Jay Nathan and Jeff Breunsbach break down an exercise Jeff ran with his CS team offsite—sorting every activity into keep, start, automate, delegate, or cut. Plus reverse roadmap reviews, cutting 50% of check-in calls, and the self-hosted agent platform Jeff's building with Buzz.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Five Buckets: Jeff's team sorted last week's activities into keep/start/automate/delegate/cut. Only a small share landed in "keep it"—50-60% moved elsewhere.
- The Defensiveness Trap: CS teams over-claim "keep it" because giving something up feels like losing relevance. Anchoring to revenue cuts through that.
- Reverse Roadmap Reviews: Ask customers to share their roadmap instead of presenting yours. It surfaces product gaps and becomes a repeatable leading indicator.
- Cut the Check-In Call: Jeff's team is targeting a 50% cut of recurring check-ins that drifted into habit. Fix: give every call a purpose, start date, and end date.
- Field-Level Understanding: Palantir's "agent camp" echoes an old FLU playbook from Jay's consulting days—both build pre-sale conviction by mapping use cases with buyers.
- Pendulum Swings Back to Deterministic: Agent platforms are exciting, but many workflows need to run the same way every time—the win is blending agent judgment with deterministic code.
- Forecast Risk in Automation: An agent auto-moving a deal stage introduces risk into something reps must stand behind. Some steps still need a human check.
- Buzz as an Agent Harness: Jeff's self-hosting Block's open-source Buzz, where every channel is an agent he and Jay shape together—podcast producer, newsletter agent, and a content manager orchestrating both.
ABOUT YOUR HOSTS
Jay Nathan – CEO of Balboa Solutions and Co-Founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.io
Jeff Breunsbach – Head of Customer Success at Junction and Co-Founder of ChiefCustomerOfficer.io
CHAPTERS
- [00:01] - Intro and the CS team offsite
- [00:49] - The keep/start/automate/delegate/cut exercise
- [03:20] - Anchoring the exercise to revenue
- [04:41] - The change management payoff for the team
- [06:34] - Reverse roadmap reviews as a leading indicator
- [09:58] - The goal: cut 50% of check-in calls
- [12:37] - Transition calls and giving check-ins a purpose
- [14:57] - FLU and Palantir's agent camp model
- [18:31] - Why AI adoption stalls at the enterprise level
- [19:27] - Single-player vs. multiplayer agent platforms
- [22:35] - The pendulum swings back to deterministic workflows
- [25:57] - Forecast risk when agents move deal stages
- [27:11] - The missing embedded product manager
- [30:20] - Buzz: a self-hosted agent messaging harness
- [33:51] - Standing up a podcast producer and content manager agent
- [36:32] - Turning call transcripts into a customer quotes channel
About the Show: Chief Customer Officer Podcast is a show about real strategies for customer-led growth in the AI era—from leaders actually executing, not just talking about it.