Ryan O’Connell is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at THRIVE, a learning technologies platform. Ryan quite literally thrives (we’re not even going to apologize for the bad pun) when it comes to solving business problems.

As CCO, he’s expanded THRIVE’s customer success team across the UK and the US, handling almost 200 customers. He’s managed to introduce new metrics and targets to his CS team, including Net Revenue Retained (NRR), customer referrals and increasing subscriptions per customer. Prior to his C-level position, Ryan was previously Head of Implementation & Customer Success.

In December 2022, Ryan and his customer success team headed to London to attend our first Customer Success Festival to take place in the UK, where they absorbed proven insights from CS titans from Oracle, Culture Amp, Otta, and more.

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We managed to catch Ryan after the first day’s events to listen to his experience of the festival. 👇

Was the Customer Success Festival worth attending?

“We've learned loads coming from today. Some of it we've validated what we're already doing, what you're doing well, and that's really important to us. But we've learned so much and what we've really learned is that customer success needs to be at the heart of revenue generation within our business, particularly in terms of growing customers.”

What did Ryan get out of attending?

“Our day at the festival was absolutely brilliant. We've done loads and networking, so we've really we've heard from a lot of really interesting speakers. This is the first time we've come to a non-industry event.

“My team and I have learned a lot about what other similar businesses are doing and some of the challenges they’re facing. So for us, it's been a really, really useful day!”

Is Ryan coming to the next Customer Success Festival?

“We’ll definitely be attending another Customer Success Festival. I think we've learned so much and the team that I brought with me today, are really energized, really enthused, and they're really ready to apply a lot of what they've learned from the other speakers.

“So, from us that we'll definitely come to another one of these events.”

Are you thinking about attending the next CSC event?

Try before you buy!

With a CSC membership plan, you can gain access to previous footage of every in-person and virtual event we’ve put on (including London) OnDemand.

And all from the comfort of your computer! 👀

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