To excel as a customer success manager, you must master the art of building trust, driving value, and fostering long-term relationships with customers. This role demands a unique blend of strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and relentless customer focus to ensure customers achieve their desired outcomes. Below, we outline the critical components of becoming a great customer success manager, including the skills, pillars, and strategies that define success in this dynamic field, with insights from industry leaders and real-world examples.
What Defines a Great Customer Success Manager?
A great customer success manager is a strategic partner who bridges the gap between a company’s offerings and the customer’s goals. Unlike traditional customer service, which reacts to issues, customer success proactively ensures customers maximize value from a product or service. According to Gainsight, a leading customer success platform, the best customer success managers combine deep product knowledge with a passion for customer advocacy, enabling them to anticipate needs and deliver tailored solutions. The best CSMs stand out for their strategic thinking, commitment to long-term relationship building, and ability to act as trusted advisors, often leveraging diverse backgrounds such as sales to drive customer outcomes. For instance, at Salesforce, customer success managers are trained to align product features with customer objectives, driving measurable outcomes like increased customer lifetime value.
The customer success role requires a proactive mindset. The CSM role is increasingly important as organizations recognize the value CSMs bring to revenue growth, strategic relationships, and customer-led growth strategies, with evolving responsibilities that align with organizational goals. A good customer success manager doesn’t wait for complaints but engages customers throughout their journey, from onboarding to renewal. This involves understanding customer needs, setting clear expectations, and maintaining a close relationship to foster customer loyalty. Industry leaders like HubSpot emphasize that a successful CSM acts as a trusted advisor, not just a support contact, ensuring customers feel heard and valued. CSMs are deeply invested in their clients’ successes, working tirelessly to help them achieve their goals and positive outcomes.
Education and Background Requirements
A strong educational foundation is often the first step toward a successful career as a customer success manager. Most companies look for candidates with a bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, communications, or a related field, as these disciplines provide essential skills in understanding customer needs and the customer journey. Many customer success managers come from backgrounds in sales, account management, or customer service, which helps them build rapport and long-term relationships with customers while focusing on achieving desired outcomes.
Industry leaders value CSMs who possess a deep understanding of the customer journey and have experience guiding customers to success. Proficiency in data analytics, product knowledge, and communication strategies is highly sought after, as these skills enable CSMs to identify opportunities, tailor solutions, and communicate value effectively. Familiarity with the sales process is also important, as customer success managers often collaborate with sales teams to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
While entry-level roles may require only a few years of relevant experience, more advanced positions in customer success management typically call for 2-5 years in a related field. For those aspiring to leadership roles, a master’s degree or certification in customer success management can be a valuable asset, demonstrating a commitment to the profession and a deep understanding of best practices. Ultimately, a blend of education, hands-on experience, and a passion for helping customers achieve their goals is what sets a great customer success manager apart.
The 5 Pillars of Customer Success
Customer success management rests on five foundational pillars that guide every interaction and strategy. These pillars, as defined by customer success leaders like those at Totango, ensure a structured approach to delivering value:
- Customer Onboarding: A seamless onboarding process sets the tone for the entire customer journey. A good customer success manager creates an onboarding framework that educates customers about product features and aligns them with their goals. For example, Slack’s customer success team uses guided onboarding to help customers integrate the platform into their workflows quickly.
- Customer Engagement: Engagement strategies keep customers connected to the product. This includes regular check-ins, personalized recommendations, and proactive communication. Zendesk’s customer success managers leverage data analytics to identify usage patterns and suggest optimizations, ensuring customers remain active.
- Customer Advocacy: A great customer success manager champions the customer’s voice within the company. By relaying customer feedback to product teams, CSMs help shape offerings that meet evolving needs. At Adobe, customer success managers collaborate with product teams to prioritize features based on client input.
- Outcome Achievement: The core of customer success is helping customers achieve desired outcomes. This requires a deep understanding of their business objectives and tailoring solutions to meet them. For instance, at Microsoft, customer success managers work with enterprise clients to drive digital transformation, aligning solutions with strategic goals.
- Renewal and Expansion: Retaining customers and growing recurring revenue are critical. A good customer success manager identifies upsell opportunities while ensuring renewals are seamless. Gainsight reports that companies with strong customer success programs see up to 20% lower churn rates. Managing and reducing churn rate is essential because a high churn rate directly undermines customer retention and limits business growth, while a lower churn rate leads to greater customer loyalty and long-term revenue expansion.
