Women in Customer Success Podcast

145 - From Vineyards to Tech: Dimple Athavia's Unconventional Road to Customer Success

• Marija Skobe-Pilley • Season 5 • Episode 145

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What does it take to leap from vineyards to tech—and thrive? 

In this episode, we sit down with Dimple Athavia, a former winemaker (now, Customer Success Manager at Mimecast) who turned her love of chemistry, nature, and craft into a high-impact career in Customer Success. Her path is curiosity in motion: from studying microbiology and viticulture, to traveling the world for harvests, to building a drinks venture that sparked a deep fascination with digital products, data, and scale.

Dimple shares how she broke into her first CSM role—treating interviews like iterative sprints, translating experience into CS language, and reaching out to a podcast guest for mentoring with a clear, respectful ask. That single outreach led to a new opportunity and a lasting lesson: be specific about what you need, make it easy for mentors to help you, and turn inspiration into action.

We chat about:

  • Early love of science leading to a winemaking degree and global harvest work
  • Building a CSM career through podcasts, clear outreach and mentorship
  • Strategic customer conversations that map goals and influence
  • Practical AI use for research, memory support and preparation in CS
  • Guidance for emerging leaders on trust, clarity and coaching

She also shares how AI fits into the modern CSM toolkit—from researching public signals before first calls to surfacing insights and personalizing every touchpoint. For her, data directs attention; real conversations build momentum.

If this conversation sparks an idea for your career or customer strategy, share it with a colleague, hit follow, and leave a quick review to help others discover the show.


💚 This episode is brought to you by Deployflow: https://deployflow.co/


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👉 Follow Dimple: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimple-a-21a37b150/

👉 Learn more about Deployflow & P-Suite by Deployflow and get a quick squad estimate at: https://deployflow.co/p-suite/

👉 Learn more about Mimecast, a company transforming the way businesses manage and secure human risk: https://www.mimecast.com/



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Women in Customer Success Podcast is the first women-only podcast for Customer Success professionals, where remarkable ladies of Customer Success connect, inspire and champion each other.


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Host Marija Skobe-Pilley

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SPEAKER_01:

When I was 16, I was studying microbiology and studying chemistry and botany, setting myself up for my BSC career in something quite interesting. So, tech industry customer success manager was definitely not on the radar. I honestly think life is too short, and I'm truly a lifelong learner. I have to keep learning, I have to keep growing. I can't help myself, to be honest with you. I've always been that kid that puts the hand up to say, well, why is it like this? And let's let's dig a bit deeper into this. I really threw myself at it. You know, learning about not just the CSM world, but also the product world. That is something that's always held such fascination for me. A customer product feedback loop to really help the product be built for the customers that are championing them and working along with them. Definitely a big advice would be if anyone is listening to this thinking this is their first CSM role they're trying to crack. 100% think of you know how you could put yourself in their mentors' shoes and see how you can make it easier for them to help you. We don't have unlimited time, so I really love data and I really love analytics because it just points you to where you need to spend your energy now. And it helps you prioritize and it's essential. Of course, without that, you're you're just you know flying a bit blind. So you absolutely love data and analytics, but really the magic is in the in those calls.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi everyone, welcome to the Women in Customer Success podcast. It's a cloudy day in London, and I'm happy to have an amazing guest with me today who is also based in London. So maybe we will not reminish about the weather as we would typically do. But I'm sure that we will speak about something that could be very surprising to many of you. But I will let her tell us more about it. In any case, it is an absolute pleasure to welcome Dimple Atavia to the podcast. She's customer success manager at MimeCast. Dimple, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Maria.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm really excited to be here. And really, it's a two milestone for me to be speaking to you and you know being on Women and CS uh podcasts. So yeah, really, really looking forward to our conversation today. Uh really excited.

SPEAKER_00:

Dimple, I'm really looking forward to the conversation because I would like us to explore more about your probably pretty surprising background for tech, but more about it just a bit later. Dimple, we we have to figure out a few uh few fire fire questions that that people want to know about. Firstly, where are you based?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm based in West Sussex, I'm originally from India, and I'm originally from Mumbai, but I'm based in West Sussex, and I come into London for work.

