Podcasts are a fantastic way for busy customer success leaders to develop their skills, discover new strategies, and learn best practices from their peers.
But there’s like…a million of them out there, so finding the best customer success podcasts is like hunting for a polar bear in a snowstorm.
To make life a little easier, here are some of our team’s favorite customer success and revenue team podcasts.
1. Grow & Tell
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Alex Kracov, CEO and Co-Founder of Dock
What makes the show great: This is our show — so sorry not sorry for putting it first. Each episode of Grow & Tell invites a revenue leader in Customer Success, Sales, Marketing, or Growth to share How I Built This-style growth stories behind successful companies like Notion, Loom, LinkedIn, and more.
Not only does the show cover company success stories, but it also digs into the individual career growth arcs of revenue leaders.
The Customer Success-focused episodes dig into actionable questions like:
- How did you go from CSM to VP of Success?
- How are your CS teams structured?
- What do you look for in a first CS hire?
- Why did you separate your Onboarding and Success teams?
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 4: Building Success Programs: How Brittany Soinski overhauled onboarding at Loom
- Episode 12: Customer Experience Teams: Gillian Heltai on building Lattice's CX program
- Episode 16: Growing a CS Team: Joseph Schmitt on leading success at UpKeep
Episode clip: Why Lattice split its onboarding and success functions
2. Gain Grow Retain
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music
Hosted by: Jeff Breunsbach (Director, Corporate Marketing at Higher Logic) & Jay Nathan (Chief Customer Officer at Higher Logic)
What makes the show great: Gain Grow Retain started in 2019 (and at 284 episodes and counting, continues) as another podcast pillar in the customer success field, then spun off a large, active community a little under a year later.
Gain Grow Retain is aimed at customer success leaders in B2B SaaS and tech. It offers insights on everything from operations to strategy to the practice of success leadership itself.
In addition to full-length episodes, Gain Grow Retain also offers “10-Minute Trumpets,” bite-sized episodes that cover a single topic relevant to your CSM team.
Favorite episodes:
- Scaled CS: Daphne Lopes, Hubspot
- Managing Global Teams (CS leadership Office Hours)
- Creating Valuable QBRs with Emily Garza, AVP of Customer Success
- How CS Leaders Can Adopt AI with Rohan Gupta and Gopal Srinivasan, Partners at Deloitte
3. CHURN.FM
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Andrew Michael, CEO of Avrio
What makes the show great: CHURN.FM is a staple among customer success podcasts. Started in April 2019 by host Andrew Michael, it debuts new episodes every week, with over 215 episodes available as of this post’s publishing.
CHURN.FM features professionals from every function and company stage across the subscription economy, all bringing their own strategies and systems for reducing churn and increasing customer retention and revenue.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 1: Churn is the silent killer with Brian Balfour, Founder and CEO at Reforge
- Episode 50: How AppsFlyer’s Customer Success team has generated over $100 million in expansion revenue
- Episode 205: Building a Scalable Customer Success Program with Abbas Haider Ali, VP of Customer Success at GitHub
4. The Customer Success Channel Podcast
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast
Hosted by: Anika Zubair, Owner and Consultant at The Customer Success Pro, with Planhat
What makes the show great: The Customer Success Channel Podcast is backed by Planhat, a customer success and relationship management platform. It strives to help customer success leaders in B2B SaaS and tech companies center their businesses around their customers.
It also frequently delves into career-expanding topics for customer success managers, which makes it a useful and actionable podcast for CS teams and success executives alike.
Favorite episodes:
- Building a Customer Advocacy Program with Alex Farmer, VP of Customer Success
- Data Driven Workflows & Scaling CS Operations with Emmanuel Malanda, Global Head of Customer Success at Calypso
- Sustainable Growth in Customer Success with Shannon Nishi, Director of Customer Success at Customer.io
5. The Modern Customer
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Hosted by: Blake Morgan, Customer Experience Consultant and Author
What makes the show great: The Modern Customer dives into the broader and intriguing world of customer experience with thought leaders and CS leaders from a broad range of industries and companies.
The Modern Customer is a versatile show; you’ll hear insights and best practices for building customer-centric businesses from smaller startups like Oat Haus and restaurants like The Halal Guys all the way to Fortune 500 companies like IBM and Visa.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 258: Using CX Metrics to Embrace and Improve Customer Pain with Nate Henderson, CEO of BILT
- Episode 285: How Leaders Can Build Relationships Through Transparency with Ali Bonar, CEO and Co-Founder of Oat Haus
- Episode 338: Customer Service is Marketing: How to Integrate Pre- and Post-Sale with Author Allan Dib
6. The Jasons take on…
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Hosted by: Jason Noble (VP Global Customer Success at Vinli Inc) and Jason Whitehead (Co-Founder of Success Chain)
What makes the show great: The Jasons take on… is an engaging podcast that excels at making customer success concepts and best practices accessible and understandable. The hosts also do a great job of showcasing the diverse group of experts in the customer success community, letting their guests shine as they ask thought-provoking questions.
