Notion's Outcomes Architects on Why Today's CSMs Are Builders

Most companies think of customer success as a support function that ships software. The real shift is treating it as a co-build practice that ships outcomes.

In this episode of the [Un]Churned Podcast, Josh Schachter sits down with Christina Parra, Ariel Risman, and Kellie Woodin, three members of Notion's Outcomes Architecture team, to unpack how Notion rebuilt its entire customer success motion around AI, workshops, and shared commercial ownership.

Christina, Ariel, and Kellie share how their roles evolved from traditional CSM to "Outcomes Architect," why they stopped selling software and started selling work, and how an AI maturity model now shapes everything from onboarding workshops to renewal conversations.

They also dive into:

The shift from customer success manager to outcomes architect and what it actually means to "co-build" with a customer How workshops (some with 180+ attendees) replace one-to-many trainings Proving ROI in a consumption-based pricing model, credit by credit Why CS teams are absorbing commercial ownership and what that's taught them about creative expansion levers Notion's internal multi-agent feature-request pipeline, and why they see AI as abundance, not scarcity

If you're rethinking what customer success looks like in an agentic AI world, or figuring out how to prove ROI on usage-based pricing, this episode is a blueprint for turning your CS team into co-build architects.

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.

Chapters

00:00 – Intro & Guest Backgrounds 01:36 – What Is Notion? 04:25 – From Customer Success to Outcomes Architecture 08:51 – Ariel's Book: Deep Discovery & the Workshop Format 15:10 – The AI Maturity Model 21:37 – From Success Plans to AI Transformation Plans 23:14 – Benchmarking, ROI & Proving Value in Consumption-Based Pricing 28:01 – Becoming Strategic Partners: CS Owns Commercials 32:50 – Lessons From Owning Renewals & Hiring for Curiosity 37:30 – The Feature Request Pipeline & AI as Abundance

Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com

Where to Find the Guests:

Christina Parra's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-wills/ Ariel Risman's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariel-risman/ Kellie Woodin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelliewoodin/

Where to Find the Hosts:

Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/ [Un]churned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com