A simultaneous mandate: transform a broken support operation while leading the Customer Support and Corporate IT workstreams of a 254-person merger — with a 30-day integration target from deal close.
When I joined AudienceView in August 2018, the support operation had a P2 response time exceeding 20 days. Customers were waiting three weeks for a response to issues classified as significant but non-critical. The team had no formal tiering structure, no OLA framework with internal partners, and no knowledge base customers could self-serve from.
Within the first year, the Vendini acquisition was announced — deal signed May 13, 2019, closed May 27. I was assigned the Customer Support and Corporate IT workstreams of the integration, with a Day 30 target of June 11 for operational alignment across two organisations that had never worked together.
The support transformation had four components, each addressing a different failure point in the existing operation:
The AudienceView/Vendini integration had a tight timeline. Deal signed May 13, closed May 27, Day 30 target June 11. I led two workstreams — Customer Support and Corporate IT — responsible for org design, people mapping, process unification, and the communications that kept both teams informed without creating unnecessary anxiety.
Org design required mapping two distinct support structures — different tiering, different tooling, different escalation paths — onto a unified model that could serve both customer bases without a visible seam. This meant decisions about which processes survived, which were retired, and how the combined team would be structured going forward.
People mapping was the most sensitive element. Every role in both organisations needed to be assessed against the end-state NewCo structure. The goal was to communicate role clarity as early as possible, using honest information rather than corporate language that created more uncertainty than it resolved.
End-state headcount for the combined organisation was approximately 254, with run-rate synergies of ~$8.1M USD across the NewCo. Full integration target was December 1, 2019.
The transformation and the integration reinforced each other. The OLA framework and tiering model we built for AudienceView became the template for the unified support operation post-merger. Starting the transformation before the merger closed meant we had a working model to absorb Vendini into rather than building from scratch under integration pressure.
Communication cadence matters more than communication content. During the integration, teams cared less about what was decided than about knowing that decisions were being made and they would be told. A regular, honest update — even when the update was "we don't have a final answer yet" — reduced anxiety significantly more than detailed memos published infrequently.
Knowledge base investment pays during disruption. The self-help KB we built before the merger closed absorbed the spike in customer queries that came during integration — queries driven by confusion about what the merger meant for their product and support experience. Having documented answers ready was the right call.