Fractional Customer Success Leadership for Post-sales Growth

Stop losing momentum after the close

Drop us into the team and keep selling. We build the plan, run the cadence, and deliver outcomes your board cares about: increased retention, growth, and customer satisfaction.

Hands-on leadership embedded with your team
Board-ready KPIs and a weekly operating cadence
Steadier renewals and planned expansion
Tiered coverage without headcount creep

Is Hypergrowth Outpacing Ad-hoc Post-Sales?

  • Team is reactive support, not value delivery. Churn surprises you.
  • White-glove for everyone means headcount grows with every deal
  • Growth left on the table with no plan to farm expansion
  • No post-sales leader setting the customer journey strategy.

What changes when we plug in

Four shifts you’ll feel in the first 1–2 quarters.

Renewals you can predict

Objective health and risk plans, backed by a milestone-driven renewal runbook: dates set, owners accountable, progress tracked and reported.

Typical Impact:

  • Churn: ↓ 3–5 pts
  • GRR: ↑ 2–4 pts (≈2 quarters)

Expansion by design

Every interaction hunts for value. Support, training, and CS are incentivized to surface signals and route them to the CSM to convert into upsell and cross-sell.

Typical Impact:

  • NRR: 110–120%
  • Expansion mix: +10–20% of ARR

Coverage that scales

Cost-to-value is foundational. Tiered engagement, automation, and standards optimize quality touches.

Typical Impact:

  • Cost to serve: ↓ 20–35%
  • Time to first value: 25–40% faster

Customer experience that feels easy

Every step of the journey is consistent, transparent, and built on trust.

Typical Impact:

  • CSAT: ↑ 10–20 pts
  • Account health: improving quarter over quarter

Typical ranges based on prior engagements. Actual results vary by stage, product, and baseline.

Fractional Executives who build and run the Customer Success engine

Plug-in operators who act like internal leaders. We install the strategy and operating system, process, data, cadence, and run it with your team. Right-sized capacity at a fraction of a full-time hire, accountable for outcomes.

Operate and enable

Weekly and monthly reviews, risk management, coaching, targets, and enablement. Leaders get leverage without full-time cost.

Design the system

Lifecycle playbooks from onboarding to outcomes. Health models, tiering, coverage, and renewal mechanics that scale.

Make data useful

Clean CRM data, clear dashboards, and KPIs that align teams. Boards see progress. Teams know what to do.

Drive growth from the base

Map value milestones, surface whitespace, and time offers so expansions feel natural and win.

Choose your operating tempo

Two senior operators, right-sized time, same playbook. We match cadence to your stage.

For targeted projects

Fractional Light

Focused, time-boxed help for a specific need.

  • 12 hours per week

Choose Light when one area needs attention fast, e.g., tighten onboarding handoffs, stand up renewal playbooks, or fix health scoring and dashboards.

Most popular

Fractional Core

Install the post-sales engine from day one without the full-time executive cost.

  • 16 hours per week

Use Core to get the team running predictably in the early phases before you hire a full time post sales leader. We install cadence, KPIs, and the core motions.

For hyper-growth

Fractional Plus

Stabilize fast, then scale. Deep operating time to clear the backlog and build as we go.

  • 32 hours per week

Choose Plus when demand is outpacing process. You are winning fast and need tiering, coverage, and quality gates to avoid becoming a victim of your own success.

Every package can be tailored to your needs. Scope and cadence follow your goals.

Our engagement approach

A three-step path from diagnostic to measurable outcomes. Momentum in weeks, not months.

Within 2 Weeks:
Accelerated Diagnostic

Rapid evaluation of CS operations across people, process, data, and tools.

  • Ten focused 60-minute stakeholder sessions
  • Strengths, gaps, quick wins, and risks identified

Within 4 Weeks:
Prioritization & Roadmap

Co-prioritize by impact and feasibility to lock focus areas and near-term wins.

  • Owners, milestones, and KPIs defined
  • Sequenced 90-day plan with quick wins

By Month’s End:
Accelerated Execution

Embedded leadership to run the plan and deliver results.

  • Stand up playbooks, cadences, and dashboards
  • Standardize processes and metrics across teams

Customer Success problems we solve

If these feel familiar, you are in the right place. We fix root causes and make results repeatable.

Renewals and forecast

  • Renewals are last minute or missed
  • Health is subjective and risks are unmanaged
  • Forecast is inconsistent and hard to defend

Adoption and value

  • Onboarding is inconsistent
  • Shelfware and weak adoption
  • Support is reactive, not outcome-driven

Expansion and coverage

  • Upsell and cross-sell are untracked
  • Growth signals are missed or siloed
  • White-glove for everyone drives headcount creep

Data and operating rhythm

  • Data is incomplete or inconsistent
  • No clear KPIs for the board
  • Process is not repeatable across teams

What our partners say

Real notes from leaders who plugged us in to steady renewals, planned expansion, and cleaner ops.

“They plugged in like insiders, set the plan, and had the team executing within weeks. Board conversations became straightforward.”
VP, Enterprise Success · Cybersecurity
“We finally had predictable renewals and a real expansion motion. Support and Training became growth sensors, not just cost centers.”
Head of Customer Operations · AI Platform
“Clear cadence, clean data, and playbooks our team actually uses. It went from heroic effort to repeatable system.”
CEO · Ed-tech / Publishing

References and detailed case metrics available upon request.

Other services

Not ready for a fractional package or need a targeted push? These offerings complement our core work.

Rapid CS Evaluation

A two week assessment that pinpoints gaps across retention, growth, scale, and infrastructure. You get a prioritized plan that your team can act on.

Week 1: Interviews, data and process audits, initial findings

Week 2: Deep dive, benchmarks, final report and recommendations

Consulting services

Targeted projects and advice to complement fractional leadership.

  • Retention, growth, and scale transformations
  • Health models, tiering, and coverage design
  • KPI and reporting design for boards and execs
  • Tooling selection and CRM data integrity work

About RPS

20+ years in post-sales leadership · Scaled teams 10→100+ · Operated in $1M–$1B ARR environments

We’ve worked together for two decades building post-sales engines that retain, grow, and scale. RPS is a two-in-a-box model: senior operators who act like internal leaders and run the system with your team.

Michael Plawner

Michael Plawner

Strategy and leadership

Owns the customer journey and operating model. Aligns teams, sets KPIs, and leads change so renewals and expansion become predictable.

Ari Billauer

Ari Billauer

Operational excellence and tools

Turns plans into repeatable systems. Builds playbooks, data integrity, and tooling so the engine runs cleanly at scale.

Ready to keep selling while we steady and scale post-sales

Bring your targets and a quick snapshot of your KPIs. We will outline a first-pass plan before we hang up.

Fractional Customer Success FAQs

What is fractional customer success leadership?

Experienced leaders who plug into your post-sales team part-time to install cadence, KPIs, and playbooks that improve retention, expansion, and scale.

How is this different from consulting?

We operate as embedded leaders. We design the system and run it with your team, not just advise.

When should we choose Core vs Plus?

Core is best when you are establishing foundations at the right time. Plus suits teams already overwhelmed by demand and needing more operating time to stabilize and scale.

What outcomes can we expect?

Predictable renewals, planned expansion, cleaner data, and a scalable operating rhythm. Typical ranges are noted above; actuals vary by stage and baseline.