CS100 – Making an Impression and an Impact as a New CCO

2025 CS100 Summit Speaker – Colin Murphy (Chief Customer Officer of Zendesk)

In this session at the 2025 CS100 Summit, Colin Murphy shares a practical and experience-driven blueprint for making a meaningful impact in your first 100+ days as a new Chief Customer Officer.

Drawing on his leadership journey at Zendesk, Colin walks through how new CS and CX executives can establish clarity, build credibility, and set a strong foundation for long-term success — without trying to do too much, too fast.

In this session, you’ll learn:

• How to create a clear “why, what, and where” as a new CS or CX leader
• What an effective first 100+ day plan looks like in practice
• How to establish the right operating cadence, metrics, and communication rhythms
• Common landmines new leaders face — and how to avoid them
• How to balance listening, learning, and decisively setting direction early

Colin also shares guidance on engaging customers early, aligning cross-functional teams, and resetting expectations around pace, priorities, and outcomes — all while building trust up, down, and across the organization.

For customer success leaders stepping into new executive roles, this session offers a grounded, actionable framework for moving from first impressions to sustained impact.

The CS100 Summit is presented by ClientSuccess, the leading post-sales CRM for B2B SaaS companies. CS100 brings together customer success leaders from across the industry to share real-world frameworks, leadership lessons, and practical strategies for driving retention, expansion, and long-term growth.