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Sara Masson
Director of Customer Success at Loopio
Sara Masson is an accomplished professional in the field of customer success. She currently serves as the VP of Customer Success at Novisto, a position she has held since September 2024.1 Prior to her current role, Sara worked as a Customer Success Coach at Catalyst Software, where she contributed to the Catalyst Coaching Corner program.1
Sara's career in customer success includes notable positions:
- VP of Customer Success at Leap Tools (February 2022 to September 2024)1
- Various leadership roles at Loopio (January 2016 to February 2022), focusing on customer empowerment and insights1
- Customer Engagement Manager at Wave HQ1
Sara holds a Master's degree in Professional Communication from Ryerson University and a Bachelor's degree in Hotel and Food Administration from the University of Guelph.1
Known for her expertise in customer success strategies, Sara has shared insights on virtual communications best practices2 and has been featured in customer success mentorship programs.4 She is passionate about effective communication in customer success, emphasizing its importance in driving behavioral changes and powering overall success for both the company and its customers.2
Sara's LinkedIn username is indeed sarajmasson, where she continues to share her thoughts and experiences in the customer success field.35
Highlights
There's just something about those first few customers who take a chance on you. They feel like the most important thing in the world. For a company just launching, they ARE the most important thing in the world.
When you're responsible for them, you feel like you'd do anything to make them successful. And so you do - whatever they ask, whenever they ask.
There's rarely a clear strategy, stance on value, or defined journey, but there is an immeasurable amount of hustle, grit, and gratitude.
It's white-glove chaos.
And the person entrusted with these customers, who are the lifeblood of this new company? They are often a founder, who cares SO deeply about these customers. Someone who is operating with high conviction around the solution they are building, but has no experience with Customer Success. Or they could be an early-career Customer Success professional. Someone who loves the field, and cares deeply, but has never built these foundations before.
Being handed those customers to care for can feel like the scariest, most important job in the world. And it's often entrusted to someone who's never done it.
I've been that person, and there's so much I wish I'd known then, that I know now.
So I wrote it down. Recorded it. Built the templates, the sample decks, and the data-backed strategies. The things that work in those early days where you need to hustle while building the right foundations that'll scale with you.
And now, you can access all of it through CX Found. Link in the comments below.
You read Radical Candor, and decided to dive in headfirst.
You made sure the team knew you cared personally. You asked about people's weekends, you sent out Uber Eats vouchers for team activities - you even brought in donuts! (Not even the generic ones - the fancy ones from the local donut shop).
Then, you started doling out that feedback and...people seemed less than thrilled. Very little gratitude, and almost no one acting on that feedback. This isn't how it's supposed to go. What went wrong?
First up - you're moving in the right direction! Feedback is critical for your team to grow (and donuts are never a bad idea).
The missing piece here is that giving good feedback is a skill. And just like any other skill you're working to learn - you need to practice, and be intentional about creating opportunities for that practice. But people don't tend to appreciate you heaping on the constructive feedback just so you can practice.
So, what's a people leader to do? Here's my approach:
-Start by making sure every team member is familiar with the SBI feedback model (Situation, Behavior, Impact) as soon as they start. Within a week of joining the team, everyone across the team should get a quick intro to this model -Using one of your regularly scheduled team meetings, kick things off each week with everyone on the team recognizing their peers through a team chat, using the SBI model. This gives the entire team (leadership included) a positive environment to intentionally practice giving feedback, every single week. It also helps the team begin to understand their impact across the team, and find those shining light activities they want to replicate behavior-wise -If you're operating in an in-person world, you can still kick off with 5 minutes of recognition, but I'd caution against doing this live. Not only will your introverted teammates be less likely speak up as often, but people won't have the opportunity to really sit back and be thoughtful in crafting their message (a core part of the practice here). Instead, make a dedicated slack channel, and create a team calendar invite 15 minutes before the meeting begins for people to light up this channel.
Now, when it comes time to provide constructive feedback, not only do you have more practice providing feedback, but your team is familiar with receiving feedback in a consistent, structured way. By leveraging a strong feedback model, you can make sure your team understands the impact of their behavior. More than that, by finding those shining light moments and recognizing them regularly, you've demonstrated your investment in your team in a meaningful way.
Feedback is important - not just for your people leaders, but for your whole team. And when everyone is getting consistent practice giving feedback, your culture of feedback becomes a lot more effective.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.
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