The role was blatantly misrepresented during the hiring process. I was hired under a Customer Success and Implementation title and told the position would be split between customer success, implementations, and phone support. Phone support was framed as one component of the role, not the core function. Even early paperwork reflected a customer support–only title, which I was told was a mistake and corrected. Based on how the role actually functioned, that discrepancy was not accidental.
Within my first weeks, I was told that implementations were effectively on hold. This was never disclosed during interviews just weeks earlier. Had this been communicated honestly, I would not have pursued or accepted the role. What was marketed as a balanced CS and implementation position fundamentally changed after start, with no acknowledgment that the scope had been misrepresented.
In practice, proactive customer success work was minimal. The assigned “portfolio” consisted largely of customers who had not had any contact from a Customer Success team for over a year, which made it clear that ongoing CS engagement was not an operational priority. Leadership was explicit that customer support “always comes first,” with the CS and implementation responsibilities described during hiring consistently pushed aside.
Within weeks, expectations shifted to full days in a phone queue, evaluated almost entirely on call-center KPIs such as availability status and missed calls. At that point, it became clear that this was a customer support agent role with a more appealing Customer Success title attached. Performance was not measured by onboarding progress, adoption, stakeholder engagement, or implementation outcomes.
The role also appeared designed to attract candidates with junior-level tenure but real experience working with senior stakeholders and C-suite clients. Despite that, I was repeatedly instructed to sit silently on customer calls. On multiple occasions, I was invited to meetings with clients and explicitly told not to say hello, not to introduce myself, and not to speak unless directly spoken to, including via chat. I have never encountered a Customer Success-labeled role where customer engagement was actively discouraged in this way.
New hires were expected to independently cover phone queues very early on, despite what appeared to be a long-standing support backlog. This did not present as a temporary onboarding phase or short-term surge, but as a chronic operational issue. None of this was communicated accurately during the interview process.
