From Customer Success to Agentic Success: The next evolution in the IT Channel

For years, IT businesses have invested heavily in Customer Success teams to ensure customers achieve desired outcomes from their products and services. This investment has helped drive customer retention, satisfaction, and revenue growth. But with the rapid rise of Agentic AI, are we on the cusp of an entirely new paradigm?

The customer success movement

The concept of Customer Success first gained traction in the early 2000s, particularly with the rise of SaaS and consumption-based models. Unlike traditional one-time technology purchases, tech companies needed customers to stay subscribed or renewed to remain profitable. This changed the way businesses measured success -shifting from just acquiring customers to keeping them engaged and retained. 

Businesses recognized the need for a function that extended beyond traditional customer support. One that proactively ensured customers fully realized the value of their purchase, driving higher retention, growth, and advocacy. Thus, Customer Success was born.

Yet, decades later, many IT channel businesses still struggle with their Customer Success operations. Manual processes, fragmented data, and reactive strategies remain the norm. Even more concerning, many fail to account for the unique complexities of channel dynamics, leaving significant revenue and growth potential untapped.

Applying technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI) into Customer Success operations is crucial for driving automation, precision, and proactivity. It allows businesses to adapt to customer needs seamlessly while scaling efficiently.

Emergence of Agentic AI

Agentic AI is redefining the role of artificial intelligence in business, moving beyond support functions to autonomously anticipate, act, and optimize the entire customer journey. Imagine AI seamlessly orchestrating the customer and product lifecycles - predicting needs, identifying expansion opportunities, and even renegotiating renewals, all without human intervention. This shift is already happening. 

Key applications of agentic AI include:  

• Predicting needs: Analyzing vast data sets to anticipate customer requirements before they arise.  
  
  
• Identifying expansion opportunities: Detecting upsell or cross-sell possibilities to ensure no revenue opportunities are missed.  
  
  
• Renegotiating renewals: Streamlining the renewal process and making it faster and more accurate through intelligent automation.
  
  
• Mitigating churn risk: Using predictive analytics to proactively manage at-risk accounts and take action before churn.  
  
  
• Optimizing partner profitability: Equipping partners with insights into their installed base data and automating the quoting process on their behalf.
  
  
• Driving sustainability: Recommending products and services based on environmental impact to align with corporate sustainability goals.  
  
  

These capabilities aren’t just a technological leap - they represent a strategic imperative. Businesses that embrace agentic AI will gain unparalleled agility, efficiency, and profitability, setting a new standard for proactive and sustainable success.