reviewing some contracts to trying to reengage customers that were notoriously, you know, not, not very responsive that would, you know, still use the tool, but really not, not really engage with you, not really telling you what was going on to just trying to put a structure within onboarding and what was working, what wasn’t working.

Viviana Bertinetto: So there was a lot of you [00:15:00] know, A lot of admin work that we had to do. A lot of scratching our heads, , but I think we did really well. And in terms of tools, you know, in the very beginning and you know, to this day the tech stack of CS in an early stage startup tends to be pretty raw, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Pretty pretty basic. And I will say, I think that’s where we are right now, right? Where we’re like at a pivoting point and we’re trying to understand when is the right time. Jump and, and add to our tech stack. I think everyone struggles with that, right? Well, I’m a big proponent to do it sooner than later,

Aseem Chandra: but Yeah.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, our, our first tech stack was, you know, I op work in a go-to-market capacity, so, mm-hmm. When we started the company, the role was primarily to make sure that we bring some of the early adopter design partners to work with us to design the product with us. And the role was primarily getting access to the right people and bringing them into a conversation with our team.

Aseem Chandra: And you know, for the first year, my C [00:16:00] R M was a spreadsheet where I tracked the accounts and the people I was talking to at those accounts and the meetings I was having with them. Mm-hmm. wasn’t until about, you know, 12 months later that we implemented HubSpot and got that going. Yeah. And I think I would say on the customer success side, for us, given the scale that we’re at right now, it’s still pretty much manual work.

Aseem Chandra: Like, You know, tracking a lot of what our users are doing in our product through spreadsheets and emails and, and other sort of manual, manual processes. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, that’s okay. At the early stages as you start to scale up, then it starts to become then the process starts to hinder your growth.

Aseem Chandra: That’s when you start to invest in. Addressing some of those challenges. So maybe, maybe talk a little bit about, you know, the metrics side of things, right? So what data do you care about in terms of understanding your users? Behavior and and value creation for them. And are they using the product?

Aseem Chandra: Are they getting value out of it, et cetera. Like what are the different stages of the customer journey and what metrics do you care about at each stage? I [00:17:00] think that would be, mm-hmm. be helpful. So maybe just, let’s just start with Cus customer journey. What does the customer journey look like when they start to work with language?

Aseem Chandra: Yep.

Viviana Bertinetto: And yeah, that’s, that’s very interesting that you’re mentioning that because one of the things that we were focusing on initially, like I said, was onboarding. Right? And what we had noticed was that that customer journey was, in a lot of cases kind of getting stuck in this. Onboarding slash adoption limba, which you know, it was, it was really hard to get out of.

Viviana Bertinetto: And so I think, you know, the first thing we did was looking at the onboarding time and really looking at Since our tool is honestly, it’s super quick and easy to integrate. And it, and, you know, customers can be up and running in a matter of days if they, you know, if everything is ready to go. So, you know, we did, we did realize, hey, our, you know, time to onboard should be fairly quick.

Viviana Bertinetto: right? So clearly, you know, you have that phase of the onboarding and then you have the adoption, right? Mm-hmm. and what we have noticed, because also our, our tool is usage [00:18:00] based, so it’s not, you know license or seat based. It, it really would depend on what the customer, how, how ready the customer was to implement the.

Viviana Bertinetto: And really focusing on understanding their phase for rollout, right? So that adoption can take, you know, up to three months to get up and running and to really get to the levels that they, they purchased. And then, you know, after that it’s you know, it, it gets into the renewal, it gets into the, the growth phase, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Where, where when they are adopting the tool and you know, they are stable. Potentially starting to grow. That’s when you start to think about expansion, right? Mm-hmm. And then, you know, you get into the renewals and then, you know, for example, year one, you know, we’re like renewal’s great. You know, Yearly contracts and now it’s, you know, we’re starting to see customers wanted longer terms.

Viviana Bertinetto: Great. So that’s another thing we had to think about. Right. Also, because our tool being usage based and when you have a longer contract the time that they spend in those phases of their journey can change too. [00:19:00] Yeah.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah. Very cool. So, so back to adoption, like that’s the first mm-hmm. stage. Right.

Aseem Chandra: And that’s, There’s a lot of make or break in the sense that if they, if they, you know, there, there’s certain triggers at which the cus the tool starts to make sense and it’s like, all right, well now I’m gonna start using it. And then it kind of hits a, a steady state. But what are some of the challenges that your customers would bring to you in terms of the adoption cycle that your CS team can help with and help them overcome that?

