What Comes After The CRM: Agentic AI for Customer Success

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Julia Nimchinski: we are transitioning to our next session. Welcome Elias Torres and Blake Williams.

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Julia Nimchinski: the future of Crm. What’s next?

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Blake Williams: Let’s find out.

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Blake Williams: Let’s find out hopefully. Elias will

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Blake Williams: expose us all to what his vision looks like. Here.

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Elias Torres: Say that. Can you hear me? Well, perfect.

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Blake Williams: Gotcha.

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Blake Williams: Alright, very good. So Elias, good to meet you. Good to chat with you.

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Blake Williams: Dug through a bunch of your interviews and and stuff like that in the past. And

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Blake Williams: you you’ve come from Hubspot. You’ve come from Drift. And now you’re starting agency and

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Blake Williams: not starting, you know, really pressing the gas on agency and the markets with you. So what’s

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Blake Williams: tell me what that feels like? We know a lot about you as a founder.

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Blake Williams: What is it that you’re trying to solve, or you feel like you’re trying to solve now with agency that you didn’t get done at drift? Or do you feel like you? You got it done.

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Elias Torres: No, absolutely. I mean, I I said this before that I consider drift like my biggest failure, right of like.

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Elias Torres: you know. I think that as a founder. This is my 5th time building a company, and

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Elias Torres: you know I had great ambitions for drift, you know, on, on the on the backs of of Hubspot.

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Elias Torres: And I wanted to do something really, really big.

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Elias Torres: And I learned a lot right every time you build a company you’re like, oh, that’s what happened. That’s what happened with the market. Did I time it correctly? Did I understand it correctly? Did I match it with technology and realized that

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Elias Torres: by the end of drift I had understood the value of conversations.

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Elias Torres: The customer right? But technology wasn’t there. The Llms were not there. I mean, we, in fact, had AI Sdrs address, 2,000, you know, 2019 we were using bird from from. Oh, we were understanding we had a we had a real AI bot right that but just right before the Llm. Co. Came together as we now. And so

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Elias Torres: when we were not able to take it public where we’re not able to build a product.

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Elias Torres: You realize the mistake of where you started. I think I learned this from Parker Parker. Conrad, founder of Rippling, said, it’s really hard to start with a little product, and then you add other products. Make it a multi product company.

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Elias Torres: And start with the right problem.

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Blake Williams: Right.

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Elias Torres: Bolt on our stuff. So I think that that was the mistake. You know, we started with a really really shallow tool that just was on the homepage, help you book meetings, and it was really hard to

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Elias Torres: pivot or to expand into the whole problem. So this time I’m starting with the largest problem possible. But the the clarity I have is

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Elias Torres: I wanna resolve

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Elias Torres: the problem, the challenges that comes with managing customers today, where it’s extremely manual, right? I mean, it’s like the way that we’re supporting customers is

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Elias Torres: literally being managed by spreadsheets and notes and a notepad or a node in, like, you know a Google Doc, that’s that’s the operating, whether you are starting or whether you’re a multi 1 billion dollar company.

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Blake Williams: Yeah, yeah, trust me, I’ve been in stripes, customer success and service. And if a billion dollar company like that can’t figure it out with all the people and resources and technology stack at their disposal. Then we know it’s pervasive for sure. Right? So let’s just let’s go into that.

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Blake Williams: The rigidity of the Crm right?

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Blake Williams: not being able to contemplate. It’s it says, relationship in the name. But everybody knows it doesn’t actually help you do anything with a relationship help, it might help you in its best state, keep receipts. So so in your vision

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Blake Williams: of of where we’re headed,

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Blake Williams: what do you feel like is gonna change away from just being able to scale and track activity, to actually building those relationships.

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Elias Torres: I think the word relationship is really the most important part of it. Right? So what? What kind of business you’re building? I think

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Elias Torres: the more I think about AI in the future.

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Elias Torres: The only reason why I want to do business with someone is because of the relationship, right? I I’ve said this before, like

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Elias Torres: my barber, treats me better than a multi 1 billion dollar company. Right? Multi 1 billion company sends me an email that says, Dear 1st name.

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Blake Williams: Yeah.

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Elias Torres: Barbara sends me a text in the morning on Saturday, and says, Don’t be late. I miss you.

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Blake Williams: Right.

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Elias Torres: When I get to the shop right? He just says, you want to do the usual yeah, sure, no problem, right? It’s a it’s like so nice that I don’t have to explain myself. And and we just get to catch up a little bit like, how are the kids what happened? He went to on vacation to Lebanon, you know, and move on right? That to me is high.

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Elias Torres: It’s not stressed.