SPEAKER_00:

West Sussex is a beautiful part of England. Okay. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I think you probably already guessed by now, but I am very much an extrovert. I get a lot of energy from people. Okay, I have one question that probably will give us a very nice segue into your background. Would a 16-year-old Dimple be very surprised to find you in the role of customer success manager? She would be quite surprised, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

That is a fair, fair statement. When I was 16, I was studying microbiology and studying chemistry and botany, setting myself up for my my BSC career in in something quite interesting. So you know, yeah, tech industry and definitely customer success manager didn't even know this role existed. It was definitely not on the radar.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, now I'm trying to see how I will tell it very nicely with lots of respect, but I'll give myself permission because I'm an Indian daughter-in-law. So you were doing chemistry and lots of sciences, and then you ended up in the wine industry, and I'm speaking with lots of respect because typically alcohol is not a thing in India. I personally don't drink alcohol at all. So I'm just trying to figure it out culturally, and what happened and how did you end up in wine, which is already for me a big step like culturally from India, finding yourself in the wine industry. And again, apologies to anyone who would think that I'm talking about stereotypes, but it's very unusual in such a positive way. So I want to explore that, and then of course we'll see what happened. How did you end up from wine to tech? So let's go on that journey.

SPEAKER_01:

You're absolutely right, to be honest with you. The amount of women working in wine and amount of women working in wine that are also from India is a really minuscule number. There is, of course, a bit of a culture. Like you say, it's it's you know, it's a big country, things vary from region to region, family to family. Some families are uh don't wouldn't drink, some families do. In my case, my parents were quite open, quite liberal. We had a very sort of open and happy uh liberal upbringing, I would say. So there weren't that many blocks for us in that sense. But I think what happened is I really wanted to work in some industry where I was a massive geek. I absolutely loved, fell in love with chemistry. I fell in love with biochemistry. And I was thinking of different ways and different industries that I could go into with that passion. And really something came up as viticulture. And then also my dad has a farmhouse. I've been brought up with on a on a on land as well. So really being in the nature is quite natural for me, gardening, you know, growing different types of fruits and things like that. So I just felt like all of that fell together when I realized that something like the wine industry even existed. But you're absolutely right. It's very unusual at the time. Uh, but I have an amazing dad who just absolutely said, yeah, if that's what you want to do, let's go. No, no problem.

SPEAKER_00:

We can make this work. Okay, so am I getting it right that you entered the wine industry from that kind of chemistry lens of kind of figuring out how do you do it? Tell me more about like what was the job that you were doing in the wine industry.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I did three years in a BSC in winemaking. So did a degree in learning how to make wine. It's quite technical. It was fantastic. Really first time I came to the UK from India, so there's a massive learning curve. I traveled around the world. You can't you can't make wine remotely. Uh so I had to get it, it's only made once a year. So I traveled around the world, you know, making wine in the northern hemisphere when it's harvest season, which is sort of autumn time, and then going to the southern hemisphere where the harvest starts again. So the areas like New Zealand and France and Cyprus and India and Singapore. And then I also did some work within the spirits industry, so Scotland and also been to California. So it was it was an amazing few years of just sort of traveling around, you know, working that a big part of the learning, I would say, during that time is it's quite tough work. So you really had to learn to be resilient and trust yourself, but also teamwork. You know, one person cannot make commercial wine, or one person cannot harvest all the grades. So really learning to work at a part of a team and trusting each other to a common goal with attention to detail and hard work was really good sounding blocks of those years in my life.

