She’s held roles across some of the biggest names in SaaS - Oracle, Netsuite, Boomi - and in each, she’s leveraged her technical foundation as the anchor to create lasting impact with customers.
Her journey, and the lessons she’s still learning, reveal a lot about where Customer Success has been, and where it’s heading.
Dipti has seen Customer Success roles change dramatically over the last decade. What started as a generalist “catch-all” position is increasingly being split into specialized functions. Customer Engagement Managers, Technical Product Advisors, or revenue-focused CSMs.
At Oracle Netsuite, for example, all post-sales functions were eventually rebranded into “Customer Success.” At Boomi, she saw first-hand how Success teams were aligned with revenue targets and compensated on upsell and expansion. And at Netsuite, she observed the emergence of paid, technical CS roles for customers who needed deeper expertise.
Her takeaway? The generalist CSM role is under pressure. Companies are expecting more, and in this new era, technical acumen and revenue alignment are becoming table stakes.
Tip: Pay attention to how your role is evolving inside your company. If your responsibilities are stretching into revenue or technical specialization, lean into it - those skills will keep you relevant and valued as the industry continues to mature. Do research on “Success Qualified Leads” and consider paid tiers for deeper Customer Success engagement (beyond your typical support plans)
Dipti’s edge has always been her technical depth. Early in her career, she could answer a customer’s product question with the same confidence as an engineer, sometimes going two or three layers deep before needing to loop in Product.
It’s not that she doesn’t love her engineering peers. It’s that customers deserve fast, high-quality answers as part of their subscription. And the trust and credibility built in those moments often translates into long-term retention and expansion.
In today’s environment, where Success teams are being asked to do more with less, Dipti sees technical depth not as optional, but as essential.
Tip: Invest in technical mastery of your product. Even a small edge in technical fluency can accelerate trust with customers and reduce reliance on other teams, making you a more strategic partner. If your company offers customer training/accreditation, you should do that too.
Like many of us, Dipti is watching the rise of AI with equal parts curiosity and caution. In conversations with her counterparts at other companies, AI is consistently in a nascent stage. Companies are experimenting and some are starting to leverage agents but it is clearly early day in terms of actual AI usage within CS.
Her perspective: AI won’t replace CSMs in high-touch roles anytime soon. Technical acumen and customer empathy continue to be a customer requirement and she is seeing success being monetized in new ways around technical acumen and “white glove” service. That said, AI can handle the workhorse tasks such as research, data entry and meeting prep, freeing Success professionals to focus on building trust and delivering value. This is where Dipti, who has been a Noded user for months, sees a real opportunity.
Dipti has always been passionate about standardization where possible, and sees a big opportunity around note-taking and customer context. Whether it’s Rocket, Notion, or handwritten notes, she sees a glaring gap: no unified way to capture and surface context in real time. And that lack of standardization slows everyone down. “Noded has a real opportunity to standardize our simple notes and by bringing all of the other information around the customer together to provide the context that is required to drive success.”.
Tip: Use AI and standardization as force multipliers. Automate the busywork so you can spend more time on the high-value parts of your role: building trust, guiding strategy, and driving outcomes. Check out [Nayla Raad’s guidance] too.
Beyond the tips, Dipti’s advice for new Success professionals is simple, but powerful:
Her career is proof that combining technical depth with human empathy can create a playbook for long-term success.
Dipti Sharma represents the best of what Customer Success can be:
In a world where roles, compensation, and even job titles are shifting, her story is a reminder: the foundation of Customer Success is still about knowing your product, knowing your customer, and putting them first.
That’s Success in the Wild.