The 4 Pillars of Customer Success
While the five-pillar framework is comprehensive, some organizations, like ChurnZero, simplify it into four pillars by combining related elements:
- Onboarding and Adoption: Ensuring customers adopt the product effectively through a streamlined onboarding process.
- Engagement and Value Delivery: Maintaining consistent communication to deliver ongoing value.
- Advocacy and Feedback: Acting as the customer’s voice to influence product development.
- Retention and Growth: Focusing on renewals and expansion to maximize customer lifetime value.
These pillars overlap with the five-pillar model but emphasize efficiency, making them ideal for smaller teams or startups.
Essential Skills for a Customer Success Manager
To thrive in the customer success role, you need a diverse skill set that balances technical expertise with soft skills. The ability to manage relationships, influence cross-functional teams, demonstrate product knowledge, and solve problems is essential for CSMs to succeed. Here are the critical abilities every customer success manager must cultivate:
- Emotional Intelligence: Understanding customer emotions and motivations is key. A good CSM uses active listening to make customers feel heard, as seen in LinkedIn’s customer success team, which prioritizes empathy in client interactions.
- Problem Solving: Customers rely on CSMs to address challenges quickly. Whether resolving technical issues or aligning product features with needs, problem-solving skills are essential. Providing effective solutions—timely and tailored to each customer’s situation—not only resolves immediate issues but also builds trust and prevents future problems. For example, at Zoom, customer success managers troubleshoot video conferencing issues to ensure seamless user experiences.
- Communication Strategies: Clear, concise communication builds trust. CSMs must over-communicate during critical moments, such as onboarding or escalations, to maintain transparency.
- Time Management: Juggling multiple accounts requires prioritizing important tasks. Tools like Asana, used by customer success teams at Trello, help CSMs stay organized.
- Data Analytics: Analyzing usage data helps CSMs identify at-risk accounts and opportunities for growth. Companies like Tableau train customer success managers to leverage data integration for actionable insights.
While a bachelor’s degree in business or a related field is often preferred, the customer success associate role can be an entry-level position for those with strong soft skills and a customer-focused mindset. The SaaS industry, in particular, values practical experience over formal education.
Strategies to Excel as a Customer Success Manager
Customer success strategies play a crucial role in helping businesses achieve growth and adapt to evolving markets. The job of a customer success manager involves a range of responsibilities and expectations, from building strong client relationships to driving customer retention.
To stand out as a customer success manager, adopt these proven strategies:
Build Long-Term Relationships
Customer relationships are the backbone of success. A good customer success manager invests time in understanding key stakeholders and their goals. For example, at ServiceNow, CSMs maintain regular touchpoints with clients to foster trust and collaboration. Working closely with other members of the organization, such as sales, product, or support teams, further strengthens these relationships and ensures a seamless customer experience. This close relationship reduces churn and drives customer satisfaction.
Leverage Data for Personalization
Data-driven insights allow CSMs to tailor experiences. By analyzing customer behavior, a success manager can recommend features or workflows that align with specific needs. Companies like Intercom use AI-powered tools to deliver personalized engagement strategies, boosting customer experience.
Collaborate with Other Departments
Customer success doesn’t operate in a vacuum. A great customer success manager works with sales, marketing, and product teams to align efforts. For instance, at Dropbox, CSMs partner with sales during the sales process to ensure a smooth handoff, reducing friction for customers. After a sale is made, the focus shifts from closing the deal to managing the post-sale relationship, ensuring ongoing customer satisfaction and long-term value.
Master the Onboarding Framework
A structured onboarding framework accelerates time-to-value. CSMs should guide customers through setup, training, and initial use cases. Asana’s customer success team uses a checklist-based approach to ensure customers hit key milestones early.
Anticipate Customer Needs
Proactivity is a hallmark of a successful CSM. By monitoring usage trends and customer feedback, CSMs can address issues before they escalate. HubSpot’s customer success managers use predictive analytics to identify at-risk accounts and intervene early.
Account Management and Upsell/Cross-Sell
Account management is at the heart of the customer success manager’s role, requiring a commitment to building and maintaining long-term relationships with customers. A great CSM develops a deep understanding of each customer’s unique needs and business objectives, using active listening and regular communication to ensure those needs are met. By providing feedback personally and acting as a trusted advisor, CSMs help customers achieve their desired outcomes and foster loyalty.
