Spotlight: Ramona Aubry @ Expert.ai

What's a mistake you made early in your career, and what did you learn from it?

Early in my CS career, I made the mistake of thinking I was solely responsible for the entire customer journey. I took on too much—trying to solve every issue myself, overextending to keep customers happy, and underestimating the importance of XFN collaboration. This led to burnout and inefficiencies, as I wasn’t leveraging internal teams or data effectively.

I quickly learned that CS is a team effort. Proactively communicating risks, empowering customers rather than over-managing them, and using data to drive decisions made a huge difference. Most importantly, I realized that setting boundaries and working smarter—not harder—was the key to sustainable success for both me and my customers.

What's the most rewarding part of your role in CS?

The most rewarding part of my role in CS is seeing the direct impact of XFN collaboration on customer outcomes. Success doesn’t happen in a silo—it requires alignment between sales, product, and support to deliver real value. One of my proudest moments was working closely with product and professional services to turn a struggling enterprise customer into a long-term advocate by refining their implementation strategy and ensuring measurable ROI.

Nothing is more fulfilling than watching a once-frustrated customer become a champion for our solution. It reinforces that CS isn’t just about retention; it’s about creating partnerships that drive business growth and meaningful innovation.

What has surprised you most about building a CS team?

What surprised me most about building a CS team is how challenging it is to create alignment and accountability across functions. Everyone—sales, product, support—feels a sense of ownership over the customer, but without clear roles and structured collaboration, that shared responsibility can turn into misalignment and inefficiency. Early on, I assumed a common goal of "helping the customer succeed" would naturally unite teams, but I learned that without defined processes, important details fall through the cracks.

The key is clarity—establishing who owns which part of the customer journey, how success is measured, and how teams collaborate without duplicating efforts. Implementing structured handoffs, shared KPIs, and regular cross-functional syncs helped turn initial friction into a well-orchestrated process, creating a seamless experience for both customers and internal teams.

What's a memorable CS success story that stands out in your career?

One of the most memorable CS stories in my career was transforming a high-risk churn account into one of our biggest expansion wins. This client was on the verge of leaving due to poor adoption and misaligned expectations set during the sales process. Engagement was low, frustration was high, and their leadership had already started evaluating competitors.

Rather than going into damage control mode, I worked cross-functionally to reset the relationship. I partnered with product to address key usability concerns, collaborated with sales to realign on long-term goals, and designed a tailored re-onboarding plan with our professional services team. Most importantly, I engaged their executive team to co-create a success roadmap tied directly to their business objectives.

Within six months, not only did they renew, but they expanded their contract by 3x, rolling out our solution across multiple teams. What started as a churn risk became a flagship customer case study—reinforcing the power of proactive engagement, strategic collaboration, and measurable value.