Favorite episodes:
- Managing Complexity during Onboarding and Implementation with Rupesh Rao, CEO and founder of CogniSaaS
- Building Long-Term Relationships via Customer Support with Mara Vicente, Interim Head of Customer Success at Pipedrive
- Customer Journey Mapping & Programatizing Customer Success with Mike Sasaki, Global Head of Customer Success & Support at Mitek
7. Women in Customer Success Podcast
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Marija S. Pilley
What makes the show great: The Women in Customer Success podcast is a show about relationships – relationships between a company and its customers, relationships between customer success leaders and their CSMs, and relationships between CSMs and their careers.
It provides a veritable smorgasbord of thoughtful conversations and shrewd advice about how to lead and grow as a customer success professional.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 10: How to Lead Multi-Cultural Teams with Minna Vaisanen, VP of Customer Success at Pace Revenue Management
- Episode 25: How To Develop Client Relationship Measurements with Sarah Doughtly, Founder of Crescendo Labs
- Episode 38: Why Customer Onboarding Matters? with Donna Weber
8. Navigating the Customer Experience
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Yanique Grant, Lead Customer Trainer/Coach at Professional Training and Occupational Services
What makes the show great: Navigating the Customer Experience covers a lot of ground as a customer experience podcast. Industry-wise, there’s literally something for everyone, whether you’re in the SaaS industry, healthcare, hospitality, software, beauty – the list goes on and on.
But host Yanique Grant also has a knack for digging into the psychology behind both customer and company behavior with her guests (see her latest episode, 205, below for a great example of this), making for a uniquely insightful podcast.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 205: Empathetic Marketing: The Power Of Radical Vulnerability, Empathy, And Transparency with Kat Kennan, CEO of Radical Customer Experience
- Episode 200: Creating Employee Advocates: Nurturing Remarkable Retention In A Remote-Driven World with Speaker and Author Joey Coleman
- Episode 166: The Art Of Listening And Gathering Product Feedback with Matt Young, CEO of UserVoice
9. The Startup Smoothie
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Hosted by: Devon Harris (Zendesk Administrator and CX Strategist) with Smoothen
What makes the show great: As the name suggests, The Startup Smoothie blends customer experience, operations, and leadership together, but with a distinctly startup twist. The podcast is well-produced and also takes its time with its guests, allowing them to dig into their topics and provide practical, helpful advice and guidance.
As a nice bonus, The Startup Smoothie occasionally offers a TL;DR episode, in which it explains noteworthy current events affecting startups and the tech world.
Favorite episodes:
- Proactive Support & Client Experience Strategies with Michelle Salatto, Product Support Director at Entertainment Partners
- The Past, Present & Future of CX with Somya Kapoor, CEO and Co-founder of TheLoops
- The Balance of Value and Friction in Customer Experience with Craig Stoss, Director of CX Transformation Delivery at PartnerHero
10. The Customer Experience Podcast
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music
Hosted by: Ethan Beute, Chief Evangelist at Follow Up Boss
What makes the show great: The Customer Experience Podcast is another well-produced podcast that interviews customer success, marketing, and sales leaders on creating better customer experiences.
Its niche, though, is on how to make those experiences more personal and human, helping customers make connections throughout their lifecycle with a company. This focus has created some wonderful, outside-the-box conversations.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 266: Driving Innovation Through Equity, Equality, and Justice with Anna Dewar Gully, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer at Tidal Equality
- Episode 257: Creating Customer Continuity in B2B SaaS with Adam Ferris, VP of Revenue at Friendbuy
- Episode 235: The Epic Takes Mixtape: 10 Human-Centered Insights
11. The Intuitive Customer
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Colin Shaw (Founder & CEO, Beyond Philosophy) and Ryan Hamilton (Associate Professor of Marketing, Emory University)
What makes the show great: The Intuitive Customer Podcast is notable for its more light-hearted take on customer experience, through the conversations and banter of its hosts and its guests and its focus on influencing customer behavior to improve their interactions with a company.
It’s also more unusual in that its hosts sometimes answer questions directly from listeners through its “Pickle” segments, offering pragmatic advice for real dilemmas.
Favorite episodes:
- Maximize your pricing by using these 3 simple tactics to gain profit
- 8 tips to make the time your Customers wait seem acceptable
- Despite all my hard work my key performance indicators are not moving! Why?