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Elias Torres: It’s it’s like like the man spot. It’s like my my 20 min where I just like lay down on the chair.

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Blake Williams: Yes, yeah, that reminds me of that book, irrational hospitality. And I think there’s a section in there where they they talk about like this restaurant that already knows what you had last time. And it’s kind of that same experience where we don’t really need to catch up on all of the basics to be able to just get started. And we avoid all of that friction.

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Blake Williams: So

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Blake Williams: if a con, if someone’s listening today, what are the things that they need to start to think about.

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Blake Williams: because everybody has a rigid Crm that isn’t functioning this way today.

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Blake Williams: What are the things that they need to think about.

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Elias Torres: I’m thinking about crms, right? It is we have to think about as as a as a founder, as a business person. Right? Is that. What is the experience that we want to give the customer

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Elias Torres: right? I’m a big fan of irrational hospitality, right? It’s like I was. I get the goosebumps right when it’s like like it’s your anniversary. You left the champagne bottle in the fridge to send. They send a waiter to the house. Yeah.

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Elias Torres: The couple was there, and they’re like about to explode. And so they’re like, by the time home, you know, it’s just like

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Elias Torres: if that’s what I like to think as a funk.

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Elias Torres: how I want to treat an individual, and my hope I’m being selfish right is that if I treat you well, you stick with me as a customer.

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Elias Torres: That’s I’m being point blank. Right? I mean, this is not. This is not no, not fake right. It’s like

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Elias Torres: I want to treat you the best, because I know when. Don’t ever want you to leave.

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Elias Torres: Stop treating you the best, and if I stop contacting you, then you’re that’s when people turn right.

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Elias Torres: Yes.

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Elias Torres: so I think that that’s what we need to think. It’s not about the the stupid fields and the stupid dropdowns, or the the things that is like, how do I want to treat my customer? And we have to figure out now from 1st principles.

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Elias Torres: how do we enable for that right.

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Elias Torres: you know. 4 seasons is very famous for

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Elias Torres: for hospitality, right? And being able to how do we treat people and Mr. Torres? When I come back in. They remember me like I usually stay like at the 4 Seasons in Embarcadero, in San Francisco. Right? So it’s like, I just want to go there just because he, the the doorman, knows my name, you know.

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Blake Williams: Yes.

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Elias Torres: So like, that’s what we need to optimize for. And so like, how does our systems

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Elias Torres: help us treat customers in that way? How do, how we reminded right of of what

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Elias Torres: of what? Of what they’re going to do for, or what do we want them to do, and what they’ve done and where they’ve gone on vacation. Right? So

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Elias Torres: like, that’s what we need to be demanding of our systems. It’s not data. It’s action.

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Blake Williams: now, when you think about this, so what I just heard is like the crm is the wrong solution to the problem that we actually want to solve. And most companies aren’t oriented towards that kind of behavior, either from their activities or even just their strategy of how that trickles down into execution

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Blake Williams: right? That being the what’s the biggest leap that you can make?

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Blake Williams: Or where’s the best place for somebody to start

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Blake Williams: if they’re going to tie in an agent. Where should they start.

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Elias Torres: The 1st place.

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Elias Torres: I I hate getting tactical. But let’s get tactical, right? The the the 1st problem. That’s not true. I like being tactical. It’s really

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Elias Torres: unifying the data.

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Elias Torres: right? The the big problem. You know. I’ve been saying the word. You know I’ve been. I’ve been in in Martech. 15 plus years. Right? I’ve been saying, unification of data. Customer 3, 61 view, you know, at Hubspot we build online. And you can see all the stuff that time. I hate the timeline, by the way, like in in u eyes

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Elias Torres: like, I don’t give a shit about that timeline right?

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Blake Williams: It happened? Yeah.

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Elias Torres: It’s like whatever like, I want to scroll through a timeline. The the key thing is, the data needs to be in one place.

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Elias Torres: It is. It is absurd that a human can keep with, you know, can keep up with so many customers, and having to check in 17 places for information that makes sense and and and God forbid! Copy and paste something into it, you know, into a chat. Gpt, so step one is unified data.

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Elias Torres: If you don’t have that like, I see people are excited. They’re like, Look, I can go into gong, and I can copy the transcript, and then I go. Put it into chat, gpt, and then I go. Put it into Claude, and then I, and then I go to perplexity, and

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Elias Torres: no, we need everything in one place.

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Blake Williams: Right. So so one place and the narrative around. Actually, let me just ask, what what is that overarching narrative that, or pov that you think hits at those blind spots?

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Blake Williams: That keeps people from doing that tactical po like pov type thing.

