The case desk

Follow the clues.
Question the obvious.

Real experience and imagined investigations, clearly labeled. Every file ends with a better question and a practical tool to take back to your team.

A case board, open folder, and golden retriever partner at the detective desk
Investigations

No culprit without context.

Start with a clue that feels familiar. The useful part is what you investigate next.

From experience: anonymized work from Blake’s career.

Illustrative case: a fictional scenario for exploring a customer-success decision.

7 cases
CASE FILE / 001
From experienceStakeholder continuity

The Ghost Champion

A key contact leaves, a replacement inherits unfamiliar tools, and the real case becomes continuity rather than persuasion.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 002
From experienceSignal interpretation

The Metric That Lied

Internal logins can look like customer engagement. Automated reports can make a valuable product look quiet. Both deserve a closer look.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 003
From experienceCustomer-value evidence

The Missing Evidence

A structured capture workflow turns customer problems, CSM actions, and outcomes into material the organization can reuse.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 004
Illustrative caseCapacity and adoption

The Oversold Deal

Low utilization sends the duo looking for disengagement. The trail leads instead to a rollout plan that changed.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 005
Illustrative caseCommercial alignment

The Budget Freeze

The users want to stay. The approval path has changed. A discount is not the first clue worth chasing.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 006
Illustrative caseChanging customer priorities

The Slow Fade

A quiet account invites a dramatic conclusion. The better investigation starts with what changed in the customer’s work.

Read the case
CASE FILE / 007
From experienceCoverage design

When the Squad Shrinks

A Public Cloud team moves from 20 CSMs to 12. The leadership question becomes what coverage should change, not just who inherits each account.

Read the case
Leadership field notes

The team behind the casework.

Good customer judgment starts with how we support the people doing the work.

FIELD NOTE / 02
Illustrative field noteSponsor engagement

When the Sponsor Goes Quiet

The sponsor is still in the role, but confidence is slipping. A coaching-led investigation into relevance, ownership, and the next useful conversation.

Read the field note
FIELD NOTE / 03
Illustrative field noteConsumption and committed spend

The Consumption Clock

A fictional usage review separates customer adoption, committed-spend burn-down, and the commercial effect of a slowdown.

Read the field note

Investigate the situation. Support the person. A colleague is never the suspect.

Take the method with you.

Every case has a companion worksheet. No locked doors or signup required.

Open the Evidence Locker