My favorite holiday story of all time is Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. The timeless lessons about reflection, redemption, and transformation resonate deeply with me, especially during this season. As I thought about why I joined Gainsight as Chief Marketing Officer, and the incredible journey ahead, I kept hearing the voice of Jacob Marley: “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”
Marley’s chains, and the poignant symbolism behind them remind me of the lessons learned in the Technology industry over the past few years. If we could travel back in time, how many companies might wish for a do-over to make different choices?
Maybe I am plucking it for the sake of convenience to fit the storyline, but the pre-2023 days of growth at all costs feel like an Ebenezer Scrooge moment for the industry—the days of ballooning budgets, fatter teams, in-person sales kickoffs, steak dinners, and ballgames with clients. Growth was the crown jewel of valuation, but it often came at a cost: a lack of focus on what happens after the deal is signed. The post-sales experience, when customers need to be onboarded, educated, understood, and fully enabled with the new capabilities they’d purchased, was often overlooked. Too many companies left customers to figure it out alone, only to connect during the next renewal period (and maybe another steak dinner).
It’s a rare opportunity in a career to join a company that’s not only a category creator and a de facto brand, but also sees people as more than prospects, customers, employees, and accounts. Gainsight’s impact is clear: helping people rise to the C-suite, building communities that foster genuine friendships, and transforming companies by showing them how to treat customers as people. This human-centered approach proves that when Customer Success is done right and managed as a strategic investment, everyone wins.
Sure, Gainsight is the clear market leader—the dot on the Gartner Magic Quadrant up and to the right—and has the SaaS industry fan following equivalent of Taylor Swift, along with marquee investors and rock-star executives. All of those things appealed to me as I considered joining. But what stood out to me was the company’s vision to turn fragmented customer experiences into a holistic one. It’s a journey that bridges the gap from purchase to implementation, realizing success, and evolving into a key component of the customer’s daily life.
Happy customers are the gift that keeps on giving. They buy more and renew, not because of steak dinners and ballgames, but because of the immense value they gain with your products and services. Gainsight’s Customer OS is an ah-ha moment for companies to turn a disjointed post-sales experience into a frictionless one, complete with new digital self-service and AI capabilities that reduce both cost and churn. And along the way, it enables businesses to grow the right way: sustainably, profitably, and with purpose.
To me, this feels like Scrooge’s Christmas morning awakening: “There’s still time for me!” Time to do Customer Success the right way. To realize the relationship between Customer Success done right and the durable, profitable growth that it drives. With Gainsight’s Customer OS, we’re setting a new standard for how to retain and empower customers.
That’s why I am here, and I can’t wait to get started!
Learn More
Read more about Pearce’s appointment as CMO in the press release, Gainsight Unveils Next Chapter of Innovation and Advances Customer OS for 2025
