The EVOLVE Framework™
A practical operating system for modern Customer Success
The EVOLVE Framework™ was built to give Customer Success professionals and leaders a clear, scalable, and human-centered way to drive value for customers and the business. EVOLVE isn’t theory. It’s how high-performing CS teams actually operate.
What does it mean to EVOLVE in CS
Customer Success has matured, but the way many teams operate hasn’t.
Too often, CS is still driven by reactive motions, inconsistent execution, and individual heroics instead of a shared operating model. The result is misalignment internally, uneven customer experiences, and value that’s felt but rarely articulated.
The EVOLVE Framework™ was built to change that.
EVOLVE is a Customer Success framework designed to guide how teams:
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Engage customers intentionally
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Validate outcomes continuously
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Onboard with purpose
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Lead with confidence
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Deliver measurable value
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Elevate the partnership over time
Rather than prescribing rigid steps or one-size-fits-all playbooks, EVOLVE provides a clear, flexible structure for how Customer Success teams operate across the entire customer lifecycle.
It works across roles, segments, and company stages, and it’s designed to scale, from early-stage startups building their first CS motion to enterprise organizations driving consistency, accountability, and growth.
The EVOLVE Framework™ Explained
E - Engage
Build the right relationships, early and often.
Engagement is not about being “nice” or available.
It’s about building credible, multi-threaded relationships that support long-term success.
What this looks like in practice:
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Establishing clear roles, expectations, and communication norms
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Engaging beyond your day-to-day contact
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Creating early trust and alignment
Why it matters:
If you don’t engage the right people, at the right level, everything downstream becomes reactive.
V - Validate
Confirm understanding before you move forward.
Validation is where many CS motions break down. Assumptions creep in. Alignment fades.
What this looks like in practice:
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Validating customer goals, constraints, and success criteria
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Confirming what “value” actually means to the customer
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Pressure-testing assumptions early
Why it matters:
You can’t drive outcomes you haven’t clearly validated. Validation reduces risk, misalignment, and churn before they surface.
O - Onboard
Turn intent into momentum.
Onboarding is not a checklist.
It’s a value activation phase which can happen at any phase in the customer lifecycle.
What this looks like in practice:
Clear success plans and milestones
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Intentional enablement based on learning styles
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Early proof points tied to outcomes
Why it matters:
The way you onboard sets the tone for the entire relationship. Strong onboarding accelerates adoption, confidence, and trust.
L - Lead
Operate as a trusted advisor, not a task manager.
Leadership in Customer Success isn’t tied to title.
It’s about how you show up.
What this looks like in practice:
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Leading conversations with insight and intent
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Navigating change, resistance, and complexity
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Guiding customers through decisions—not just supporting them
Why it matters:
Customers don’t need more updates, they need perspective, clarity, and direction.
V - Value
Make outcomes visible and measurable.
Value doesn’t speak for itself, you have to surface it to the right people at the right time.
What this looks like in practice:
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Tying product usage to business outcomes
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Regularly reinforcing ROI and impact
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Aligning value to what leadership cares about
Why it matters:
If value isn’t clear, renewals and growth become fragile, even when customers are “happy.”
E - Evaluate
Expand the relationship intentionally.
Elevation is where Customer Success becomes a revenue and growth engine—without losing trust.
What this looks like in practice:
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Identifying expansion opportunities rooted in value
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Helping customers evolve their use cases
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Turning strong outcomes into advocacy and growth
Why it matters:
The strongest customer relationships grow naturally when value is clear and trust is high.
How do Customer Success Professionals EVOLVE?
For Individual Contributors, EVOLVE removes ambiguity from the role and replaces it with clarity and confidence.
It helps ICs understand not just what they’re responsible for, but how to show up with intention at every stage of the customer journey.
With EVOLVE, ICs gain:
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Clarity on how to show up at each stage of the customer journey
So they’re not guessing what “good” looks like in onboarding, adoption, renewals, or growth conversations. -
A shared language for customer conversations
Making it easier to communicate value, risk, and progress internally and externally without reinventing the narrative every time. -
Confidence in navigating tough moments
Including misalignment, change management, risk conversations, and executive discussions—without defaulting to reactive behavior. -
A way to prioritize impact over activity
Helping ICs focus on what actually moves customers forward instead of measuring success by busyness.
EVOLVE helps ICs stop asking:
“Am I doing enough?”
And start asking:
“Am I doing the right things at the right time for this customer?”
For leaders, EVOLVE provides the structure needed to scale Customer Success without sacrificing quality or consistency.
It creates a shared operating model that teams can align around, regardless of segment, tenure, or maturity.
With EVOLVE, leaders gain:
Consistency across teams and segments, ensuring customers receive a coherent experience even as teams grow and specialize.
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Clear expectations and coaching anchors
Giving leaders a practical way to coach, develop, and support ICs based on behaviors—not just outcomes. -
Stronger program measurement
Making it easier to assess what’s working, what’s not, and where to invest—without relying on anecdotal feedback. -
Alignment across CS, Sales, Product, and Marketing
Creating shared language and accountability across teams that influence the customer experience.
EVOLVE becomes the foundation for:
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Enablement and onboarding
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Performance management and development
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Playbooks and lifecycle programs
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Hiring profiles and role clarity
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Scaled, repeatable Customer Success motions
Ultimately, EVOLVE allows leaders to move from hero-driven success to system-driven success—where outcomes are intentional, repeatable, and measurable.
How do Customer Success Leaders EVOLVE?
Putting EVOLVE to Work
EVOLVE isn’t a framework you admire from a slide.
It’s a way of operating, one that shows up in conversations, decisions, systems, and results.
WORKSHOPS
Interactive sessions designed to align leaders and teams around the EVOLVE framework, clarify expectations, and translate concepts into real-world behaviors across Customer Success, Account Management, and cross-functional partners.
We start by creating shared clarity across leadership and frontline teams. EVOLVE becomes a common language for how Customer Success shows up, makes decisions, and measures success, across segments, roles, and moments that matter.
This alignment reduces inconsistency, confusion, and reactive behavior early.