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Elias Torres: Well, the thing is that there’s just not enough companies that are ambitious enough to say,

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Elias Torres: understand the problem of data that customers have and solve for that right? Everybody kind of solves for their platform. Right? If you’re like. If you’re like a meeting recorder, then I’m a meeting recorder right and then like, and they might think what’s convenient to them. And versus not if you’re a Crm. Company, then, like

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Elias Torres: you, you think you want or own everything but you. In fact, you don’t right and they’re not. They’re not making a huge effort. It’s more like what fields they created. And then that’s what you put in it. You could be stowflake right? You could be database you could be spreadsheet.

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Elias Torres: What we need to do is listen to the customer and say, where is your data?

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Elias Torres: Job is to bring the data together

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Elias Torres: to solve the problem, not what is convenient to me as a company, right? And so so you need to go look for the for the providers that are thinking that way right? It’s it’s not like what some product manager decided at this company and said, Oh, this is what we store. This is what we don’t store.

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Blake Williams: Right.

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Elias Torres: That you either you either access all.

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Elias Torres: or you’re going to always be incomplete. So we are going to see

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Elias Torres: a bloodbath of tools right. And companies just not survive

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Elias Torres: because they’re not capable of of going big right.

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Blake Williams: Right, right.

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Elias Torres: Well, I’m just a little meeting recorder, and I’ll do all this nice summaries. But that’s as far as I go, or you’re gonna so it’s it’s gonna be very good for the customer, right for for the, for the buyer to be able to say like, See where this goes.

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Elias Torres: So that’s like that one. So tactically, you want something that has the data in one place.

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Elias Torres: But then you need the functionality and searching the capabilities right? And to do that, and you have to

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Elias Torres: go beyond. Most people are ignoring. I’m just saying the stuff that is kind of obvious to me, but maybe not to everybody. But the most important thing is

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Elias Torres: the the communication data from the customer right?

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Elias Torres: That’s that’s where the gold is right now

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Elias Torres: and then. The other, which is most of the time, is ignored.

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Elias Torres: Nobody’s paying attention to.

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Elias Torres: Instead, they rather read fields from the from the Crm.

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Elias Torres: Right?

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Elias Torres: What’s the next step? When should we reach out again?

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Blake Williams: So getting getting to that point of all in one place seems like a hard and it’s not. Doesn’t seem. It is a hard thing to do, especially if you’re not a brand new company, right? Creating brand new data.

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Blake Williams: When you think about

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Blake Williams: Llm having access to vectorized data or open graph data or any of that in its process, so the agents can then take it and act on it accordingly.

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Blake Williams: how do we? And maybe we can stay away from the how questions, when, when should they start testing that? So if someone comes to you today, how do you start

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Blake Williams: getting them or showing them roi, or showing them. The proof is in the pudding kind of thing.

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Elias Torres: Should I be like advertising my product? Or you know.

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Blake Williams: Good! Let it rip.

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Elias Torres: That’s that’s what we do. Right? So there’s we’re we’re going in stages right into this into this vision, right? Which is

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Elias Torres: people, you know, people coming to to agency drift. I’m still like, you know, the 8 years of my life. What we’re saying is really

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Elias Torres: let’s bring that data together into one place where you can ask questions and not have to copy and paste a single thing right? And so it’s like, prep me for this meeting. Draft me this follow up right.

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Blake Williams: Completed.

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Elias Torres: This customer like you want to be able to know these things right and just it, it being seamless, right? So so I would say that

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Elias Torres: people need to be.

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Elias Torres: It’s really hard. I think everybody’s like

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Elias Torres: is being forced to use AI. Everybody. Every CEO is copying what Toby says, what Louis Bona says like, Okay, let’s all use AI, but you get nobody.

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Elias Torres: You get no authority. Security will purchase right? And then they that’s customer data. You can’t use it. And so people are like really stuck. And then what they do is they sneakily just copy and paste stuff into chat, gpt.

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Blake Williams: Yep.

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Elias Torres: Want to be looking at vendors that that can do that, and then they can show you a real live demo. I see I see competitors like showing like loom videos of Demos, a product. And people are like, Should I buy this? And I’m like, no, it’s not live, you know. So we want to do that. So 1st unification, then to be, then the next thing is, can you query it? But what I learned?

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Elias Torres: You know people are still learning how to use chat, gpt right? That you you can. They might be a billion users. But a billion users doesn’t mean they know how to use it right?

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Elias Torres: And

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Elias Torres: and so what what’s happening is that I think it’s a lot. I’m sorry, but I think it’s a lot for humans to know what to ask in every single screen and or every single question. And and would you quickly realize when you’re building a product like mine? Is that just all you end up asking is the same question. Over and over and over.

