Throughout my career, I’ve worked with fast-growing technology companies to improve customer experiences, increase user retention, and build scalable customer success operations.
Below are some of the key projects, initiatives, and contributions I’ve led or played a significant role in, and their impacts.
Building the Customer Team
Building a Customer Function from the Ground Up
Industry: Fintech
Focus: Customer Success • Customer Experience • Team Building • Operations • Customer Retention
The Challenge
When I joined Africhange, there was no dedicated Customer function.
I was hired as the company’s first Customer-focused professional, responsible for supporting customers while helping define how the business would deliver a consistent and scalable customer experience as it continued to grow.
As the customer base expanded across multiple countries, transaction volumes increased significantly, bringing new challenges around onboarding, customer engagement, support operations, retention, and service quality.
There was an opportunity to build a Customer Success function that would not only respond to customer issues but also proactively help users succeed with the product.
My Role
As the founding member of the Customer team, I played a key role in designing the function from the ground up.
Working with senior leadership and cross-functional teams, I helped establish the processes, systems, and strategies that would support the company’s long-term growth.
My responsibilities included:
- Recruiting, onboarding, and mentoring Customer Success team members.
- Developing team structures and operational workflows.
- Creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and playbooks.
- Defining customer onboarding and engagement processes.
- Establishing customer success KPIs and reporting frameworks.
- Working closely with internal teams to improve the customer journey.
- Building scalable processes to support rapid business growth.
Key Projects Delivered
During this journey, I led or contributed to several initiatives, including:
- Customer Health Score Framework
- Customer Segmentation Dashboard
- Contact centre implementation
- Customer.io lifecycle automation
- In-app notification strategy
- Voice of Customer programme
- Customer Hub
- Customer Loyalty Programme
- AI-powered customer support workflows
- Knowledge Base implementation
- Customer journey mapping
- Customer onboarding framework
- Customer Success reporting dashboards
Business Impact
The transformation resulted in measurable improvements across customer experience and operational performance.
Customer Experience
- Increased Customer Satisfaction from 65% to 91%.
- Improved customer retention from 62% to 88%.
- Reduced recurring complaints by 40%.
- Improved customer onboarding experience.
- Increased customer engagement across key touchpoints.
- Enhanced product adoption through proactive customer communication.
Operational Performance
- Reduced First Response Time from 32 minutes to 16 minutes
- Reduced First Resolution Time from 16.9 hours to 1.8 hours
- Reduced Full Resolution Time from 18.9 hours to 2.1 hours
- Reduced customer deactivations from 1,864 to 1,158, representing a 38% reduction.
Team Growth
What started as a one-person Customer Success function grew into a structured, multi-disciplinary team supporting customers across multiple markets.
Alongside building the team, I helped establish a customer-first culture centred on proactive engagement, continuous improvement, and cross-functional collaboration.
Looking back, building this function from scratch remains one of the most rewarding experiences of my career.
Let’s dive into some more Projects and Impact
Customer Segmentation & Health Score Dashboard
Focus: Customer Analytics • Customer Health • Retention
The Challenge
The business lacked a structured method of identifying at-risk users before they churned.
Customer data existed but wasn’t being used to proactively improve customer outcomes.
My Contribution
I designed a Customer Health Framework using behavioural, transactional, and engagement data.
Working with SQL Server and Power BI, I helped create dashboards that segmented customers based on:
- Product usage
- Transaction frequency
- Engagement levels
- Customer lifecycle stage
- Support history
These dashboards enabled the business to identify high-risk customers early and launch targeted retention initiatives.
Business Impact
- Improved visibility into customer health.
- Enabled proactive customer retention.
- Improved decision-making using customer insights.
- Created a data-driven approach to Customer Success.
Customer Lifecycle Automation (Customer.io)
Focus: Lifecycle Management • Customer Engagement • Product Adoption
The Challenge
As the user base continued to grow, manually communicating with customers throughout their journey became increasingly difficult.
The business needed a scalable way to onboard, educate, engage, and re-engage users without compromising the customer experience.
My Contribution
I led the implementation and optimisation of Customer.io as our lifecycle communication platform.
Working with Product and Engineering teams, I designed automated customer journeys based on user behaviour and lifecycle stage.
These included:
- Welcome and onboarding journeys
- Product adoption campaigns
- Behaviour-triggered emails
- Feature announcement campaigns
- Re-engagement campaigns
- Transactional communications
- User segmentation
- Automated lifecycle workflows
Business Impact
- Improved customer onboarding.
- Increased engagement with new features.
- Reduced manual communication.
- Delivered personalised customer experiences at scale.
- Supported customer retention through proactive engagement.
In-App Notifications & Product Communication
Focus: Product Adoption • Customer Engagement
The Challenge
Users were often unaware of newly released features, product improvements, promotions, and important service updates.
