Irit Eizips, CEO of CSM Practice, recently talked to her podcast guest Kirsten DiChiappari, Vice President at vCom Solutions. Kirsten has successfully led successful digital customer success scaling initiatives, leveraging AI-driven automation to expand engagement while optimizing team efficiency. By integrating data-driven insights and automated touchpoints, she has improved customer coverage, increased engagement rates, and streamlined the delivery of key account updates.
Customer success teams must scale engagement without adding headcount. vCom Solutions tackled this challenge with automation and AI-driven engagement. Kirsten DiChiappari, VP of vCom, led the shift, adopting Cast.app AI CSM to streamline customer interactions. The result? A 26% increase in engagement and a transformation of QBRs into microQBRs (mQBRs)—short, automated, and tailored updates.
Traditional QBRs weren’t scalable—long meetings, no-shows, and time constraints made them inefficient. To solve this, vCom replaced them with microQBRs (mQBRs), delivering automated, personalized updates in under four minutes with Cast.app AI CSM.
After implementing Cast.app AI CSM, vCom saw higher engagement with QBR insights, increased interaction with recommendations, and more customer-driven questions and responses. Instead of long meetings, customers received short, actionable reports on their activity, missed opportunities, and areas for growth. They clicked, asked questions, and took action, with some even rediscovering forgotten features—driving organic expansion.
When vCom first launched microQBRs, engagement rates spiked to 40% open rates—a clear indicator of strong interest.
One customer initially dismissed the microQBRs but kept watching every month.
Upon investigating, vCom realized he wanted more tailored insights for a specific feature he used. This feedback led to personalize enhancements, proving that digital engagement isn’t just about one-time automation—it’s about always listening and iterating.
The benefits of Cast.app AI CSM went beyond QBRs, helping vCom scale engagement by automating welcome and onboarding campaigns and reboarding disengaged customers with targeted outreach. It also delivered role-specific insights for executives and daily users, ensuring relevance.
With automation handling routine updates, CSMs could focus on strategic accounts, deepening relationships while giving customers control over how they consume information.
When Kirsten first explored customer success platforms (CSPs), she found them too complex for vCom’s immediate needs.
That’s when Cast.app’s CEO reached out with a compelling message:
“Hey, we have this tool. It’s not a CSP. You can still get a CSP. You can do whatever you want. But I think this can make a difference for you today. It can help you accelerate your growth. It can help your teams cover more ground. It acts as a digital customer success agent.”
This mindset shift led to vCom improving efficiency without disrupting existing workflows.
By leveraging Cast.app AI CSM, vCom achieved:
Greater scalability—more accounts covered without extra headcount
Higher engagement—from passive recipients to active participants
Tailored automation—customers get insights they need, when they need them
CSM empowerment—teams spend more time on strategy, less on routine updates
As customer success teams evolve, AI-driven solutions like Cast.app AI CSM are proving to be the future of scalable engagement.
26% increase in Engagement
40% of Customer Interactions
Below is an AI edited and formatted version of the full transcript, along with AI generated headings.
CSM Practice Podcast: How vCom Transformed Customer Engagement with Cast.app AI CSM
Irit Eizips:
Hello, hello everyone! Thank you for joining me. My name is Irit Eizips, and I’m your host at the CSM Practice Podcast.
On this podcast, we interview talented leaders from the customer success and software industry to understand how they retain customers, increase adoption, and build a green client machine.
Today, I have Kirsten DiChiappari, Vice President of Customer Success at vCom Solutions. Kirsten has spent the past 12 years in customer success after transitioning from a successful career in human resources.
She currently lives in Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, with her husband and their 14-year-old dog.
Kirsten, thank you for joining me! Let’s dive into some of the exciting things you’ve been working on at vCom. But before we do, can you briefly share what kinds of clients your CSM teams work with and what problems they help solve?
About vCom Solutions and Its Customers
Kirsten DiChiappari:
First of all, thank you for having me!
vCom Solutions is an IT lifecycle management company. We manage the entire lifecycle of an IT asset, including:
• Network infrastructure
• Mobile plans and devices
• Hardware and SaaS solutions
Our customers, whether IT teams or finance teams, rely on us to track, manage, and optimize their IT investments. We are a managed services company with a SaaS platform, and my team is responsible for retention and expansion of those accounts.