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Elias Torres: What’s the health of my customer is prep me for the next meeting. Follow up with this meeting.

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Blake Williams: Yes, yes.

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Elias Torres: So we’re like, you know, we we have an opportunity now when you see that

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Elias Torres: of like, how we should be helping and guiding the human. And what’s the role of the human in interacting with the customer?

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Elias Torres: And so there’s there’s a lot of stuff that’s kind of like where where I am right. It’s like trying to balance of like.

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Elias Torres: how do we help companies adopt agency? in in in, you know, starting in the customer success department, and and being able to to know the difference between

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Elias Torres: me, organize the work that the human has to do versus me, doing the work for the human right.

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Blake Williams: Yes, yes. Now do you end up fighting those battles? Because everybody says on one side of their out one side of their mouth, that. You know all the revenues in expansion. But we know that net new Logos get the glory, and they get the budget and the attention and all of that other stuff. So are you.

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Blake Williams: Do you see a shift happening now? Where? Because you know that narrative of people buy from people? It’s all about relationships. It’s all about, you know the brand is the moat.

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Blake Williams: Are you seeing that shift take place with those Cs teams yet? Or is that just more.

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Elias Torres: Or hot air, a lot of hot airs, a lot of bullshit, I mean. I I think that

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Elias Torres: it pains me to see Ceos like, just

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Elias Torres: just, you know, repeat what they hear. They just perform it, or just they’re just trying to sound like leaders. I’m I don’t really give a shit, you know. I’m just telling it like it is.

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Blake Williams: Yeah.

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Elias Torres: Back up what you’re saying. You know what I mean. If you’re going to write a message, a letter and say like, Let’s use AI, then go help your team, you know. If you if you think rules are important, then go sit down with them and say, I want to help you like, yeah, right? But instead.

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Elias Torres: they just kind of you know everybody’s overwhelmed. We’re all human, so I’ll give them a break there right. But but the the truth. I’ve been in that seat right when you’re at the board meeting, you said you were gonna reach this level of churn or Grr or Nrr, and then you did not hit the number. But you’re like, so overwhelmed by so many problems in the company.

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Elias Torres: partly because you really got so big and then numbers. Okay, whatever it was, it was supposed to be 87, and we ended, landed at 79 Grr. And it’s like, Oh, well, we’ll do an analysis, and we’ll come back. Try again next quarter. But the reality is that customers want to hear from you right? And and now we have tools

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Elias Torres: before. It was really hard to understand that.

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Elias Torres: So if you, a customer, comes to me and says, List, help me analyze what happened last quarter

487
01:14:28.560 –> 01:14:35.510
Elias Torres: and tell me what’s gonna happen next quarter. I can do that today in 5 min, unless it’s kind of like instantaneous right?

488
01:14:35.790 –> 01:14:36.500
Blake Williams: Yeah.

489
01:14:36.500 –> 01:14:43.940
Elias Torres: They tell you like, what’s gonna happen like you have not talked to this a hundred customers that you’re renewing in 6 months.

490
01:14:44.050 –> 01:14:55.150
Elias Torres: And this is last conversation and so forth. So I at least I equip you. So now let’s be strategic and discuss. Okay, who are we gonna send to talk. And what are we gonna say?

491
01:14:55.770 –> 01:14:56.360
Blake Williams: Right.

492
01:14:56.500 –> 01:14:57.470
Elias Torres: Yes.

493
01:14:57.600 –> 01:15:05.740
Elias Torres: that’s something that people have just never done before, never. It was never at their fingertips. It’s still not possible, maybe only through ages, right?

494
01:15:05.920 –> 01:15:17.270
Elias Torres: Or or whether you’re doing a custom, you know, in house build. But why would you? Wanna, you know, hire 5. Take 5 engineers from your product to go spend that with Cs. When you, when you can.

495
01:15:17.650 –> 01:15:18.430
Elias Torres: right.

496
01:15:18.910 –> 01:15:26.074
Blake Williams: Yeah, no, it makes sense. And we have a question from the audience says, customer, success is now becoming filled with more sales engineers.

497
01:15:26.780 –> 01:15:33.840
Blake Williams: I’m seeing. How do you see AI impact the workflows here. I see it as a co-pilot, but would love your thoughts.

498
01:15:35.450 –> 01:15:38.859
Elias Torres: Repeat the question. So we we have sales engineers. Right? We have

499
01:15:39.538 –> 01:15:49.380
Elias Torres: interesting. I mean, I that’s a good thing, you know. If if if people are devoting more resources to help technically the customer solve the problem.

500
01:15:50.330 –> 01:15:52.169
Elias Torres: tell me about the co-pilot part. Again.