SPEAKER_00:

Firstly, it sounds absolutely fantastic traveling all around the world and tasting wine and figuring out how it's done. Like obviously, I'm sure that half of the listeners are now thinking, oh my gosh, maybe they're just googling already how how to change careers from customer success in the current climate. Who knows? Maybe it's a very good thing. However, so from the agricultural perspective of having vineyards, being on a vineyard to harvesting, to then technical wine production and marketing and making commercial wine. Like, did you see it all, or did you find yourself really in every aspect of it? What did you enjoy the most? Or what what are maybe surprising things that you learned through that journey?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I was so curious. You know, making all this wine, how do we sell it? What happens at the end of the production? So I did a master's in retail and business and really wanted to learn the trade. So I spent about five or so years working in the drinks trade side of things. So really, like you say, marketing, sales, working with Michelin style restaurants to make their wine list, food and wine pairing, judging for competitions, you know, really did it all. And to be honest, what I learned a lot in that, which is not necessarily a negative, but for myself, I learned a lot of times that I'm a bit, I'm quite dynamic and the industry is quite traditional. You know, they they've been doing something hundreds of years in the same way. You stay in your box a little bit unless you want to, again, switch your job to work collaboratively with other people. And I I saw tech industry free and I felt that, oh, it's such an exciting, dynamic industry where you can really turn your ideas into, you know, into something really creative and innovative. So I've always felt this kinship of like, oh, I wonder what's going on in the tech industry. Uh and I had my own business called All Things Drinks, and I still have the website. But as a part of setting that up, I had to use so much tech to be able to get that, you know, up and running on a shoestring budget, as you could imagine, that the more I learned about it, the more I was fascinated, you know, loved Hopspot. You know, company like HubSpot loved, you know, we use MailChimp, we used WordPress, we used, we used so many different tech. And at the time, we I had a mentor who was the head of digital IT at ASOS.com. And he was such a fantastic, you know, really trying to understand what that industry was like. He was so, so welcome in an opening to kind of sharing his his his learnings. That honestly, I I actually was a bit jealous of tech industry. And I I felt like I had done it all in the wine, really. In the drinks industry.

SPEAKER_00:

That's now really interesting because from our perspective of people, shall I say people in the tech, thinking about your dynamic job of being in one industry, preparing wine with drinks, working with Michelin star restaurants, like having such a dynamic, interesting lifestyle and work. And then you're figuring out, woohoo, there are tools out there. That's cool. I want to be there. Why the shift? Why would you change?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I honestly think life is too short. And I'm one of those people. I have I'm truly a lifelong learner. I have to keep learning, I have to keep growing. I can't help myself, to be honest with you. So I'm always been that kid that puts the hand up to say, well, why is it like this? And let's let's dig a bit deeper into this. So honestly, it was a new adventure, the ability to be a rookie in somewhere new after 12 years of having quite a significant career, to be able to say, ah, do you know what? I would really love to understand the building blocks of what it takes to build a world product and be a global, uh, you know, global product for thousands of customers, not one, you know, not a handful. So I was really just fascinated by it.

SPEAKER_00:

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SPEAKER_01:

That first job was tough to crack, and I really do owe a lot of it to Roman CS podcast. Really? Yes. Okay, well, thank you. But tell me more. How did that go? I was doing so much research. You know, every interview, it took me about six months to get my first CSM role. But every interview, I was trying to obviously take back some feedback, build, build my CV better, build my talk track better. And I was listening to Women NCS because I love podcasters as a method of learning anyway. And I found that what really helped me was the vocabulary that people were using, the metrics that people were talking about. And I could then take that and really think, oh, have I actually built trust with customers before? Or have I actually built relationships or worked on goals? And I could really navigate those transferable skills by listening to real people who are doing that job today. And, you know, that's when I heard of Angelica. There was one of the persons that you interviewed called Angelica Murray. At the time, she was a digital CS at Bizarre Voice, I think. And everything she said was so interesting to me. And I reached out to her on LinkedIn and she was so kind to offer me an unstructured, but but somewhat, you know, three sort of mentoring sessions and then some way for me to, this is my first person that I could actually go to and ask questions. So I really do owe you a lot of uh my start of my journey.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my gosh, this is so nice. It's incredible when you're thinking about it that you you're hearing from somebody on podcasts or you know, webinars, and actually those are you know people who are out there, they are on LinkedIn, you can easily reach out to them as you showedcased. Very often those people are just one message away from you, and most of the people in customer success are just so nice and kind to respond and and offer some sort of mentoring and you know, coffee chats, etc. So this is really interesting. So you've been talking to Angelica, learning more about customer success vocabulary from podcasts and other sources. How did it help you to what prepare for interview? Were you already in the process and then you ended up working with Angelica, which is another story? I I I'm just interested in it all because I'm fascinated by the journey. And for the audience, I would just as as you're listening, I would just like you to remember some of those steps that Dimple took. Learning, so she was trying something new, she was doing the research, she used different podcasts to learn, and then she made a step of reaching out to that person. There's nothing wrong in it, and it worked out so well for her, not only in terms of learning, but also in getting a new mentorship relationship. So, yeah, how did you end up getting a job?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I got my first job in Agicap. Uh, they were wonderful. I had the best manager called Gail. He was he was our team lead and CSM, a UK team lead manager. And it was, it was my first role. So I really threw myself at it, you know, learning about not just the CSM world, but also the product world. That is something that's always held such fascination for me, that customer product feedback loop to really help the product be built for the customers that are championing them and working along with them. So that was exciting. And then when Angelica moved to Minecast and she was a manager there, uh a role on her team came up and she said, Would you like to apply? And I was so, so excited. And I absolutely applied immediately. And I ended up getting the role and I worked with her for the best part of the of the last year, which has been, again, such an amazing that one person that we connected with, it it felt like it was meant to be. But I will say, again, kind of going back to uh that coaching and how to start, um, you know, really the way I reached out is I said, I really liked these two or three things that you mentioned. You know, honestly, genuinely, I found them fascinating. And what I'm trying to achieve is trying to change careers. And if I could have two or three hours of your time over the next month or two, that'd be really helpful for me. So really helped her see what I wanted. And that I think that was then easier for her to say, okay, I can do this and we can work together with someone. So definitely a big advice would be if anyone is listening to this thinking this is their first CSM role they're trying to crack, 100% think of you know how you could put yourself in their mentor's shoes and see how you can make it easier for them to help you.

SPEAKER_00:

This is wonderful. So you you are taking things in your hands, you're being proactive by asking others and making it very easy for them. I think that is an incredible lesson. Doing some sort of mentorship for years, I have seen just loads of different types of mentoring and people approaching it. And sometimes it it saddens me to see how how people may think that almost they are entitled to a mentor, especially in customer success. And if somebody doesn't respond to their message for free mentoring within 24 hours, they're making a panic as if somebody's duty is to, you know, attend to them. So, people firstly be kind. Everybody are so busy. Make it nice and easy for others to help you because at the end of the day, you will gain a lot. Thank you for that lesson. Now, as you've been in your for a second now role of a CSM, what has been that learning curve for you?

SPEAKER_01:

It's been huge. The first role I had was Agicap, which was FinTech. And then the second role that I currently have uh is in Mimecast, which is cybersecurity. And as people might know, the cybersecurity is famous for being, you know, quite a lot of technical sometimes learnings. But luckily, where we are, there's a lot of focus on strategic CSM and bringing those skills to the table. So some of the big learnings I would say is really how to build trust and influence with the customer. That is one of the biggest learning to sit in the mud with them without necessarily doing the work for them, but being helping them to guide through their goals, being able to map their goals is actually really, really important. And that won't happen on the first call, obviously, as you build that relationship with them. To be able to educate them what a CSM does, to be honest. Sometimes I'm working with CISOs, I'm working with IT directors, I'm working with, you know, several different people. Even when I was working with uh in the finance industry, working with CFOs, not everybody at CS differs, every organization CSM is a different role. So really educating what you can bring to the table is such a big step for, again, the same way to help them, to help yourself, to for them to see how you could help them going forward. Um, has been a has been a really good, good learning. I'd say things like, is there appetite for us to collaborate on this together? Is there any particular goals you're working with which I can just help you reach that? Especially if you know a little bit more about the customer and they say, Oh, we have to achieve X, Y, Z. You can build a little bit further on that to say, is there a timeline to that? Is there a certain bonus attached to that for yourself? You know, really try to get into their shoes and genuinely care. And that helps build an amazing relationship and trust that they can rely on you.

