Rafael Ortiz
Customer Success Manager (Team Lead)
Hiring Manager ViewMiami, FL · Remote
Problems I'm Built to Solve
- •Renewals surfacing at 30 days out — when the only lever left is discounting and a VP call that probably won't work.
- •CS teams where each rep handles the same account type completely differently, and the customer experience is a coin flip.
- •Coaching that happens during the fire instead of before it, so the rep doesn't actually learn anything.
- •Team leads who are good individual contributors but haven't built a system that works without them in every conversation.
Decision Filters
Hire Me If
- •You want a team lead who raises the floor for the whole team, not just saves the top accounts.
- •You want risk surfaced 60-90 days before renewal — not as a flag in a dashboard, but with a named owner and a next action.
- •You value direct, calm escalation. I don't panic in a customer crisis. I also don't over-promise.
- •You're building a coaching culture and want someone who will protect time for it even when delivery pressure rises.
Do Not Hire Me If
- •Escalations get handled case-by-case and the lesson never makes it back into the process.
- •Frontline coaching is the first thing cut when things get busy.
- •There's no consistent definition of what "at risk" means across the team — it's just vibes.
How I Operate
Decision-making
- •I separate urgent from structural. Fix the fire. Then spend the next week figuring out why it started.
- •I use simple account health signals — adoption rate, executive engagement frequency, open issue age — with named owners. Not a scoring model. Just: who owns this account signal and what happens when it dips.
- •I escalate early with options, not just a problem. "We have a risk" is not useful. "We have a risk and here are three things we can do before Friday" is.
Collaboration & conflict
- •Before I commit to a customer on a timeline, I align with support and product. I've been burned enough times promising something that wasn't mine to promise.
- •When conflict comes up in the team, I narrow it to customer impact and the next concrete step. Takes the ego out of it.
- •I coach reps to document commitments in writing after customer calls. Not for CYA — because the next person on the account shouldn't have to rebuild trust from zero.
Management preferences
- •Clear goals with room to coach and adjust execution at team level. I don't need to be told how.
- •Weekly team reviews and focused one-on-ones is the right rhythm for me. I don't do well with ad hoc check-ins that replace a real operating cadence.
- •I do best with managers who back proactive risk calls before the outcome is known. If I have to wait until a customer is already churning to get support, I can't do the job.
How I Connect
Communication style
- •Aligns with support and product before making customer commitments. Documents commitments in writing after every call.
- •Direct and calm in escalations. Separates urgent from structural — fixes the fire, then spends the next week figuring out why it started.
Feedback approach
- •Uses real recorded calls in coaching — names specific behaviors on real examples rather than describing them in the abstract.
- •Takes responsibility publicly when his judgment call was wrong. Ran a post-mortem and named where his call failed, not the rep's.
Trust building
- •Escalates early with options, not just problems. "We have a risk and here are three things we can do before Friday."
- •Builds coaching systems that work when he's not in the room. The rubric is still being used — he considers that the real metric.
What I bring to a team
- •Raises the floor for the whole team. A new rep and a veteran handle the same account type the same way.
- •Protects coaching time as a priority even when delivery pressure rises. Knows cutting it creates more fires.
Proof Stories (CARL)
THESIS: Cut last-minute renewal escalations by roughly 30% in two quarters by making risk review a monthly routine instead of a crisis response.
Challenge
At-risk renewals were surfacing 2-4 weeks before deadline. By then, the playbook was emergency discount, VP relationship call, and hope. My team was good at fighting fires. They were also exhausted.
Action
- •Introduced a monthly risk review with defined health thresholds — not judgment calls. Adoption below 60% for 30 days, no executive engagement in 45 days: those were automatic triggers for a review.
- •Coached CSMs to run milestone-based success plans so customers had concrete next steps 90 days before renewal, not just a check-in at 60.
- •Cleared the top three recurring blockers with product and support before the next renewal cycle. Some of those conversations were overdue by six months.
Result
Last-minute escalations dropped by roughly 30% over two quarters. Most at-risk accounts were being worked 60-90 days out instead of the final few weeks. The team stopped feeling like they were always behind.
Learning
Retention improves when risk is a routine, not an exception. The monthly cadence was the change — the specific thresholds mattered less than having a cadence at all.
THESIS: Built a behavior-based coaching system that cut escalation resolution time from 2-3 weeks to under one — and got new reps to consistent quality about four weeks faster.
Challenge
CSMs on the team were handling similar account issues completely differently. Some escalated the moment they sensed risk. Others waited until it was a crisis. Customer experience was inconsistent in a way that was hard to pin down until I started listening to calls.
Action
- •Built a simple rubric scoring three behaviors: discovery depth, next-step clarity, and risk-flagging timing. Not a performance review tool — a coaching tool.