501
01:15:53.367 –> 01:15:56.129
Blake Williams: They were just asking, oh, as a follow up

502
01:15:56.668 –> 01:16:05.460
Blake Williams: so yeah. So they were asking, How do you see? AI AI impact the workflows, I guess, as more sales engineers come inside of customer success.

503
01:16:05.560 –> 01:16:18.480
Blake Williams: AI will impact their workflows potentially as a co-pilot. That’s how this viewer sees it. Do you see it interacting that way? Or do you see it learning or behaving as a sales engineer?

504
01:16:20.370 –> 01:16:21.959
Elias Torres: What do you think? What do you feel like that?

505
01:16:24.190 –> 01:16:28.150
Elias Torres: Some people might not like to hear this, but the the reality is that

506
01:16:29.410 –> 01:16:36.300
Elias Torres: we. What I hear everybody telling me is that they want to serve more customers with less people.

507
01:16:37.306 –> 01:16:38.179
Blake Williams: All day.

508
01:16:38.180 –> 01:16:48.110
Elias Torres: I mean like, that’s what an executive CEO will say right? It’s like, that’s so. I we I think we all have to accept that right? It might. We might not like it. And so we just we need to figure out and understand that

509
01:16:48.390 –> 01:17:01.729
Elias Torres: in order for that to occur, it’s not about a tool just helping you go and have a Csm manage instead of 20. Customers, manage 3 x manage 60 manage 100. It’s like how a Cs person is gonna manage a thousand.

510
01:17:01.910 –> 01:17:16.490
Elias Torres: And so people when I say that on Linkedin people are like, Oh, what? You’re crazy! A 1,000 like even people like you, you’re nuts. And I’m like, well, it’s different, right? It’s not like, you’re going to be messaging a thousand people. But yeah, he’s gonna be messaging a thousand people. And so

511
01:17:16.610 –> 01:17:18.120
Elias Torres: I I think I

512
01:17:18.270 –> 01:17:22.510
Elias Torres: I wanna always put myself in the in the seat of the customer and say, like.

513
01:17:24.290 –> 01:17:28.510
Elias Torres: I want you to greet me as Mr. Torres when I walk into the hotel.

514
01:17:29.040 –> 01:17:37.589
Elias Torres: but if I have a question and I need an extra pillow, or I need, you know a snack or a tea in the morning.

515
01:17:37.740 –> 01:17:51.300
Elias Torres: Just deliver it. I don’t wanna go talk to someone you know what I mean. If I’m like I’m getting older, and I can’t configure the ipad to turn on. Bring down the blinds and the curtains, and you know and blah blah, I’d say

516
01:17:51.520 –> 01:18:02.739
Elias Torres: I would like just to ask the room be like, turn them off like we, don’t we? We just that doesn’t. That’s that shouldn’t be hard to envision right.

517
01:18:03.411 –> 01:18:07.580
Elias Torres: The customer wants the minimum amount of interaction.

518
01:18:07.990 –> 01:18:10.599
Blake Williams: They want the most results.

519
01:18:10.980 –> 01:18:11.450
Blake Williams: Right?

520
01:18:11.450 –> 01:18:13.299
Elias Torres: Please want to spend the least amount of money.

521
01:18:13.660 –> 01:18:25.339
Elias Torres: and customers want to spend the least amount of time. But when I have, you know I I spent $200,000 recently on a on on a vendor, you know. Trying to not name any names, and I’m a good customer.

522
01:18:25.800 –> 01:18:34.879
Elias Torres: We switch this this Csm, you know, whatever reason, maybe I’m getting upgraded. Maybe I’m not. And and the person said, Can we schedule a call?

523
01:18:35.480 –> 01:18:39.469
Elias Torres: That’s it that was in this, and I’m just like

524
01:18:40.200 –> 01:18:53.589
Elias Torres: I am not interested in joining an hour call with my customers trying to serve them that they’re asking me to meet right or or they giving me their time. And so how do you define the new rules and say.

525
01:18:53.920 –> 01:19:18.200
Elias Torres: what if you sent an email that, says I, review all your meetings that you have had. I check the entire history of this slack channel. I check your account and your expenditure. I see all the people in your team. I have an analysis. I’m caught up with you guys. I see that this things you’ve asked. We’ve done, and I see these things that we asked. Like, you know, 0 data retention. You have not resolved it. Be great, you know, started like that.

526
01:19:19.340 –> 01:19:20.170
Blake Williams: Yes.

527
01:19:20.360 –> 01:19:24.780
Elias Torres: I’m working on this. If you need anything, I’m here just raising my head.

