Steve Ashwood

Where the revenue leaks

These are the most common places businesses lose customers they could have kept.

"Customers aren't getting the value they signed up for"

Most customers who leave early never reached the outcome they bought the product for.

Define what success looks like for the customer and carry it through every handoff from sales to onboarding and beyond. Then fix the step where most customers stall.

"We need to retain more customers"

Customers decide to leave long before they tell you and most churn is determined in the first 90 days. Low contact is often mistaken for a healthy account.

Identify the early signals that a customer is moving away from the outcome they bought, and step in before they decide to leave.

"We need more new customers"

The growth revenue you're looking for is often already in your existing base, and strong new sales can hide how many customers are leaving.

Identify the accounts that are ready to grow and keep them achieving value beyond the renewal.

"We're treating every account the same"

Your most valuable accounts are probably getting the least strategic attention.

Match delivery and resource to the value and complexity of each customer.

"Operational bottlenecks are slowing everything down"

The team is busy but the wrong things are absorbing the time.

Find out where the team's time is going and redirect it from repetitive, low-value work to customer-focused activity.

"I'm involved in every decision"

Growth gets capped by one person's availability.

Set up clear workflows and escalation paths so the team knows what they own, and only the decisions that need you reach you.

Measurable outcomes

From 15+ years leading customer and commercial operations inside a FTSE 100 enterprise and an established, PE-backed SaaS platform serving 11,000 customers globally.

90%

Client retention while expansion revenue grew at the same time

75%

Reduction in early implementation failure

120 hrs

Per week recovered from manual processes

23%

Average improvement in time to value across all customer segments

Marshall Threw CEO, Skill Shot Golf

Steve helped my startup build a customer success strategy and business unit from the ground up. Having him as a fractional executive helped us stay agile on a lean budget while building a strong foundation for future success, without experiencing the growing pains of learning the customer success functions ourselves.

His deep experience is clear in his ability to turn complex workflows and situations into simple, standardized procedures, and to structure the implementation in logical stages that benefit us today, as well as when we scale. Over our time working together, we saw a 36% increase in user activation.

PE-backed SaaS Business · Onboarding & Implementation

When the answer isn't more headcount

The onboarding team was overwhelmed. We were pulling in staff from other markets to cover the load and the pressure was building to hire. Before doing that, I asked a simpler question: where is the team's time actually going?

A task-by-task analysis revealed that most of the effort was going on manual, low-value work that existed only because nobody had questioned it. Four automation improvements later, 120 hours per week were recovered and redirected to the work that actually mattered. The headcount request was never needed.

120 hrs/wk recovered 0 new hires

PE-backed SaaS Business · Customer Health

I built the system that told us who was about to leave

1 in 5 high-touch customers were churning early. Nobody could see why until it was too late, there was no way to see a customer disengaging before they'd already decided to leave.

I built a health scoring model drawing on CRM, product usage, finance and support data. Eight indicators tracked weekly, updated in 15 minutes, with a clear response for each and a cross-functional review built in. The team could see trouble coming and act before it became a retention crisis.

75% reduction in early churn 1 in 20 post-model vs 1 in 5 before

PE-backed SaaS Business · Segmentation & Delivery

When everyone gets the same, the most valuable get the least

The business needed to do better by its most valuable customers. At the same time, the team couldn't sustain the volume at a single tier. Both problems pointed to the same fix.

I designed and implemented a three-tier delivery model — low, medium and high touch. Getting it to stick was as much about the team as the process. Presented to the CEO, approved, and rolled out globally department by department.

CEO approved Global rollout 23% faster time to value

FTSE 100 Enterprise · Customer Success

Turning around a customer base that had stopped believing in the product

Retention was in the low 80s. With a team of 7 managing over 400 customers across diverse sectors. Nobody had properly listened to what customers were experiencing and done something visible about it.

I started with a structured audit and direct conversations with a sample of the base. Categorised what I heard. Prioritised by commercial impact. Re-designed the engagement programme through a tiered structure to ensure customers received value. Within 12 months: retention moved from the low 80s to 90%. CSAT from 6.5 to 8.3. £1M expansion revenue from the same customer base.

90% retention £1M expansion CSAT 6.5 → 8.3 within 12 months

How we work together

A flexible way to engage, depending on what the business needs.

Not sure where to start?

Before you buy another dashboard or tool, know what you're putting it on top of. Discover where your operation is leaking revenue, capacity, or customer value in under 3 minutes.

Take the Free Health Check

Consulting Project

Fixed-scope engagement to deliver a specific solution.

If you know the area that needs fixing, we agree the scope and deliverables and get to work.

If something isn't right but you're not sure what's causing it, we start with a Value Leak Diagnostic. This maps where your operation is leaking commercial value, quantifies what it's worth fixing, and gives us a set of priorities to define the scope of work.

Fixed scope Defined outcome Clear timeline

Fractional Operations Leader

Embedded in your business as a senior leader, owning the outcomes and driving the function.

The businesses I work with come out the other side with faster time to value, stronger retention, more efficient operations, and a team that performs consistently. Proper governance sits underneath all of it: the reporting cadence, the decision-making structure, and the commercial accountability that keeps things on track.

Typically 1 to 3 days per week. No recruitment, no ramp-up, no full-time overhead.

3–12 months Embedded, part-time

Retained Advisory

An ongoing advisory partnership for companies with existing leadership that want outside perspectives, strategic challenge, and governance across customer retention, onboarding, and operational efficiency.

Typically a retained monthly engagement with regular structured conversations. Well suited to businesses where a fractional or consulting project has concluded and the relationship continues in a lighter form.

Ongoing Monthly retainer

Customer Operations Consultant

Steve Ashwood is a customer operations consultant with 15+ years leading customer and commercial operations inside a FTSE 100 enterprise and a scaling, PE-backed SaaS business. He's led customer operations at scale, built CS functions from scratch, and managed £4.5M ARR customer portfolios.

He left corporate to work at a different pace. Decisions land faster, impact is more visible, and there's less distance between the problem and the fix.

He works collaboratively, without ego, and with a genuine interest in the outcome rather than just the engagement. He'll push for progress, challenge thinking where it needs challenging, and stay focused on what actually moves the business forward.

Common questions

Is this right for my business?

Probably not if you don't have customers yet, and the gap is finding new ones. It's also not the right fit if you need a tool set up rather than the operation around it. If you're unsure, the 30-minute intro call is where we find out, and I'll tell you if I'm not the right person.

Do you only work with SaaS businesses?

No. Most of my background is in SaaS and enterprise, but the same problems show up in any business with customers to keep. I've worked with a B2C app as well as B2B platforms.

Do you make recommendations or implement the changes?

Either, depending on what the business needs. Some projects end with recommendations your team takes forward, and others need me involved until the changes are in place and working. We agree which at the start.

How long does a fractional engagement last, and how does it end?

Typically 3 to 12 months at 1 to 3 days a week. The aim is to build the operation and hand it over to your team or to a permanent hire.

How do you work with the team I already have?

I work with your existing people and add the senior experience that's missing. Where it's useful, part of the work is building their capability so the changes last after I've gone.

Where do we start?

With a 30-minute intro call. If you'd like a sense of where things stand first, the Health Check takes three minutes.

I help growing businesses deliver more revenue from the customers they've already won.