RLA
Fractional Customer Success

Your customers don't churn at renewal. They churn months earlier.

We offer UK B2B SaaS companies a senior Customer Success leader two or three days a week. The strategy, the playbook, and the senior voice in the room, without the six-figure cost.

Book a 30-min call See engagements

By the time you can see the churn, it's already six months late.

01

Renewals still land on the founder's desk.

You haven't spoken to that customer since the day they signed. Their renewal is in six weeks. You'll find time to call them next week. Maybe.

02

Your CSM is doing their best. And that's the problem.

Doing their best isn't the same as doing it well. A CSM with a playbook, clear health scoring, and a renewal motion can hold five times the portfolio with half the firefighting.

03

A full-time Head of CS is £120k all-in.

You need the strategy, the playbook, and the senior voice in the room. Not the salary, the equity, or the twelve-week hiring process.

Three ways
to work together.

Fixed scope, fixed price, no bespoke scoping. Pick the entry point that matches where you are. Most clients start with an audit and end up on the retainer.

The maths, plainly

Why a fractional senior costs less than the alternatives.

The Tier 1 retainer works out to roughly £625 per working day. A full-time Head of CS costs more than double that once you load all the real costs. A junior CSM costs less, but does a different job.

Full-time Head of CS
£100k–£140k
All-in annual cost
  • £80–110k base salary
  • + employer NI, pension, equity
  • + equipment, benefits, recruiter fees
  • 12-week hire process at best
RLA Tier 1 Retainer
£30k
All-in annual cost
  • £2,500/month, fixed
  • Senior strategy from week one
  • Two days a week, embedded
  • Three-month minimum, one-month notice

Preview the work.

Two illustrative deliverables. Built around a fictional company so you can see structure and depth, without the substance that only your own data gives. Real engagements look like these, with your numbers in them.

More deliverable examples (health scoring model, onboarding playbook, monthly value report) available on request after a discovery call.

Ten years in the seat.
Not a framework deck.

I've spent a decade running the function across SaaS verticals (e-commerce, enterprise digital marketing platforms, hospitality tech, and PropTech), with five of those years at Senior CSM level holding the renewal of major UK enterprise customers. I'm also an active expert consultant for leading global expert networks since 2022.

Cross-sector SaaS depth.

Senior CSM and Account Management roles spanning e-commerce SaaS, enterprise digital marketing platforms, hospitality tech, and PropTech. The retention mechanics that work in one vertical reliably work in the others. I've stress-tested them in all four.

Enterprise-scale experience.

Five years as a Senior CSM in enterprise digital marketing platforms, holding the renewal of major UK clients with seven-figure contract values. Comfortable in the room with CMOs, heads of e-commerce, and procurement. The dynamics of a £500k renewal aren't the dynamics of a £20k one, and I've run both.

PropTech specialism, when you need it.

For founders selling into estate agents, housing providers, or property managers: I speak lettings compliance, the Estate Agents Act, Money Laundering Regulations, and UK GDPR, alongside completing the Propertymark Level 2 Award. Few CS consultants can do both.

How it works.

From first call to first invoice in under a week. No long sales process, no lengthy decks.

· I

Discovery call

30 minutes. I ask diagnostic questions about your retention, your renewals motion, and where the function is breaking. You decide if I'm worth more of your time.

· II

Proposal

A one-to-three page proposal within 24 hours. What we discussed, what I propose, scope and price. Signed in PandaDoc.

· III

Kickoff

Deposit clears, work starts. For retainers, a written 30/60/90-day plan agreed in week one. You always know what's coming next.

· IV

Monthly value report

Last working day of each month: what I shipped, what I'm watching, what I need. Value made visible, every month, in writing.

Insights.

Notes on Customer Success, retention, and the renewal mechanics most teams get wrong. Published on LinkedIn, where the conversation happens.

"
Customer Success isn't a feature you bolt on. It's the function that decides whether your ARR compounds or quietly leaks away. Most founders learn this the hard way.
Pedro Almeida · RLA Consulting

Questions you'll
probably ask.

If yours isn't here, ask on the call. Direct answers, no waffle.

£2,500 a month feels expensive. Is it?

It works out to roughly £625 per working day for a senior CS leader, and a Tier 1 retainer is well below a third of the true all-in cost of a full-time hire (£100–£140k). It's pitched at the lower end of the UK fractional CS market on purpose. If it would still meaningfully prevent one lost customer per quarter, it pays for itself many times over. If it wouldn't, you probably don't need fractional CS yet, and the audit is the better place to start.

How do I know you'll actually deliver?

Three things are designed to make that visible early. First, the audit is a low-commitment entry point: two weeks, £1,500, a tangible report at the end. You see how I work before any retainer conversation. Second, every retainer opens with a written 30/60/90-day plan agreed in week one, so progress is measurable from the start. Third, the monthly value report (sent on the last working day of each month) makes outputs explicit in writing every thirty days. If value isn't visible monthly, the retainer should end. That's by design.

Why not just hire a junior CSM for £35–40k?

Different job. A junior CSM is hands-on-keyboard: replying to customers, running onboarding, taking notes in QBRs. They need a playbook to follow, a strategy to execute, and someone senior to escalate to. I'm the someone senior. The two roles are complementary, not substitutes. Most clients eventually run both: a junior CSM doing the daily work, and a fractional senior setting strategy and unblocking the hard accounts. Skipping the strategy layer is what leaves the junior firefighting alone.

We'd rather hire a Head of CS full-time. Why work with you?

Eventually, you should. Most clients hire their first full-time Head of CS six to twelve months after we start. I build the playbook, prove the model, and set your future hire up to succeed, instead of starting from a blank page eighteen months in.

What sectors do you work with?

SaaS and B2B software broadly: anywhere with recurring revenue and mid-market customers. I've worked inside e-commerce SaaS, enterprise digital marketing platforms, PropTech, and hospitality tech, with five years at Senior CSM level holding major UK enterprise clients. The core retention mechanics carry across verticals: if your retention is broken, the diagnostics are the same. PropTech is a named specialism on top of that, useful if you sell into estate agents, housing providers, or property managers.

How do you handle scope creep?

Every retainer starts with a written 30/60/90-day plan, reviewed monthly. The contract explicitly excludes sales execution and support ticket work. CS strategy and execution is what I sell.

What's the smallest company you'll work with?

If you have at least one paying customer and one CS or AM person in the company, we can work together. Below that, the audit is the right entry point.

How do you bill?

Audits and sprints: deposit on signing, balance on delivery. Retainers: invoiced monthly in advance, paid by the 1st of the month worked. UK bank transfer, 14-day terms. No retainers paid in arrears.

What about changes and revisions to deliverables?

Every fixed-scope deliverable (audit report, playbook, QBR template) includes two rounds of revisions, applied within 14 days of first delivery. Further amendments are billed at £150/hour or £750/half-day, agreed in advance and invoiced separately. Retainer clients don't pay extra for revisions on work produced under the retainer. That's already covered by the monthly fee.

Worth a 30-minute call?

If your retention is bothering you, or you don't know your gross retention number off the top of your head, that's a conversation worth having.

Find a time that works