528
01:19:25.440 –> 01:19:27.099
Blake Williams: Yeah, and they have the data.

529
01:19:27.670 –> 01:19:33.270
Elias Torres: It’s like, why would I show up to a meeting when you have done 0 effort.

530
01:19:33.620 –> 01:19:34.020
Blake Williams: Right.

531
01:19:34.901 –> 01:19:38.750
Elias Torres: Made the other day. Right? I use agency.

532
01:19:38.860 –> 01:19:41.110
Elias Torres: I can see everything right

533
01:19:41.630 –> 01:19:48.509
Elias Torres: yet. I was on the phone and I was on a cab, and I just message a customer. I say, how you doing.

534
01:19:51.460 –> 01:19:55.230
Elias Torres: Without checking agency. 1st 11.

535
01:19:55.230 –> 01:19:58.560
Blake Williams: Need that not that disrespectful.

536
01:19:59.130 –> 01:20:05.410
Elias Torres: That was disrespectful. Right? I asked the customer to tell me how they’re doing. I am putting the burden on them

537
01:20:05.610 –> 01:20:09.420
Elias Torres: to tell me everything when I already knew a lot of stuff.

538
01:20:10.110 –> 01:20:10.620
Blake Williams: Right.

539
01:20:10.620 –> 01:20:17.399
Elias Torres: At least that you check my system before I send that message. And so I’m just giving examples how we all need to evolve, how we treat customers.

540
01:20:17.920 –> 01:20:33.080
Blake Williams: Right, and it feels that way, like when someone reaches out and doesn’t know everything about you already. I have to now burn calories to get you caught up or remind you who I am, and all of that is a waste of my time when you know time is the only resource that we have, that actually matters.

541
01:20:33.310 –> 01:20:39.790
Elias Torres: The humans have. This is the most expensive resource, and we need to value everyone, especially your customers, to

542
01:20:40.180 –> 01:20:52.520
Elias Torres: maximize their outcomes, their success and minimize the effort they have to put in, especially communicating and repeating myself, there’s nothing I hate more than repeating myself, and let’s not make our customers repeat themselves right.

543
01:20:52.520 –> 01:20:54.260
Blake Williams: Yeah, yeah, 100%.

544
01:20:54.260 –> 01:20:59.659
Elias Torres: I mean, it’s not changed. It’s pre AI, you know. Post AI, let’s see. Yes.

545
01:21:01.060 –> 01:21:04.359
Blake Williams: Now, do you? Do you see companies hiring big swaths of people

546
01:21:04.520 –> 01:21:13.129
Blake Williams: in sales, marketing operations, or even customer success, any, any, almost any role. Now, if you’re hiring big numbers of people.

547
01:21:13.300 –> 01:21:20.090
Blake Williams: is that a bellwether for you that they’re not really pursuing AI the way that they could be or should be, especially where we are today.

548
01:21:20.610 –> 01:21:23.959
Elias Torres: Yeah, I mean, I I think I think is is reasonable.

549
01:21:24.770 –> 01:21:44.159
Elias Torres: It it’s to me it’s extremely silly, right? It’s extremely silly that it’s not being counterbalanced right? If you if you have, if you’re hiring all these people, I get it, and I understand that. Look. If you were already big, and you have an onslaught of customers, and you don’t have a solution.

550
01:21:44.330 –> 01:21:50.860
Elias Torres: Go go hire the people right? It’s like today today, like, like, you know, the the customers are now.

551
01:21:51.090 –> 01:21:54.379
Elias Torres: and so, however you should be

552
01:21:55.090 –> 01:21:57.969
Elias Torres: if the investment is not equal.

553
01:21:58.670 –> 01:21:59.310
Blake Williams: Right.

554
01:21:59.310 –> 01:22:06.579
Elias Torres: To the number of people. If you hire 10 Csms, and you’re not spending a million dollars in AI exploration, or tooling or or

555
01:22:06.870 –> 01:22:24.400
Elias Torres: building internally right. Never gonna get out of that hole right? Then I feel bad for you. But if you say I’m hiring 10, and I’m dropping the same amount of money on on this right and and and eventually transition. Then then you’re smart, right? That’s how it should be.

556
01:22:24.520 –> 01:22:39.669
Elias Torres: But if you’re talking out there and making videos all day long how you’re like AI 1st in your company. But the reality is that you ask people in their company, are we AI first, st and people just laugh. This are the things that as founder. I have learned them right?

557
01:22:39.930 –> 01:22:47.289
Elias Torres: I know we’re in the in, in the slacks and the Dms. Or when we we go out, you know, for a drink or a full coffee.