Aseem Chandra: And maybe talk us a little bit through like, what’s the customer’s experience when they first interact with Lang Language io? And you know, your technology gets embedded into their C R M tools. Yeah. So the translations start to show up, but like the adoption phase help us, help us a little bit understand.

Aseem Chandra: Cause I think a lot of companies actually struggle with that part of the

Viviana Bertinetto: problem. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, some of the issues, so first of all is. On the one hand, there’s you always have to think about the skepticism around the technology that involves machine [00:20:00] translation as far as we’re concerned in the space we’re in, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: So it, it is really a, the work that you need to do at the sales stage and also at. You know, the onboarding stage to just let people know that, you know, this is great technology that can make you very, very efficient. It is still machine translation, so you still have to balance those expectations, but, you know, sometimes there is skepticism and so even though some agents do have the opportunity to use the tool, they might not use it because they might think they might not have a good understanding of, of how good the tool really is.

Viviana Bertinetto: Right. And that’s where you may have the challenge of like, who are you selling to and who is using your tools and making sure that there is there is information being shared with the team on the ground, right? Because sometimes you may sell to a C C O or a VP of customer success or customer experience, but then the agents are the ones using it, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Mm-hmm. . And so sometimes that’s one of the issues with adoption is. There’s, there’s a link [00:21:00] missing there. And that’s where we can come in and say, you know, do we wanna have a training session? Do we want to share some material with the with the agents? And then, you know, on the other hand is on the product side, you know, they might come to you with some.

Viviana Bertinetto: Suggestions about how seamless or not seamless the experience may be. And that’s when again, the customer the customer success managers can take that feedback and bring it to product. Right. Because like you said, they are, they see the tool in the C R M and they expect the experience to mirror what they do when they communicate in their own language.

Viviana Bertinetto: Right. And there is no there’s no translation happening in.

Aseem Chandra: Got it. So and, and I’m, I’m just messaging, Gary, I’ll open the line to you in a moment. Mm-hmm. , and I think you asked a really good question. But before we do, so, I think the point that you just made Vivianna, which is there’s a difference between who made the purchase decision, who’s the actual user of the product.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. . And so bridging that. Is a really important part of that onboarding process. But back to the [00:22:00] point about usage based model, right? Mm-hmm. . So I assume it’s like you’re buying certain number of translation, word translations is correct. That your setup mm-hmm. . Yep. Okay. Got it. So let me open the line to Gary because Gary, feel free to jump in and, and ask your question here.

Aseem Chandra: Let’s see here. Okay. Your line is, your line is open. Hey, good morning. Hi. It just

Viviana Bertinetto: jumped out at me. When you mentioned

Aseem Chandra: that your product was usage based mm-hmm.

Viviana Bertinetto: and so it’s something that I, I’ve been working to figure out also for another line of business. So I was kind of wondering how does

Aseem Chandra: expansion

Viviana Bertinetto: work and, and renewal work

Aseem Chandra: when you’re

Viviana Bertinetto: usage based.

Viviana Bertinetto: But just at the end there, it sounded like a scene may be hinted at it, that

Aseem Chandra: it, it’s. It’s still, it’s not per use, per se, but you’re buying a monthly plan, it sounds like,

Viviana Bertinetto: correct? Mm-hmm. . Yep. Yep. You buy a monthly or yearly plan and you have a certain capacity, right. Certain [00:23:00] translation capacity. And our database is able to track that usage in terms of translation usage.

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah. And then based on that, they, we would obviously have tracking mechanism and dashboards to. Again, is the adoption going the right way? Like, am I seeing a curve that’s going up? Right? That’s what I always want to see. Uhhuh, is it, or I mean, sometimes is there a spike, right? And if there is a spike, is the customer aware of it?

Viviana Bertinetto: Because sometimes, I will say they do have the opportunity to access self service tools, but you know, they might not be plugged in every day. And so that’s also where we really work in that advisory role. And we say, you know, we’ve noticed that you’re really using the tool a lot. , have you rolled it out to an additional region?

Viviana Bertinetto: Have you maybe have you lost some, some native speakers, right. That we’re supporting maybe part of the business. So I think we really partner with our customers to understand that. And then, and then yeah, track that usage. So that’s where we see our [00:24:00] growth, right? And that’s where we can suggest you know, upgrades in a sense, right.

Viviana Bertinetto: to just one other thing I was curious about. Yeah. That hit me as you were speaking about the product, which sounds very

Aseem Chandra: interesting. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . And that is how there’s

Viviana Bertinetto: a lot of

Aseem Chandra: translation products running around these days. Mm-hmm. , how

Viviana Bertinetto: does this pro product become a

Aseem Chandra: specifically a CS product?