Identifying upsell and cross-sell opportunities is a critical part of account management. By staying attuned to customer goals and usage patterns, CSMs can recommend additional products or services that add value, increasing customer lifetime value and driving revenue growth for the business. Effective sales strategies, built on trust and credibility, enable CSMs to pursue these opportunities without compromising the customer relationship.
Ultimately, successful account management is about more than just sales—it’s about helping customers succeed, providing ongoing support, and ensuring they feel heard and valued. This customer-centric approach is what distinguishes a good customer success manager and leads to long-term business success.
Project and Time Management for CSMs
Customer success managers juggle multiple responsibilities, making strong project and time management skills essential. With a portfolio of customer relationships to nurture, CSMs must prioritize tasks, set clear goals, and minimize distractions to ensure they are consistently meeting customer needs and business objectives.
Effective time management allows CSMs to allocate their efforts where they matter most, whether it’s guiding a new customer through onboarding, coordinating training sessions, or providing ongoing support. Project management skills are equally important, enabling CSMs to develop and execute detailed plans for customer onboarding, product adoption, and issue resolution. This includes setting deadlines, managing resources, and tracking progress to ensure high-quality results.
Attention to detail and strong organizational skills are critical for delivering on promises and maintaining customer satisfaction. As priorities shift and new challenges arise, CSMs must be adaptable, re-evaluating their schedules and project plans to stay aligned with customer and business needs. Mastering these skills not only improves the customer experience but also positions CSMs as reliable partners in their customers’ success.
Challenges and How to Overcome Them
The customer success role isn’t without challenges. One common hurdle is managing the entire burden of customer expectations, especially in high-touch accounts. To overcome this, CSMs should set clear boundaries and leverage team resources. Another challenge is balancing reactive support with proactive engagement. Tools like CustomerSuccessBox help CSMs automate routine tasks, freeing time for strategic work.
The Role of Leadership in Customer Success
Customer success leaders, such as the chief customer officer, play a pivotal role in shaping strategy. Leaders at companies like Qualtrics set the tone by prioritizing customer focus and aligning teams around shared goals. CS leaders also mentor entry-level roles, ensuring new CSMs develop the skills needed to succeed.
Career Path and Advancement in Customer Success
The customer success field offers a dynamic and rewarding career path, with opportunities for growth in a variety of directions. Many customer success managers advance to senior CSM roles, become customer success leaders, or move into director-level positions overseeing larger teams and strategy. Others leverage their experience to transition into related areas such as account management, sales, or marketing, broadening their impact within the business.
To progress in their careers, CSMs should focus on developing leadership, strategic thinking, and advanced communication skills. Pursuing professional development through training, certification programs, or mentorship can provide valuable insights and open doors to new opportunities. Building a strong network of industry contacts and staying informed about the latest trends and best practices in customer success management are also key to advancement.
Demonstrating value to the organization—by driving customer outcomes, increasing retention, and supporting business growth—helps CSMs articulate their career goals and aspirations. A deep understanding of the business, industry, and a relentless customer focus are essential for those looking to move up the ladder in customer success. By continually honing their skills and embracing a customer-centric mindset, CSMs can build fulfilling, long-term careers in this rapidly evolving field.
Real-World Examples of Customer Success Excellence
- Snowflake: Snowflake’s customer success team focuses on helping customers maximize data analytics platforms, resulting in a 98% customer satisfaction rate.
- Atlassian: Atlassian’s CSMs emphasize customer onboarding, reducing time-to-value for tools like Jira and Confluence.
- Shopify: Shopify’s customer success managers support merchants with tailored growth strategies, driving significant recurring revenue.
Pro Tips for Aspiring CSMs
- Stay Curious: Continuously learn about your product and industry to offer relevant solutions.
- Follow Up Relentlessly: Timely follow-ups show customers you’re invested in their success.
- Find the Right Balance: Blend empathy with assertiveness to guide customers effectively.
- Network with CS Leaders: Engage with communities like Customer Success Network to learn from industry leaders.
Why Customer Success Matters
Customer success is the engine of growth in today’s subscription-based economy. By reducing churn, increasing customer lifetime value, and fostering advocacy, customer success managers drive measurable business impact. Companies that invest in customer success management, like Salesforce and Zendesk, report higher retention rates and stronger customer relationships.
To become a great customer success manager, focus on delivering value at every stage of the customer journey. By mastering the pillars of customer success, honing essential skills, and adopting proactive strategies, you can transform customers into lifelong partners and elevate your career in this rewarding field.
