Our 17 favorite customer success podcasts (and episodes!)

The Dock Team
Published
December 6, 2023
Updated
April 8, 2024
TABLE OF CONTENTs
TABLE OF CONTENT

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 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:

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:

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:

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: 

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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: 

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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.

The Dock Team