558
01:22:47.780 –> 01:22:50.150
Elias Torres: You want people to tell you the truth, right.

559
01:22:51.230 –> 01:22:51.770
Blake Williams: Yeah.

560
01:22:51.770 –> 01:22:59.090
Elias Torres: Are we being AI forward? Are we being progressive and and moving into the future? So we can survive like

561
01:22:59.210 –> 01:23:07.529
Elias Torres: your employees want you to do that because they care about their families and how they’re going to provide. So they want clarity. Are we going to survive or not survive? Forget about your job?

562
01:23:07.820 –> 01:23:08.369
Elias Torres: Will the.

563
01:23:08.370 –> 01:23:08.990
Blake Williams: All right.

564
01:23:09.830 –> 01:23:11.370
Elias Torres: It’s this.

565
01:23:12.140 –> 01:23:15.109
Blake Williams: Yeah. Now, you talked about people

566
01:23:15.310 –> 01:23:18.920
Blake Williams: kind of asking the same routine questions. And I think you know.

567
01:23:19.030 –> 01:23:26.880
Blake Williams: 7 or 8 years ago AI was used to, or at least machine learning was used to help identify the questions that we don’t necessarily know. To ask

568
01:23:27.040 –> 01:23:29.909
Blake Williams: of the data. Do you think it’s

569
01:23:30.010 –> 01:23:34.610
Blake Williams: Meta to have given that we’re hire hire less people?

570
01:23:35.492 –> 01:23:40.570
Blake Williams: Those people will manage many different types of agents or orchestrate them all together.

571
01:23:41.252 –> 01:23:45.169
Blake Williams: Do you think there will be an agent to help you run the agents?

572
01:23:46.307 –> 01:23:49.910
Blake Williams: And I’m just spitballing a little here, even if that’s Meta.

573
01:23:50.240 –> 01:24:01.129
Elias Torres: Yeah, I mean, it’s a little too matter. Yeah. At that point we’re we’re very subjective, because the truth is like, I don’t see many agents deployed, I mean, like, what agency does

574
01:24:02.450 –> 01:24:23.289
Elias Torres: I? I don’t know. I don’t even know the definition of an agent like. If an agent like, for example I’ll give you. This agency is reading every communication of every one of your customers right? 24. Checking in multiple times a day on what you should be responding to this customer, or what has expired or elapsed, or is due right.

575
01:24:24.830 –> 01:24:52.729
Elias Torres: I don’t know, so somebody might argue, is not a full agent yet. Right? It’s like, you know. So people have different definitions. So we will be like until that agent replied by itself like, Well, I’m still human in the loop, and so there’s just not that many agents. So I I don’t like to talk too much in the nonsense world of like. Well will the agents talk to decisions and agents talk to itself, and like I don’t know. Well, I’ll worry about that. I know we’re moving towards something, but I rather care about what I help for my customers today. Right? It’s like

576
01:24:52.950 –> 01:24:55.489
Elias Torres: I. I will solve this today for you like.

577
01:24:56.210 –> 01:25:14.270
Elias Torres: is this valuable to you? It’s interesting. How is you know the education we’re in a phase that as startups. AI startups. Don’t realize that they have all this great tech. You’re an early founder 1st time fantastic. You feel like you can do a lot. It’s so accomplished, so does everyone else can do the same.

578
01:25:14.620 –> 01:25:20.870
Elias Torres: But the reality is, you had the education in a new category that we all, as founders have to do.

579
01:25:21.200 –> 01:25:23.110
Elias Torres: plus the

580
01:25:23.910 –> 01:25:34.690
Elias Torres: dealing with change management from the users and and the version of change that humans have. That’s what founders end up learning the hard way that it’s much harder than

581
01:25:34.790 –> 01:25:36.389
Elias Torres: building the software. You know.

582
01:25:36.820 –> 01:25:48.943
Blake Williams: For sure, for sure. When we think about just our own 1st party data. And we know that from partners, there’s a lot more data. There’s 3rd party data that you can source

583
01:25:50.220 –> 01:26:17.029
Blake Williams: even if you have customer centricity and unified data, you still only have a snippet of the the picture right? A directional indication. Sometimes it might be, you know, self reported very clear what’s happening, but you may not see the whole picture, so does agency. And I, you know, I’m just gonna ask you about it because I’m interested. Does agency help also pull in any of that external data? To help subsidize where your gaps might be, or.

584
01:26:17.230 –> 01:26:26.779
Elias Torres: You know. I I think the the good thing is, I see is that I see all kinds of customers right now, when I’m when I’m speaking to them, you know, and they’re like some of them are.