12. The CXChronicles
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Adrian Brady-Cesana, Founder and Chief Experience Officer, CXChronicles
What makes the show great: The CXChronicles is a long-running podcast that explores customer experience, success, and sales through in-depth guest interviews and company profiles. The host is energetic and skilled at drawing out the expertise and thought leadership of the customer success professionals he interviews.
The podcast also shares news and SaaS industry updates, allowing listeners to keep up with trends and developments that could impact their businesses.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 205 with Declan Ivory, VP of Customer Support at Intercom
- Episode 201 with Jeanette Wiley, Project Manager CX at Owl Labs
- Episode 194 with Emily Gray, Chief Customer Officer at Playvox
13. The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Jeanne Bliss, Founder and CEO at Customer Bliss
What makes the show great: Famously the first Chief Customer Officer, this pioneering host takes excellent advantage of her connections in the customer experience field, welcoming C-Suite executives from all sorts of backgrounds and industries onto the podcast. In addition to full-length interviews, Bliss also offers short “What I Know” episodes that act as coaching and mentorship on particular topics in CX.
Favorite episodes:
- Prioritize Customer Dignity, Listen to First-hand Accounts, and Turn One-time Customers into Loyal Regulars
- What I Know: Principles Must Be Lived
- 4 Tips for Thinking Through Your Big-Picture CX Strategy with Curtis Kopf, Chief Experience Officer at REI
14. Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Hosted by: Lauren DeSouza, Co-Founder & CEO of Ace Interview Preparation
What makes the show great: Retain delivers on its name: with the help of customer experience and marketing experts, host Lauren DeSouza deep-dives on the topic of customer retention, navigating through the nuances and layers of keeping customers happy and growing with a company.
By exploring topics like gamification, creating superfans, and building customer loyalty, Retain helps listeners understand the pros and cons of various retention strategies.
Favorite episodes:
- The Game Plan: Demystifying Gamification with Moe Ash, Founder of The Catalyst
- Why Customer Segmentation is so Useful with Devam Hirpara, Ecommerce and CRM Specialist at L’Oreal
- How To Create Superfans with Brittany Hodak
15. Decoding the Customer
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Julia Ahlfeldt, Customer Experience Strategist at Julia Ahlfeldt CX Consulting
What makes the show great: Over the course of 50 episodes, Decoding the Customer explores the many facets involved in designing exceptional customer experiences.
Decoding the Customer is especially noteworthy, however, for its CX Mini Masterclasses, in which Ahlfeldt (and sometimes a special guest) take a hyper-focused but digestible look into key topics and trends in the CX world.
Favorite episodes:
- Using interviews to gain customer insight: CX Mini Masterclass with CX thought leader Stephanie Thum
- Cracking CX success and customer experience ROI with Michelle Morris, Customer Experience Design Partner at Verizon Business Group
- Customer experience KPIs: CX Mini Masterclass
16. Creating Customer Success
Where to listen: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts
Hosted by: Daniel Cattini (Senior Customer Success Manager at Slack) and Alex Truman (Customer Success Director at GWI)
What makes the show great: Creating Customer Success produced 23 episodes before ending in 2020, centered around interviewing some of the best and brightest customer success leaders in the industry.
Podcast episodes tend to focus on building high-performing and effective teams, as well as programs to drive customer engagement, retention, and revenue.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 22: Driving gross retention, product adoption and customer advocacy with Gemma Espineira, Global Customer Success at Decibel
- Episode 18: Leading “Gainsters” with Nick Mehta, CEO at Gainsight
- Episode 17: Paul Henderson, the Outcomes Guy
17. Talking Customer Success
Where to listen: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music
Hosted by: Thomas Connery, Senior Customer Success Manager
What makes the show great: Although the show appears to have concluded in late 2020, there are some real gems in the Talking Customer Success episode archives.
This podcast has a more intimate focus on helping customer success managers develop their skills, but also on helping companies identify and cater to their ideal customers.
Favorite episodes:
- Bad Fit, Stretch Fit, and Good Fit Customers
- How Customer Success Could Save Your Business
- One Idea To Inspire User Adoption
Honorable Mentions
Although not strictly customer success or CX-focused, these podcasts are all great options if you’d like to expand your horizons into customer support, education, knowledge management, community management, and beyond.
Support Insights
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Bryony Mulkern, Community Marketing Manager at SentiSum
What makes the show great: Although the Support Insights podcast focuses more on customer support topics, it does a good job of showing how customer support and customer success intertwine and influence other aspects of business. Customer success professionals are sure to find an episode worth their time.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 50: Proactive customer support through community building at Drift with Ben Gardner, VP of Customer Support at Drift
- Episode 35: Engaging your customers from development to delivery with Kristy Howell, CS Team Lead and Rebecca Nilsson, Customer Insights Manager at Snug
- Episode 26: How to hire, onboard and retain a fast-growing remote team with Luis Pinto, Director of Customer Experience at Remote
The Support Automation Show
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Hosted by: Justin Schmidt, Vice President Marketing at Largely
What makes the show great: It’s a show entirely devoted to making the lives of customer support and success easier! This podcast features support and success leaders from a variety of industries, making it a helpful podcast for a wide range of listeners.
