Hi There!
My name is Kevin Williams, and I am a passionate, customer-driven CS leader with a history of developing high-performance teams that drive improved customer satisfaction and retention rates. By leveraging my strategic, operational, and technical expertise, alongside my strong leadership and management skillset, I have a proven track record of building and transforming Customer Success, Support, and Professional Service organizations on a global scale.
What this really means is that I’ve led Customer Support, Professional Services, and/or Customer Success Management teams in multiple high growth start-ups since 2006. I was fortunate that one even went public! Customer Success as a term didn’t exist back then, so a lot of lessons were learned the hard way.
Prior to 2006, I filled a myriad of roles included developer (or hacker since I’m mostly self-taught), QA, analyst, strategist, Linux administrator, and project manager for large companies such as Accenture to a small start-up where I worked out of a garage.
I feel very fortunate in my career, and as such, I want to pay it back by sharing my experiences in the hope that it helps others, or to at least have it for myself at my next company. My goal is to be more pragmatic and to show actual examples, with my thinking behind my decisions. I still find implementation details and examples lacking, with maybe the exception of onboarding.
On a personal level, I live in Tigard, Oregon, and am married with 3 wonderful kids. When not working, you can find me coaching or rooting for my kids in their various sporting or other extracurricular activities.
Why “Leading from the Trenches”? First, I was an offensive lineman in football, and as such loved playing in the trenches. I also firmly believe in leading by example. It sets the right tone for your team, and it helps me to understand what is really going on. I have to admit it’s also enjoyable to “get my hands dirty.”
Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or on X (Twitter). Please tell me what you think, or request any topics you want me to discuss. If I’ve experienced it, I’ll write about it!