SPEAKER_00:

Dimple, I've been talking with lots of leaders, especially this year, as everything is about AI and AI agents and how teams are changing, etc. Now, from a CSM perspective, did and how did AI at all change your job or change your role as a CSM?

SPEAKER_01:

I really like AI, so uh you're not going to get too many negative sentiment from me here.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, I'm not looking for for negative or positive. I want to see kind of the the land of the state. You know, people are talking about it, but let's see what CSMs are actually doing with AI.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. So, first things first, if I'm going talking to a customer that I've never met before yet, so it's my first meeting with this customer, then what I would do is use AI to look at, you know, what is their current market situation? What are they doing as a company? What is important to them, what is already in the public domain, uh, for me to understand in the last six to 12 months, how are they performing? Are they growing? Are they, are they, you know, being acquired? Are they acquiring? Uh so really try to understand at the end of the day, this is a business and and the solution that you're providing has to fit into their business plan. So really understanding a little bit about that, but then not going into the core with any preconceived notions, just using those words to help, you know, oh, I understand you're in the legal industry. What are some of the things that you're currently facing? So not necessarily assuming things, but using it as a leverage to build more, more conversation and and again, ramp that conversation flat. First, one to feel like you've spoken to them before almost. That's something that I use a lot. And then again, we have tools which uh which are sort of note-taking tools and things like that, which have AI, which you can prompt. So you can look back to the customer and say, what are some of the three top things for, you know, priority for this customer that we should absolutely be working on? And again, that's something you can bring to the table to say, you know, we're having so many meetings all the time as CSMs. We don't always remember every customer and all of the things we spoke to them about two months ago, maybe a month ago. But that's not how they should feel. You know, they should feel like they're the most important people for you. So you you show up in the call very much, say, Oh, I remember when we spoke last time and you know, you said these three things are important. Have these goals changed or are still these very much front and center? Using AI where my memory would fail, and and and public knowledge where I'd have to go into each of those web pages and learn about them, really using AI there to bring what is unique to me to the table.

SPEAKER_00:

I like how you're framing it because it looks like you are genuinely talking a lot with customers, which is already amazing. You're having that opportunity. It's you're you're not in a situation where you have to kind of automate or put all of that tasks to AI. So you are in a super nice position already that you can just leverage AI to make you a bit better prepared and more efficient in your preparation. But again, you are the one who is really front and center dealing with those customers. I can see by the smile on your face that that seemed to be bringing you a lot of joy. So now I wonder, at the end of the day, okay, it's Friday, probably in a few hours you will start your weekend maybe with a glass of your favorite wine from your favorite part of the world. You can tell us later where would that be from. However, when you look back at a day as a CSM, what needs to have happened for you that day to think, oh yeah, that was such a good day?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and um to be honest, I feel I will say that it is when we've achieved certain goals that we agreed on, you know, customers coming into calls saying, Oh, that was really great, that work we did, or there's five things on the success plan that we've been able to tick off, because actually you really helped us prioritize the things which were must-haves at this point, or the report we put together, you know, our CISO or our leadership really, really appreciated it. Also internally, when you get a shout out from product team or you get a shout-out from engineering team or even your peers or, you know, other people in the company, I think those are those are times when you feel really like, okay, I'm doing something right here. And you can really have conviction and confidence in your abilities. I know sometimes we can think that saving churns would give us a bit of a happy feeling. But for me, it feels when you save a churn, you're then at the start of the journey to build reputation with them again and to build a lot of work with them again. So it's it's always a nice feeling. But for me, it's like, okay, it's the start of the journey here, it's not the end of the journey. Uh, we've just we've had the opportunity to play for longer. That's all, that's all I see it as. Uh, we haven't really got them to love us yet. So for me, it's really when those goals and those individual uh recognition happen that that really starts to because you put a lot of faith in your process or your way of doing something. CSM isn't something that you just do. Plus one, two, three equals four. Everyone brings their own style to it. So when you get that style validated back to you, that okay, what you're doing is working, it makes you feel like, okay, I can take the weekend off and enjoy. I've done some really great work this week.