Relying solely on email communications meant many announcements went unseen.
My Contribution
I designed and implemented an in-app communication strategy that delivered timely and contextual messages directly inside the product.
Working alongside Product and Engineering teams, I helped define when users should receive notifications based on their actions and stage within the customer journey.
Notification types included:
- Feature launches
- Product updates
- Promotions
- Service announcements
- Maintenance notifications
- Educational tips
- Behaviour-triggered prompts
- Onboarding reminders
Business Impact
- Increased awareness of new product features.
- Improved feature adoption.
- Reduced customer confusion.
- Improved customer engagement.
- Supported product education at scale.
Contact Centre Transformation
Focus: CRM • Customer Operations • Automation
The Challenge
Customer conversations were spread across multiple channels, making it difficult to maintain consistency, measure performance, and scale operations.
My Contribution
I led the implementation and optimisation of Zendesk as the company’s primary customer operations platform.
Projects included:
- Omnichannel support
- AI-powered workflows
- Automated ticket routing
- SLA management
- Knowledge Base
- Internal workflows
- Reporting dashboards
- Macros
- Customer satisfaction surveys
Business Impact
- Reduced manual workload.
- Improved operational efficiency.
- Faster response times.
- Improved customer satisfaction.
- Better reporting for leadership.
Voice of Customer Programme
Focus: Customer Feedback • Product Strategy
The Challenge
Customer feedback wasn’t consistently influencing product development.
My Contribution
I introduced a structured Voice of Customer programme that brought together customer insights from multiple channels.
The programme included:
- CSAT surveys
- Customer interviews
- Feature requests
- Customer complaints
- Product feedback reports
- Executive insight reports
I worked closely with Product Managers and Engineers to ensure customer insights informed future product improvements.
Business Impact
- Improved collaboration between Customer Success and Product.
- Better prioritisation of customer needs.
- Stronger product decisions.
- Enhanced customer experience.
Customer Hub
Focus: Self-Service • Customer Education
The Challenge
Users frequently contacted support for questions that could easily be answered through self-service resources.
My Contribution
I designed and launched a central Customer Hub that gave users access to:
- Help Centre
- FAQs
- Product Guides
- Video Tutorials
- Customer Resources
Business Impact
- Increased self-service adoption.
- Reduced repetitive enquiries.
- Improved onboarding.
- Better customer education.
Customer Loyalty Programme
Focus: Customer Retention • Customer Engagement
The Challenge
The business wanted to increase repeat usage and strengthen long-term customer loyalty.
My Contribution
I designed a customer loyalty programme that rewarded active users and encouraged long-term engagement with the platform.
Business Impact
- Increased repeat customer engagement.
- Improved customer loyalty.
- Encouraged long-term product usage.
AI & Customer Experience
The Challenge
As the business scaled, repetitive customer enquiries continued to increase.
My Contribution
I introduced AI-assisted workflows to automate repetitive customer interactions, allowing the team to focus on higher-value conversations.
Projects included:
- AI Chatbots
- Intelligent routing
- Automated responses
- Customer categorisation
- Workflow automation
Business Impact
- Reduced manual effort.
- Improved operational efficiency.
- Faster customer responses.
- Better resource allocation.
Author
Understanding Customer Success: Insights and Strategies
I published my first book to help founders, Customer Success professionals, and technology companies understand how customer-centric strategies drive sustainable business growth.
The book explores:
- Customer Success
- Customer Experience
- Customer Retention
- Product Adoption
- Customer Journeys
- Customer Lifecycle Management
Recognition
- Featured in BusinessDay
- Featured in ThisDay
- Additional media features coming soon.
Community Contributions
STEM Ambassador (United Kingdom)
I volunteer as a registered STEM Ambassador, supporting initiatives that inspire young people to explore careers in technology.
Activities include:
- School visits
- Career talks
- STEM mentoring
- Technology awareness sessions
Google Developer Group (GDG) Stoke-on-Trent
As part of the organising team, I support community events that bring together developers, students, and technology professionals through workshops, networking events, and technical meetups.
Customer Success Association
I contribute educational content and practical resources that support the global Customer Success community.
Technology Stack
Customer Success
- Zendesk
- Customer.io
- Intercom
- Crisp
- Freshdesk
- Salesforce
Customer Engagement
- Customer Journey Mapping
- Customer Lifecycle Management
- Customer Onboarding
- In-App Notifications
- Push Notifications
- Email Automation
- Live Chat
- Knowledge Base
Analytics
- SQL
- Power BI
- Customer Health Scoring
- Customer Segmentation
- Voice of Customer
- Customer Analytics
Collaboration
- Jira
- Notion
- Confluence
- Miro
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Google suite
Resume & Career History
For a detailed overview of my professional experience, leadership roles, and career progression:
