Jill Favro Sawatzky, Chief Customer Officer, Thought Industries
Welcome To CS My Way
Welcome to this exciting new space—CS My Way—where you can learn from the best in the industry and get ahead in Customer Success and beyond.
Each week, I engage in conversations with top executives — Chief Customer Officers, VP/Head of CS, founders, and CEOs. Together, we discuss how they drive success for their customers.
💡I always learn a lot from these exclusive interviews, packed with massive value, practical examples, key takeaways, and best practices from each leader.
I hope they’ll inspire you to build world-class CS organizations and accelerate your career in Customer Success and beyond.
Today we explore all things Customer Education and its critical importance for CS in today’s most innovative businesses.
So excited to bring you my latest conversation with Jill Favro Sawatzky, Chief Customer Officer at Thought Industries, one of the world's leading online learning platforms.
Thank you, Jill, for accepting my invitation.
The stage is yours!
P.S. Want to share your own story? Fill out this form and I’ll get back to you over email.
About Thought Industries
“At Thought Industries, we're all about making external training modern and engaging for customers. “
We provide a platform where companies can create interactive online courses and training for their customers. It's like building a personalized classroom in the digital world, tailored just for their needs.
A major use case for us is companies training their customers on the products they’ve bought.
Whether it's a new software or a complex service, we make it easier for them to understand and use it to its full potential.
This way, companies using Thought Industries see happier customers, getting more value from their purchases.
So, in short, we're helping businesses teach their customers in a fun and effective way, turning them into savvy users and fans of their products.
We have many customers, too, that are large training companies.
The learning IS their product.
So for them, the front-end learning experience is a huge priority for how they present themselves in the market.
They're able to use Thought Industries to customize and deliver a personalized, industry-leading learning product.
About You
Becoming Chief Customer Officer at Thought Industries has been quite the adventure!
My journey has been fueled by my passion for customer success and a relentless pursuit of learning.
I started my career in Project Management in Professional Services at IBM.
Fortunately, I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to transition into a role where I could help existing customers achieve value over their entire journey.
“These were the early days of Customer Success, and I built the first CS team at IBM when it was not very widely known yet.”
The field of CS evolved over time as did my career as I stepped into roles that challenged and expanded my understanding of how to drive customer value.
After IBM, I moved into Director and VP roles at Citrix, PROS, and Commvault.
“I've always believed in the power of education as a cornerstone of customer success, and this belief has been a guiding light in my career. “
Professional Insights
As the Chief Customer Officer, my role is multi-faceted and dynamic.
It's not just about overseeing a team.
It's about nurturing a deeply customer-centric culture.
“I'm responsible for ensuring that every interaction our customers have with our platform adds value to their experience“
This means constantly evaluating and evolving our approach to customer education.
We work closely with our product development teams to ensure our offerings meet the changing needs of our clients and keep an eye on the market to anticipate trends.
It's a balancing act between being a visionary, a strategist, and an executor.
Organizational Structure
The structure of our Customer Experience (CX) team is designed to build collaboration and agility.
Here’s how we are structured:
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