I started my career answering help desk calls — which gives me an unusually grounded perspective on what happens after the sale. From that starting point I have worked in, built, and led multiple post-sales functions across two major technology companies and in my consulting practice. Post-sales is where customer relationships are made or broken, and where most technology companies chronically under-invest.
“Natalie does a wonderful job of communicating to the team and making sure that we share the same priorities, but most importantly that we understand why they are priorities in the first place. I appreciate the time and energy she spends crafting detailed communications and leading discussions that make us all feel like we’re part of the process.”
— Peer feedback, ZS Associates
At NDH Advisory
I advised a post-sales transformation for a PE-backed enterprise SaaS company — proposing a new vision and direction, advising on community re-platforming, creating a new economy for rewards and recognition, and advising on the harmonization of their community, learning, and self-service capabilities. This engagement drew on a thread that runs through much of my career: knowledge management, community, and the infrastructure that determines whether customers stay engaged after the sale.
At ZS Associates
When I joined ZS’s software development group, there were over a hundred engineers but no formal Customer Experience infrastructure. As a member of the leadership team, I managed complex client escalations for the CTO and conducted a root cause analysis that identified addressable risks across the buyer and customer lifecycle. The findings made the business case for three new functions — Technical Support, Software Licensing, and Professional Services. I was asked to build and lead the first two.
Technical Support was not my first help desk — I had answered up to 70 calls a day in earlier roles — so I knew exactly what a high-functioning support team required. In collaboration with IT and Legal, I established cross-departmental processes, implemented Service Cloud for ticketing and SLA compliance reporting, and built a team from scratch. The result: engineering productivity increased by 13%, and we consistently achieved 99.9% SLA compliance.
T2 Technical Support: Built a technical support function from scratch, achieving 99.9% SLA compliance and 13% improvement in engineering productivity.
Software Licensing presented a different but equally urgent problem: administrative staff were managing complex, time-sensitive renewal processes in a spreadsheet. I built a dedicated team, augmented our Service Cloud implementation with DocuSign, and established proper processes. In the first quarter of operation we significantly reduced escalations — and the team discovered $1M in license revenue that would otherwise have gone uncollected.
Software Licensing: Built a software licensing function that recovered $1M in license revenue in its first quarter of operation.
At SAP
My earliest roles at SAP were in technical support and Learning and Development — answering calls, maintaining training systems for HR and Payroll, and building the foundational knowledge of what good post-sales infrastructure looks like from the inside. Those experiences shaped how I think about the downstream implications of poorly executed implementations — and made me a better seller and delivery leader later in my career.
What This Means for Clients Today
I have built post-sales functions from nothing, led them through rapid growth, and advised on their transformation at enterprise scale. If your post-sales infrastructure isn’t keeping pace with your growth — or if customer retention, community, or Customer Experience is the constraint — I understand the full picture and can help you build toward it.