We work with a variety of businesses:
• Primarily mid-market companies
• Some enterprise clients
• A fair number of small businesses
We typically engage with CIOs, CTOs, CFOs, and their teams to help them manage their IT environments more effectively.
The vCom Customer Success Team & Engagement Model
Irit Eizips:
How big is your team, and what kind of engagement model do you currently have?
Kirsten DiChiappari:
Our Customer Success team consists of 10 people, including:
• Five dedicated Customer Success Account Managers (CSAMs)
• One CS Ops specialist
• A community manager
• An education and enablement specialist focused on customer adoption
• A leader who oversees our one-to-one and one-to-many engagement strategies
Our structure ensures that we offer both high-touch and scalable digital engagement to meet the needs of all our customers.
Achieving a 26% Increase in Customer Engagement
Irit Eizips:
One of the most exciting parts of today’s discussion is how vCom achieved a 26% increase in customer engagement. That’s huge!
Can you share more about how you measured engagement and what led to this improvement?
Kirsten DiChiappari:
Absolutely! QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) and customer engagement have been major topics in customer success for years.
When I joined vCom in 2022, the CS team was measured solely on the number of QBRs conducted per quarter. However, this metric didn’t truly reflect customer success.
The Problem with Traditional QBRs:
• Simply checking a box for a QBR didn’t indicate value or impact.
• Customers could attend every QBR and still churn or reduce their spending.
• Our CSMs had high portfolios (70-80 customers each), making deep relationships difficult.
Instead of forcing customers into long QBR meetings, we focused on delivering value on their terms.
Many of our customers, especially small and mid-sized businesses, don’t have the bandwidth for traditional QBRs. They just want quick, actionable insights—not a 45-minute meeting just for the sake of having a meeting.
The Search for a Scalable Engagement Solution
I started evaluating Customer Success Platforms (CSPs) to see how we could improve engagement.
However, I quickly realized that:
• Our data wasn’t structured well enough to immediately integrate into a CSP.
• Many CSPs required a long implementation period.
• The process felt like a bigger hill to climb than we had time for.
Then, by chance, I was introduced to Cast.app AI CSM (CastAgent.ai).
“It’s Not a CSP—It’s a Digital Customer Success Agent”
The CEO of Cast.app reached out and said something that resonated with me:
“Hey, we have this tool. It’s not a CSP. You can still go get a CSP. You can do whatever you want. But I think this can make a difference for you today. It can help you accelerate your growth. It can help your teams cover more ground. It acts as a digital customer success agent.”
When I saw the first demo, I immediately thought:
✅ This is exactly what we need!
✅ Even if it’s just a stepping stone, it’s a game-changer.
MicroQBRs: The Game-Changer for Scalable Engagement
With Cast.app AI CSM, we launched a MicroQBR (mQBR) approach.
🔹 What’s a MicroQBR?
Instead of forcing customers into long meetings, we provide automated, digestible insights in under four minutes.
🔹 How It Works:
• A digital CSM walks the customer through their key metrics.
• Customers receive personalized insights on what they did, didn’t do, and opportunities for improvement.
• They can click to schedule demos, access reports, or ask direct questions.
This automated engagement has been hugely successful—customers finally get the information they need without wasting time.
40% Engagement: A New Standard for Digital Success
When we first launched microQBRs, our open rates were 40%—a clear indicator that customers were hungry for this format.
Some customers even realized they had forgotten about key services we offer—leading to organic expansion opportunities.
We even had a skeptical customer who initially dismissed the reports but kept watching them every month. When we dug deeper, we realized he wanted customized reporting for mobility services. Thanks to his feedback, we created a specialized version for mobile analytics—helping all our customers in the process.
Final Thoughts: The Future of Digital CS
We are now expanding our digital-first engagement strategy to include:
✔ Pre-boarding and re-engagement campaigns
✔ Automated renewal management
✔ Role-specific dashboards (executives vs. end users)
Our team is now able to cover more accounts efficiently, focus on strategic goals, and drive measurable impact.
Closing Remarks & Call to Action
Irit Eizips:
This has been a fantastic conversation! The way vCom transformed customer success with Cast.app AI CSM is truly inspiring.
To everyone listening:
🎯 If you’re looking to scale engagement without adding headcount, check out cast.app!
Kirsten DiChiappari:
Thank you so much for having me! This was an absolute pleasure.
🎙 That’s a wrap! See you at the next CSM Practice Podcast episode!