Viviana Bertinetto: Yep. Yep. So one of the biggest differentiators is that we do not just provide, we, we really don’t provide a translation ourselves. Like we don’t own the engines, right. But what we do is we have a seamless integration within CRMs and then the translation is done is being sent to an aggregate layer.

Viviana Bertinetto: Various translation engines that we integrate with, right? So that’s what makes it seamless. You’re still in Salesforce, you are starting a live chat as an [00:25:00] agent, right? And let’s say. You as an agent, you’re speaking English, you don’t know who’s on the other side, right? Maybe the customer is in Spain.

Viviana Bertinetto: They’re gonna start chatting with you in Spanish. But via language IO tools, you are not gonna see the Spanish. You’re gonna hit the button and it’s gonna give you an English translation. So you’re still communicating your own language. And our tool does the rest, right? And bridges that gap. Hmm. So I, I think, you know, that’s, that’s a big differentiator to have those integrations as well as the fact that, you know, we do integrate with multiple vendors, so you’re not really just getting, you know, a Google translate translation that you can get on the web.

Viviana Bertinetto: And and you do that and you do that securely as well. So that’s one of the other biggest differentiators that we. Yeah.

Aseem Chandra: Great. Thanks for discussing that. Yeah, of course. Thank you, Gary. And I’m gonna go ahead and mute the line, but anybody if you have another question, please jump in.[00:26:00] So, so that was really interesting and actually, you know, as you’re describing that, I think sometimes we, we forget how miraculous that experience is.

Aseem Chandra: We can now talk to pretty much anyone, anywhere in the world and mm-hmm do be able to communicate in that way. So it’s really important work. So you, you went, you know, you come, you were talking about like how you wanna see the train lines over time, right? Mm-hmm. So, mm-hmm. That’s essentially time series data plotted over time, so you get a sense for what direction the usage is trend.

Aseem Chandra: How do you do that today? Like, is it, you know, you’ve built custom dashboards or spreadsheets or where does the data come from? You know, obviously like you have to get access to product data and put that in front of your CS team so they can see what’s going on there and how you’re thinking about how you might wanna handle that in

Viviana Bertinetto: the future.

Viviana Bertinetto: Sure. Yeah. I will say, you know, because we are usage based, right? Product data is like monumental for us. Yeah. So like I said, you know, we, we do [00:27:00] have, our database attracts the usage and then we use some intelligence business intelligence tools that connect to our database and generate these dashboards.

Viviana Bertinetto: And then these dashboards are used by our customer success team as well as our customers Now. Is that enough as we scale to really understand what our customers are doing and what we need to do to grow them and retain them? Probably not. Right? There’s, there’s a lot of other data that, you know, it’s still in various places typical at this stage, so I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary.

Viviana Bertinetto: But, but that’s how that information is surfaced to us.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah, I read somewhere recently in fact that after the first year for a startup that is growing they’re typically using about 35 different SaaS products, which, if I look across like where we are as a company, as probably an, our underestimate just the number of different tools mm-hmm.

Aseem Chandra: using to, to do our, our [00:28:00] jobs. Yes.

Viviana Bertinetto: So,

Aseem Chandra: so now, you know Vivian, I’m aware that you are not using a customer success platform at the. Something that you’ve considered correct. But share with folks a little bit about what’s the what’s the right time to think about that? Like, when’s the, you know, what are some of the signals that you look for and say, you know what, now’s the time for us to start thinking about it and let me explore what my options are.

Aseem Chandra: Sure.

Viviana Bertinetto: There’s, there’s different signals, right? That at least I’ve, I’ve identified. So first of all, I I love to plan. Sometimes I plan a little too much in advance. I think my family knows this unfortunately for them. But . So I, I did a lot of research actually already in 2022 before I thought we were even even ready for a tool.

Viviana Bertinetto: Because I think what’s important to know is, is, is knowing the landscape, right? And, and especially knowing what you need mm-hmm. You can get into, you know, you have to have clean data, et cetera. I mean, there, there are tools that kind of clean the data for you nowadays, which is, [00:29:00] is, is good as well.

Viviana Bertinetto: But I. I hate to say it sometimes what it takes to give you that light bulb, you know, going out, going up is something. Fell off the wagon, you know, you dropped the ball somewhere, you maybe missed an expansion opportunity. Mm-hmm. , you missed some data. You know, because it wasn’t, it wasn’t obvious to see.