- •Used real recorded calls in weekly team reviews to show what good looked like in practice. Naming behaviors on real examples landed differently than describing them in the abstract.
- •Tracked each rep's coaching follow-through on a shared board linked to their account outcomes. Made the connection between behavior and result visible.
Result
Escalation resolution time dropped from 2-3 weeks to under one week on average. New reps ramped to consistent quality roughly four weeks faster than the cohort before them. The rubric is still being used — I consider that the real metric.
Learning
Coaching sticks when reps can see the direct line from the behavior you're asking for to the outcome they care about. Abstract principles don't move people. Real examples do.
THESIS: Lost a $180K mid-market account because I treated an early risk signal as a coaching moment instead of an escalation trigger. That was my call. It was wrong.
Challenge
A CSM flagged low adoption two months before renewal. The account had the profile of something recoverable. I worked the plan with her, gave her feedback, checked in weekly. I did not escalate to leadership because I thought we could handle it at the team level. The customer told us they were evaluating a competitor at 30 days out. We lost them.
Action
- •Ran a post-mortem with the CSM and named where my judgment failed — not hers. She had flagged the risk. I had made the call not to escalate.
- •Rebuilt the risk criteria so specific adoption signals automatically triggered escalation, removing manager judgment as the bottleneck. Including mine.
- •Shared the lesson in a team debrief. Named the account. Took responsibility for the process gap in front of the team.
Result
In the following renewal cycle, three accounts with the same adoption pattern were escalated early. Two were retained — roughly $320K in revenue. I think about the $180K account more than the math suggests I should.
Learning
Coaching is not the same as intervening. I knew the distinction existed. I didn't apply it when it mattered. I now treat early adoption signals as escalation triggers first and coaching opportunities second — and I've written that into the process so it doesn't depend on my judgment in the moment.
Motivation & Drive
What energizes me
- •Watching a CSM go from firefighter to someone who sees the problem coming 60 days out and handles it without me.
- •The moment a vague "this account feels off" turns into a specific plan with an owner and a date.
- •Building a process that keeps working after I'm no longer running every meeting.
How I handle ambiguity
- •I define what a healthy account looks like before I discuss what to do about an at-risk one.
- •I test process changes on a small account set before rolling them to the team.
- •I keep escalation paths explicit — reps should know when to flag something, not just how. The "when" is usually what breaks down.
Growth direction (2-3 years)
- •Build and lead a CS management layer — developing team leads, not just managing frontline reps.
- •Develop stronger product partnership around churn reduction at the feature-adoption level. Right now I'm downstream of those decisions in ways that limit what I can do.
What Changes in 12 Months If You Hire Me
- •Renewal risks surfacing 60-90 days out — not because I'm watching every account, but because the process surfaces them automatically.
- •A new rep and a veteran handling the same account type the same way. Consistent execution that doesn't depend on who got assigned.
- •Leadership getting a weekly view of risk and growth readiness they can actually plan around. Not a dashboard they check when something breaks.
- •A coaching system that runs without me in the room. That's the only real test of whether I built something or just covered for something.
Constraints & Non-Negotiables
Known friction points
- •I underperform when it's unclear who owns a customer outcome — CS, support, or product. I can navigate the ambiguity for a while, but it compounds.
- •I lose team momentum when individual coaching time gets repeatedly deprioritized for short-term fires. Ironically, that's what creates more fires.
Practical constraints
- •Miami-based. Remote is fine — I've managed distributed teams and it works when there's a real operating cadence underneath.
- •Open to travel for key customer escalations and quarterly team sessions.
Non-negotiables
- •A clear ownership model for customer outcomes. Not a RACI in a deck — actual clarity about who's accountable when something goes wrong.
- •A consistent definition of account risk that the whole team uses. Dashboard is fine; the definition is what matters.
- •Coaching time as a protected priority. If it's always the first thing cut, I'm not the right fit.
How I Use AI
Tools in my workflow
- •ChatGPT for drafting customer communication templates — saves 30 minutes per playbook revision.
- •Claude for analyzing call transcripts and surfacing risk signals I might miss in a manual review.
- •Notion AI for summarizing long renewal meeting notes into structured next-steps.
How I verify AI output
- •Every AI-drafted customer email gets reviewed against the actual account context. Templates are starting points, not send-ready.
- •I cross-check AI-identified risk signals against the real health metrics. The model catches patterns I miss; I catch context it misses.
- •I never let AI generate customer-facing commitments. It drafts, I verify against what product and support have actually confirmed.
What I've shipped or improved with AI
- •Reduced weekly account review prep from 2 hours to 40 minutes by using transcript summaries as a starting point.
- •Caught two at-risk accounts a month earlier than the team's standard health signals would have flagged — both were retained.