SPEAKER_00:

It's so incredible listening to you and of course seeing your face expression as you're talking about your passion because it's so clear that getting that validation from customers is such a big part of your passion, of why you're in customer success. Is that feedback, that that humanity of doing the relationship and helping them be better in their work? It's not about the number that happens at the end of renewal year. Oh yeah, they're renewed, or yeah, we say them from turn, which is, as you said, absolute beginning again of a relationship and just another chance. I really love how you nicely put it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, we all have limited time. We don't have unlimited time. So I really love data and I really love analytics because it just points you to where you need to spend your energy now and it helps you prioritize and it's essential. Of course, without that, you're you're just you know flying a bit blind. So you absolutely love data and analytics, but really the magic is in those calls for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Simple. To me, you are an aspiring leader. You have a current job title of a customer success manager, meaning you are an individual contributor. However, to me, you are a leader already, especially a leader in your journey and even in the way that you are thinking about customers and your relationship with them. What would be your advice for emerging leaders that are either stepping into their customer success roles or looking to level up in their career?

SPEAKER_01:

Personally, if I was in those shoes, or when I get the opportunity of being in those shoes, I really truly believe that we are better together. The team together can do something greater than one person can. So even if you believe that, I think to be able to communicate that back to your team, to be able to really listen to them, to be able to build that trust, almost they are your customers now. So building trust with the team and giving them as much clarity as possible of how do we align together, where's the company goals, where can we make big, big changes. And then we all love being rewarded, we all love being seen and heard. So really taking the opportunity to say, these are two things you did really, really well. There's one thing that I would love to help you get better at. So just having that balance and and understanding, and I can't wait to to have that impact on people. I think the intention is always there for leaders, they always want to do that. But in the day-to-day, maybe too much pressures from different parts of the company. It feels like, oh, it's it's of course it's assumed. But just taking that time to really bring the team together could really empower what you end up doing and how you feel about what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Dimple, I can say it has been just a joy listening to you talking about customer success so passionately, especially because you're talking from heart, you're working with customers day in and day out, and I really appreciate how you are approaching that whole career. Well done to you on that. I love when I see so passionate people as you are. As we are wrapping up this conversation, I wanted to thank you again because it has been wonderful. And I wonder what are your parting words? Any advice that you would give customer success professionals who are looking to grow and develop in their career?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and and this might be a bit of an unusual quote or unusual person to quote, but I something that Mackie McConaughey, the actor, the all right, all right, all right actor, he mentioned it in in one of his interviews. And I just thought it so resonated with me, especially when you're feeling a bit like imposter syndrome, or you're finding yourself in rooms where you think, oh, am I supposed to be here? You know, one thing he said is stop being impressed and start being invested and you start being involved. And I think it's really worked for me, where I just put my thoughts aside and think, okay, I deserve to be here. Let's get invested. Let's try to understand, let's get involved. And yeah, that that has been a great advice. And I really hope someone takes this away and appreciates that uh advice as well for their life.

SPEAKER_00:

This has been absolutely wonderful, and what a great way to end on a high on this wonderful quote. Timful, thank you so much. And I know you're just a LinkedIn message away from everyone who may be looking to go from customer success into wine industry. You never know, but Timple is your expert. Thanks for tuning in.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much, Maria. This has been absolutely wonderful and such a full circle moment for me. You mean so much to my career and my journey. And this has been really incredible. Thank you so much for the opportunity. And uh yeah, looking forward to connecting with people on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00:

Feel free to reach out to me. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I really appreciate you taking time to learn something new and propel your career in customer success and beyond. If you like this episode, share it with your colleague, with your team member, with someone you know needs to hear it today. We appreciate your support, so please follow us and subscribe to our channels so many more will. Men can hear about this.