Viviana Bertinetto: Right. I think a lot of what we do is around translation. So having data about transition quality that is surfaced in a way that allows us to make decisions quickly is super important. And that’s, that’s what we do with our tools as well. But sometimes, you know, it may. , it may just take a customer churning or threatening to churn, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah. And coming out of the woods saying actually, you know, this product is not working for us. And, and maybe someone not being super aware that that was the mood right? Or that was the, the situation. So sometimes that’s [00:30:00] something that makes you react. You

Aseem Chandra: know yeah. It’s, it’s actually, I mean, I think, I think it’s you are describing startup reality for most startups.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. , which is, yeah. When something breaks, that’s when attention turns in that area to say, how do we fix

Viviana Bertinetto: it? Squeaky wheel, the squeaky wheel. I mean, it’s, it’s good, right? I think it’s good that. That you have the awareness. And then I think, you know, sometimes it’s not just a chart. Sometimes it’s actually the expansion opportunity, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: And so if you think that in a, in a startup that’s growing, you know, revenue is important, right? And so, You know, it’s, it’s really a missed opportunity because because, you know, maybe that customer could have, could have grown this year instead of next year. Yeah. And so I think it’s important to course correct.

Viviana Bertinetto: And, and you know, I think it’s important to do what you can with what you have and And, and you know if you put in place some processes, it doesn’t really matter if they are in a Google sheet or if they are on a Word document. I think the idea to that you are have, you’re, [00:31:00] you have a process. You know what you need to do.

Viviana Bertinetto: When you have the automation, when you have the tools, that’s half the work, right? Yeah. Because then you can tell, say, Hey, this is what I’m working with. Here’s my spreadsheet, this is the data I need. How can I get it into a tool?

Aseem Chandra: Right? I think, I think what you just said makes so much sense to me as a startup founder, which is first run the process manually.

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. then think about what’s the tool to bring in. Don’t try to, you know, jump ahead and, and get in front of the thing by buying the tool and then recognizing that you don’t actually know what the process needs to be. So that resonates a lot. Mm. So really, really cool. Yeah. I’m curious about Gary asked a question about her renewals earlier in the usage based setting.

Aseem Chandra: You know, how does your team, like, from a ownership standpoint mm-hmm. , obviously there’s a shared responsibility with the sales team and the CS team, and then the product team and the CS team. Maybe touch on that a little bit, like, is renewals a shared responsibility with the CS [00:32:00] team and what does that motion look like?

Aseem Chandra: And, and, you know mm-hmm. , how do you, how do you go about that renewal contract with the.

Viviana Bertinetto: Yep. So it’s interesting because it seems that out there, there’s many different schools of thought. And you know, I’m a firm believer there. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong. It’s, it’s really what works for you today.

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah. And it may not work tomorrow, right? So, right now the way it works is that our CSMs work really closely with Some other team members that are on their sales. And these people are, you know, strategic account owners and they really take on anything on the commercial side when there is an expansion opportunity that is surfaced.

Viviana Bertinetto: So CSMs are on the ground, right? They right now they’re doing onboarding, so they are also plugged. Into the customer experience from the very beginning. They don’t just sit on calls and like, you know, chat. They are really doing the work from, from the beginning, and so I think they. [00:33:00] Know a lot about the customer and they certainly have the pulse of the account.

Viviana Bertinetto: And I think it’s great that we have this great relationship with these other team members on the sales side because we can surface those opportunities. We can bring these other people in. Right now they own the number and they own sort of the Tedious, sometimes work of the quoting and contract negotiations, which, I mean, I love to be involved and don’t get me in, don’t get me wrong, but I think it, it, it can sometimes overburden a CS team, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: If they’re doing everything from onboarding, you know, it, it’s like, okay, yeah. Something’s not gonna be done very well at that point. And, and you probably want the revenue part to be, to be optimal.

Aseem Chandra: Squeaky clean. Yes. Agree, right? Yes. Okay, cool. And okay, so I’m gonna shift gears a little bit and I wanna understand a bit more.

Aseem Chandra: I think you know, now back to sort of your personal journey and your professional journey as an [00:34:00] early stage you know, early person at a startup and then sort of growing with it. Share a little bit about what it’s like in terms of the leadership journey, right? So when you are the first person in that chaotic setting, you’re doing everything yourself, right?

Aseem Chandra: Mm-hmm. , you have, there’s no choice, right? But how does that change over time?

Viviana Bertinetto: Sure, sure. Well, a big change is that I no longer have accounts , so, which I did in the beginning, right? I was sort of the third C s M as well. And I think I still love to be on the ground with, with my CSMs, and I need to pull myself back.