585
01:26:28.340 –> 01:26:55.210
Elias Torres: just early in the infancy. We’re like, okay, I haven’t even put in a transcript into into Chat Gpt from a call. Right? I don’t record to then, like the people that okay, I want to unified grade and they contact some people value the fact that we’re unifying things. But then some others are like, well, where it’s my my 10 K’s. And where is the the lookups? And where is the Apollo data? So it it’s it’s it’s it’s a wide range. And like I said before, it’s like

586
01:26:55.800 –> 01:27:19.729
Elias Torres: the only way you’re gonna survive is like, if you do it all, I think you know, if you just you do one slice of it. Your your company is not gonna have a a shot at least in this space. I I’m all I’m I’m 50 years old next, next next next June, right? And so the it’s like I seen the bundling and unbundling of software multiple times. And so

587
01:27:20.620 –> 01:27:33.610
Elias Torres: every one of those eras. And I think we’re going for the super uber uber bundling right? And it’s gonna be hard right to like. It was nice with Zirk, where you can build a little thing that said.

588
01:27:33.820 –> 01:27:44.128
Elias Torres: I will give you 3 stars after each meeting. It’s like, Yeah, I’ll pay you a hundred $1,000 for that a year that’s gone.

589
01:27:44.510 –> 01:27:47.580
Blake Williams: Yeah, unfortunately, that yeah, those days are gone.

590
01:27:47.918 –> 01:27:51.120
Blake Williams: So if teams are thinking about, what do we have like 2 min left?

591
01:27:52.200 –> 01:27:57.019
Blake Williams: If teams are thinking about how to evolve their customer success approach today?

592
01:27:58.310 –> 01:28:08.050
Blake Williams: what should leaders, what should leaders think about today, and what what should they do like. What should their 1st action later today be if they want to make this move towards agency.

593
01:28:10.380 –> 01:28:15.320
Elias Torres: The 1st thing that came in mind I got 2 conversations with with 2 heads of Cs right, one

594
01:28:16.050 –> 01:28:23.579
Elias Torres: validate. How much your CEO cares about customers, how much support you have top to bottom of, like what you’re about to embark.

595
01:28:24.975 –> 01:28:31.539
Elias Torres: I think Cs leaders need to be given more authority, more agency, right on, on, like, on how they’re gonna serve the customers.

596
01:28:32.010 –> 01:28:36.040
Elias Torres: 1st second, I have had heads of Cs that

597
01:28:36.240 –> 01:28:41.340
Elias Torres: quit because they were not you. Gonna they didn’t have access to try agency right? Yeah.

598
01:28:41.560 –> 01:28:43.749
Elias Torres: where? Like, it’s, it’s it’s it’s.

599
01:28:43.750 –> 01:28:44.570
Blake Williams: That makes sense.

600
01:28:44.570 –> 01:28:48.899
Elias Torres: Purpose in the pudding. Right? It’s like, if we can’t even try this right? Then why why are we doing this?

601
01:28:49.140 –> 01:28:55.926
Elias Torres: I would say that that it starts there like, do you have agency right? And

602
01:28:57.230 –> 01:28:59.409
Elias Torres: And then and then you have to

603
01:28:59.510 –> 01:29:04.970
Elias Torres: confront the issue of AI in people and your team and

604
01:29:05.200 –> 01:29:23.459
Elias Torres: kind of unlearn I was with. I was in the morning today with the head of Css. In your company, and he’s like I’ve used all the tools in the past. I use salesforce. I’ve used csps. I use all this stuff, and the stuff that you’re telling me is just breaking my brain. And it’s like I need to unlearn. And I need to think differently.

605
01:29:23.720 –> 01:29:29.900
Elias Torres: We need to really be willing to go back to 1st principles, right? And you know, for example, you know

606
01:29:30.900 –> 01:29:38.220
Elias Torres: people have dream of generating a document that gives you the account, health and summary of an account. Instead of asking people over slack and asking them

607
01:29:38.810 –> 01:29:42.770
Elias Torres: where I go meet a custom. But now that we have that document, do we really need that document.

608
01:29:43.140 –> 01:29:50.769
Elias Torres: we gotta challenge every. Why do we need to do something that’s kind of my modern life, like I want to do just the right amount, the right thing.

609
01:29:51.360 –> 01:29:57.459
Blake Williams: Dude. I love it. I love the mission you’re on. It’s desperately needed everywhere. So I appreciate the conversation.

610
01:29:57.880 –> 01:29:58.749
Elias Torres: Thank you so much.

611
01:29:59.150 –> 01:29:59.830
Blake Williams: Thanks, man.

612
01:30:02.630 –> 01:30:03.909
Julia Nimchinski: Thank you so much.