We Are Not Lifesavers: A Conversation with Ewelina Chrzanowska

Customer success is a young function in Poland, and most companies still don't know how to do it well. Ewelina Chrzanowska is one of the few people who has built CS teams from zero, more than once, at wildly different scales.

Ewelina started as a CSM at Codewise, rose to head of CS and account management within three years, then led a 16-person team across all of EMEA at Splunk, and is now Head of Customer Success at Prowly, where she manages support, tech support, and CSMs. She also trains Polish CSMs through a CS-for-Poland school, because the knowledge gap here is real.

The dumping-ground problem

The thing that hurts CS the most, Ewelina says, is that companies pour into it whatever doesn't fit anywhere else. "Sales can't do this, marketing can't do this, so we'll create a role that does all the leftover things." Between customer support, customer care, account management, and sales, CS becomes a catch-all, and that's exactly how it fails to be real customer success.

Hiring beats process

Asked for the playbook to build a CS team, Ewelina's answer is that there isn't one, it depends on the company, but the constant is hiring right. You can build perfect processes and operations, and if the people aren't the right fit, it's still a failure. The common mistake is hiring fast under deadline pressure and settling for a fit that later reveals itself as wrong. What she looks for is open-mindedness, someone willing to find out-of-the-box solutions and step out of their comfort zone, and the composure to handle hard situations, because working with customers is a rollercoaster and you have to stay calm enough to control it.

When to actually start CS

Her guidance on timing: CS usually evolves naturally out of support. When churn gets too big to ignore, and support's scope increasingly needs to be proactive (onboarding, churn prevention), it's time for a dedicated role, which doesn't have to be a whole team, it can be one person focused on specific activities. Ideally you start before the churn alerts fire; by the time churn is visibly too big, you're at the last minute.

The renewals fix that moved ARR

At Prowly, the process work that made the biggest difference started with reviewing portfolios and segmenting customers, then examining the lifecycle stages, where she found annual renewals were the biggest issue. The team built a proper renewals process: not reaching out two days before, but tracking and documenting every customer so they always knew what was happening. Paired with a cleaner onboarding process (the two are linked, good onboarding produces better renewals), it lifted ARR securing by about 10% year over year. Onboarding and renewals, she says, were the crucial two to fix.

The green dashboard that still loses the customer

Ewelina's sharpest warning is about over-indexing on metrics. Numbers are the base of the work, but they aren't everything and they can be tricky. You can look at a usage dashboard where everything is green, the customer is using the product to the max, and feel great, but if you never actually speak to them, you won't know they're wrestling with budget cuts, internal reorganizations, or an acquisition. Rely only on the metrics and you land at failure: "it was a great time with you, but we have to close the cooperation." Don't stick to numbers alone, value the soft success stories and the relationships. NPS especially, she notes, captures only a moment.

We are not lifesavers

Her advice to her younger CSM self, and the line she'd give anyone starting the role, is a mercy: we are not lifesavers. CS is genuinely stressful, customer pressure, targets, goals, and the people drawn to it tend to have well-developed emotional radar, so they take things to heart. She did too; every angry customer felt like her biggest failure. But nobody's life depends on it, 99% of cases hurt no one, and most are fixable, you can revert a change or compensate a customer. Take it less emotionally, step back, take care of yourself, and don't burn your evenings trying to save a customer who may simply not be the right fit for the product.

Managing overlapping teams

Running support, tech support, and CSMs who all touch the same customer, Ewelina keeps them from stepping on each other with clear scope definitions, so everyone knows when to pass a case, when to consult, and how not to have two or three teams working the same ticket. The CSM, she insists, should not become "VIP customer support", the same customer is still assisted by the support teams. And you have to educate the customer on who does what, then route their misfiled cases internally when they forget.

Sales versus CS

Sales matters, Ewelina says, but all the sales effort and budget is wasted if you don't invest in CS afterward, because a customer you don't onboard and guide through the stages is money lost from the point of sale. On whether CS should own renewals and expansion, she's changed her mind over her career and now lands on "it depends on the structure": at Prowly the CSM team owns retention, renewals, and expansion, while at Splunk's complex, multi-decision-maker product it made sense to move the selling to a renewals team so it didn't swamp the CSMs. Either way, the selling skill should live with the CSM, even if someone else closes the paperwork.

Key takeaways

CS is not a dumping ground. Stop assigning it everything other teams won't do. That's how you fail to build real customer success.

Hiring beats process. Perfect operations can't rescue a bad fit. Hire for open-mindedness and composure, and don't settle under deadline pressure.

Onboarding and renewals are linked. Fixing both, with proper tracking rather than last-minute outreach, lifted ARR securing 10% year over year.

A green dashboard can still churn. Metrics miss budget cuts, reorgs, and acquisitions. Talk to the customer, or the numbers will fool you.

You are not a lifesaver. CS is stressful and emotional, but most cases are fixable and nobody's dying. Step back and protect yourself.

Frameworks worth stealing

Segment, find the leaky stage, fix the process

To improve retention, start by segmenting customers, then map the lifecycle to find the leakiest stage. For Prowly it was annual renewals, so they replaced last-minute outreach with tracked, documented renewal management, and paired it with better onboarding. Fixing the two linked stages moved the revenue metric that mattered.

Scope so teams don't collide

When support, tech support, and CS all touch the same customer, write clear responsibility scopes so everyone knows the handoff points and no case gets worked three times. Keep the CSM from becoming premium support, and educate customers on who owns what, rerouting their misfiled requests internally instead of expecting them to remember.

Quotes worth keeping

The lines I wrote down.

Companies put everything that doesn't fit into the other teams into customer success. That hurts the most.

Everything is green, the customer is using the product to the top, and we're happy, but if we don't speak to them, we don't know they're struggling.

We are not lifesavers. We don't work in a hospital.

Rapid fire round

Same questions every guest. Quick questions, quick answers.

Best advice you've ever received? We are not lifesavers. She heard it at a meetup, and it steadies her in the worst scenarios.

Advice you ignored and wish you'd listened to? Not to be afraid to step out of her comfort zone and take new challenges. She was too hesitant at one point, and now understands it differently.

Ongoing challenge that keeps you up at night? Keeping her team engaged and motivated through constant change, acquisitions, and reorganizations, by staying in touch, being there to help, and showing people where they can develop.

Favorite spot? A self-described foodie who travels to eat, she names a Hawaiian-style spot in Kraków, bowls, burgers, tacos, and good drinks.

Tool you can't live without? Gmail. She's only half-joking that she wouldn't work at a company on Outlook.

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Ewelina Chrzanowska is the Head of Customer Success at Prowly, where she leads support, tech support, and CSM teams. She previously built and led CS at Codewise and ran a 16-person CS team across EMEA at Splunk, and she trains Polish customer success managers through a CS-for-Poland school. Find her on LinkedIn.