Favorite episodes:
- Automating Your Webinar Strategy with Melissa Kwan, Co-Founder and CEO of eWebinar
- Building Customer Success by Automating Routine Tasks with Maxime Manseau, Co-Founder and CEO of Zest
- How to Automate Your Startup with Jennifer Chiang, Head of Customer Success at Seso and Author of The Startup’s Guide to Customer Success
Customer Support Leaders
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts
Hosted by: Charlotte Ward, Director of Support at Snowplow
What makes the show great: The Customer Support Leaders podcast profiles support leaders from many industries and companies, but the topics discussed aren’t just confined to support. There’s a lot of crossover between support, success, education, and knowledge management on this podcast, since customer support leaders are often jacks of all trades.
Because Ward builds on her relationships in the support community, guests often come back multiple times to go deep into topics in a way that single interviews don’t always allow.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 244: Complaining Customers with Matt Dale
- Episode 234: Keeping Product and Support Working Together with Valentina Thoerner
- Episode 227: Matching Your Values with your CX with Nate Brown
CELab: The Customer Education Lab
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Adam Avramescu (VP, Customer Education & Engagement at Personio) and Dave Derrington (Director of Customer Education at ServiceRocket)
What makes the show great: As the podcasts hosts themselves note, customer educators are a rare breed. Excluding our next show recommendation, there aren’t many podcasts devoted to the practice and science of customer education, which can be very different from instructional design for education institutions. The CELab podcast gleans expertise and insight from support, success, and experience experts, particularly in tech, tackling issues and topics to make educating customers a little easier.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 114: Change Management and its Role in Customer Education with Alessandra Marinetti, Global Head of Education and Enablement at Asana
- Episode 113: Scaling Success and the Role of Education with Caitlin Wood, Senior Director of Customer Success and Enablement at Ironclad
- Episode 106: Education from Hustle Culture to Customer Success with Aaron Morin, Senior Manager of Community at Thinkific
New Things in Customer Education
Where to listen: Spotify
Hosted by: Rishabh Bhandari, Founder & CEO at Content Beta
What makes the show great: What sets New Things in Customer Education apart from our previous recommendation is its length and general audience. First, this podcast’s episodes are shorter - generally under 15 minutes, many under 10 - which means they’re easier to digest and more convenient listens. Secondly, New Things in Customer Education focuses heavily on customer education from a customer success lens, meaning it’s likely to be a little more relevant to customer success professionals.
Favorite episodes:
- Alexa Thomspon, Customer Success Manager at Metadata
- Kirk Werner, Vice President of Content at Udacity
- Courtney Sembler, Director of Hubspot Academy at Hubspot
Knowledge Cast
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Zach Wahl, CEO at Enterprise Knowledge
What makes the show great: There aren’t many podcasts about knowledge management, so this show fills a niche for many CX knowledge professionals. This podcast features experts from companies large (like Amazon in one of our favorite episodes below) and small (like Guru, also below), offering solutions and best practices for a range of knowledge needs.
Favorite episodes:
- Rick Nucci, Co-Founder and CEO of Guru
- Zsolt Olah, Senior Learning Technologist at Amazon
- Mirna Lessinger, Senior Program Manager - CSS Business Transformation at Atlassian
In Before the Lock
Where to listen: Website | Apple Podcasts | Spotify
Hosted by: Erica Kuhl (CEO & Founder at Erica Kuhl Consulting) and Brian Oblinger (Chief Community Officer at Strategic Consulting)
What makes the show great: In a break from previous recommendations, this podcast isn’t interview-focused; instead, Kuhl and Oblinger pick a theme or topic weekly and share their experience, advice, and knowledge to help develop listeners’ understanding of community issues, specifically related to customer experience and leadership. They also keep listeners up to date on news and trends in the customer community industry.
Favorite episodes:
- Episode 97: People, time, money, and outcomes
- Episode 95: An expectation that you’re listening
- Episode 93: Do more with less
Subscribe to Grow & Tell
We've provided you with plenty to get you started on your journey into the world of customer success podcasts.
When you're finished, make sure you circle back to Grow and Tell, Dock's very own podcast. Grow and Tell features wide-ranging conversations with revenue leaders from established and well-known companies. You're guaranteed to glean more than a few useful nuggets.
You can subscribe at GrowandTellShow.com, so you never miss an episode.
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