Viviana Bertinetto: It’s, it’s been very interesting because I think you have a lot of imposter syndrome in the beginning. Especially when you have really nothing to compare to. And you know, the role per se feels like it’s different than what you did before, but then you look. your responsibilities and you think, this is what I’ve been doing my entire career.

Viviana Bertinetto: It just had a different name attached to it. And so I think from a leadership standpoint, as the company grows I am trying to [00:35:00] understand how the team will grow and how to switch from sort of like a generalist’s approach of. Okay, I’m not gonna hire just a bunch of CSMs. Let’s specialize those functions.

Viviana Bertinetto: Right? And so that’s when you start plugging in maybe someone in CSOPs or like having a, a dedicated onboarding team, right? An onboarding manager or an implementation manager. So That’s kind of what, what the next focus is going to be. I also manage customer support. So you know, I manage kind of the, the whole customer experience and, and there’s, you know, thoughts I have on that side too where, you know, how can I how can I grow that team in a way that isn’t just.

Viviana Bertinetto: You know, 10 support agents, and how can I specialize that team and, and give them opportunities also to to do, to do good work that isn’t just repetitive and, and transactional right, and is more strategic.

Aseem Chandra: Yeah. Got it. Very cool. And, and and so I think for the audience you know, if you have any questions any final questions, feel [00:36:00] free to jump in.

Aseem Chandra: We’re gonna take this to close over the next next few minutes. But I think one of the key, key things Vivian, that I’m curious is when you are hiring and building your team, which you’ve done obviously. What kinds of skills do you look for in the person? Like what, what do you look for that you believe is gonna be a good success indicator in a customer success role?

Viviana Bertinetto: Well again, because we’re still an early stage company, right? I, I really always ask that question. Like sometimes it’s chaos over, over here. How do you manage that? You know, some people really need des disrupt. Some people don’t like wearing multiple hats. I also don’t want to set the expectation that, hey, you’re gonna do the job of seven people, right?

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah. But certainly someone who kind of likes that cha challenge and has a history. Building processes and really coming in with a fresh set of eyes. I think that’s another you know, statement I’ve been making during interviews is, you know, I do love that I [00:37:00] do love the fresh perspective. There are certain things that are standard that are great.

Viviana Bertinetto: Of course, if you have a background in translation tools, that’s fantastic. If you have a background in sas, that’s fantastic. But I think ultimately to be successful, Do you love talking to customers? Do you like digging deep and understanding what people need from our product? And can you thrive in the chaos

Viviana Bertinetto: Yes.

Aseem Chandra: Right? Yes. So that’s, that’s a good note to take this to close with, you know, two startup folks here on the talking to each other and several startup folks on the call. Can you thrive in the chaos? That sounds like a good, good title for a book.

Viviana Bertinetto: I know, but the rewards are great too. .

Aseem Chandra: That is true.

Aseem Chandra: I agree. So again, I wanted to, you know, take a moment to just thank you for your time today for all of this. All the insights that you’ve shared for how, what your journey looks like, how the language IO journey’s evolved over time and, you know, from from Italy to California and mm-hmm. The transition you’ve made there and, and, and I’m just blown [00:38:00] away that you know, you’re, you’re.

Aseem Chandra: In a, in a startup taking up a new role while you’re, you know, managing a, a second baby, that’s just like enough, A startup in itself is, is enough work. And and I think anybody that’s in a startup would appreciate the kind of effort that takes to pull together. So thank you again for your time.

Aseem Chandra: Of course, for every joining in today. If you’re if you’d like a recording of this call, it will be on our website by the end of day tomorrow. And we’ll send out a notification to anybody that registered or anybody that participated with a link. What’s a good way, Viviana, for folks to reach out to you and connect with you?

Aseem Chandra: Where, where can they find you? If you have any questions that they’d like to follow up on?

Viviana Bertinetto: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’d like, I’d love to connect on LinkedIn you know, with you, you can find me with my full my full name over there. Love to connect there. Absolutely. And then language io.com is our website.

Viviana Bertinetto: If you’re interested in knowing more about what we do that’s where you would get started. Great.

Aseem Chandra: Awesome. And on that note, if you’d like to, you know, we’d love to continue the [00:39:00] conversation with everybody in the industry around customer. You can find me on LinkedIn or at a scene@amesa.co. Just drop me a note, and I’m happy to talk to anyone that is interested in, in this, in this similar conversation.

Aseem Chandra: Again, thank you for all of your time, and we look forward to seeing you all next week with a new special guest. So Viv, take thank you so much for, for joining us today. All right, we’re gonna wrap up. Thank you so much, Asim. Thank you to our guests.

Viviana Bertinetto: Thanks everyone.