The SuccessCOACHING Blog

Customer Support and Customer Success are often mistaken for one another, but as we recently discussed, these two departments serve distinct purposes and achieve their goals differently. That being said, those working in Customer Support can (and likely should) utilize certain Customer Success skills to best serve customers. 

For Customer Success to meet and exceed its goals, the team must be equipped with the necessary tools, skills, and resources. This is referred to as Customer Success enablement, and we’ve been discussing in depth what this is, why it matters, and whether your organization should establish a Customer Success enablement team. But what should an organization do if it’s just beginning its Customer Success enablement journey?

If there are any two roles in an organization that are often confused with one another, it’s Customer Success and Customer Support. While these two titles might sometimes (wrongly) be used interchangeably, they’re very distinct positions that serve two different functions, both internally for an organization and for its customers. 

Customer Success enablement can be powerful: it’s a framework for supplying Customer Success with the training, tools, and resources it needs to be as effective as possible. We know that Customer Success enablement can be transformative and that it’s an excellent strategy for supporting the work of Customer Success Managers. But who actually owns CS enablement? While you can have an individual own this responsibility, it’s also possible for your organization to have a team dedicated to Customer Success enablement.

In any workplace, friction is bound to happen at some point. New Customer Success leaders need to be prepared to face conflict not only with customers but also within their own team. Disagreements can arise due to a variety of factors, from mismatched expectations to communication breakdowns. Regardless of the reason, new Customer Success leaders need to be prepared to navigate conflict and, therefore, must be well-versed in conflict resolution strategies.

When it comes to team and workplace communication, managers have their work cut out for them. It’s not enough to simply communicate: managers must ensure their communication is effective, clear, and empathetic. This doesn’t just extend to team members but also to customers. And because communication for managers is so integral to outcomes, it’s incredibly high-stakes. In short, managers need to communicate clearly, empathetically, and accurately at all times. 

Customer Success can profoundly impact its organization: Customer Success Managers can transform the customer experience, improve business metrics, and contribute to sustained, lasting growth. But for Customer Success teams to achieve these results, they must have robust training, tools, resources, and support. This concept is called Customer Success enablement, and it’s a strategic and systemic process aimed at equipping Customer Success functions with the necessary tools, resources, and training they need to engage with customers effectively.

Customer Success is evolving from a purely customer relationship-focused role to one that directly impacts a company's financial performance. Organizations have begun to empower Customer Success Managers to drive revenue growth through upselling, cross-selling, and customer advocacy rather than simply focusing on customer satisfaction and retention.

Time management can be tricky for any Customer Success professional, and even more challenging (and important) for managers and leaders. The scope and scale of responsibilities make good time management for managers essential for achieving ideal outcomes. Here’s everything you need to know about time management for managers in Customer Success and how to best balance priorities as a leader. 

Identifying and measuring the most impactful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is central to the success of any CS team. The right KPIs can provide invaluable insights into customer engagement, satisfaction, and overall health, directly influencing strategic decisions. In a data-driven business environment, accurately measuring and interpreting the right metrics is a skill that sets successful CS leaders apart.

In the world of Customer Success, there are many different career paths and various options for career advancement. Aside from being a Customer Success Manager, there are different focuses or specialties you can hone in on, from Digital Customer Success to executive roles.  One position that’s growing in popularity is the role of Enterprise Customer Success Manager (ECSM), which is a Customer Success professional who is charged with enterprise accounts.

On the surface, Customer Success might seem like an individualistic endeavor: individual contributors work one-on-one with customer accounts to encourage retention and drive recurring revenue. But to achieve truly great customer outcomes in a predictable, repeatable manner, excellent Customer Success team dynamics are required.

Effective leadership in Customer Success is a powerful differentiator: it can be what shapes desirable customer outcomes, drives recurring revenue, and facilitates a positive experience for CSMs on the job. However, every Customer Success leader starts somewhere, and even the best-prepared new leaders are prone to common mistakes. To lead your team to success, achieve consistent customer outcomes, and be a well-rounded leader that people enjoy working for and with, it’s essential to understand the common Customer Success mistakes that new leaders can make and know how to avoid them.

One business model is distinct from all others because it cuts out the middleman: direct-to-consumer (D2C) businesses. This type of business sells its products directly to its customers without using another retailer. Operating a D2C business requires unique strategies and tactics: these brands rely heavily on brand awareness, customer loyalty, and customer retention. Because of this, there are many things that Customer Success teams can learn from D2C and apply to their own work with customers.

Customer Success leadership roles are rewarding and exciting positions. You get to shape the way your organization earns revenue, contribute to substantial customer gains, and work with a team of talented Customer Success professionals. But in order to thrive as a Customer Success leader and reach your full potential, you need to deeply understand your role and responsibilities and learn how to leverage your strengths and skills.

Alignment between customer needs and corporate goals is crucial for businesses to ensure that both the company and its clients succeed. This is not just a matter of improving customer satisfaction; it's about fostering a symbiotic relationship where the customer’s success directly contributes to the business's success. By delving into methods that synchronize these two aspects, you can create a business model that is both customer-centric and growth-oriented.

Stepping into a role as a new Customer Success leader is exciting: you’re taking your career in a new direction, you get to make strategic decisions, and you can steer a team of Customer Success all-stars to excellence. But beginning a new leadership role can be a big adjustment, especially if you’re coming into it from an individual contributor position.

Retaining customers is as critical as acquiring new ones, if not more so. High churn rates impede revenue and signal deeper issues in customer engagement and product value. CS leaders, therefore, must be able to identify the key factors that influence customer retention and design strategies that effectively address these factors. Because they can leverage data-driven insights, personalized engagement, and proactive problem-solving to build successful strategies, CS leaders are in the perfect position to minimize churn.

Customer Success is a growing field, many companies are investing in their Customer Success efforts, and you can take your career in plenty of directions. But transitioning to leadership can be challenging for new team managers, even if you’re highly qualified for the position. You need to learn and use new skills, become well-versed in managing employees, and learn how to not just keep things operating at the status quo but at high levels of excellence. 

As Customer Success has risen in popularity, we’ve seen CS functions develop into multi-tiered, complex structures made of different specialists. From the C-Suite to individual contributors, organizations are leveraging a dynamic and robust Customer Success organization structure to emphasize a proactive and strategic approach to customer engagement, achievements, and satisfaction.

As you’re on your journey in the Customer Success field, it’s very likely that you’re going to want to grow your career and land new positions. The good news is that the sky's the limit when it comes to a Customer Success career: from entry-level individual contributor positions to the C-Suite, your work can take plenty of directions.

Customer Success fills a distinct function in organizations, and to excel in it, Customer Success professionals typically need certain skills and competencies specific to customer success. However, many of the skills and competencies required for Customer Success are not completely unique and frequently overlap with the skills necessary for customer service jobs. Customer Success teams can benefit from tapping into customer service skills, which can help them best meet customer needs and overcome real-time challenges.

Customer Success Managers spend plenty of time in the CRM, can leverage Digital Customer Success tools and practices, and typically have a whole tech stack at their disposal. But oftentimes, it can seem like a battle when it comes to deploying tech and software within Customer Success teams. 

In the evolving landscape of the tech industry, Black women continue to be underrepresented, facing unique challenges that demand attention and advocacy. Created in partnership with Success in Black, the live roundtable, Empowering Black Women in Customer Success, features four trailblazing professionals who have shattered barriers and achieved career success in their respective journeys.

Customer Success is a sector that heavily relies on innovation. It’s still a relatively new field, and it’s one that is rapidly changing. This means that in order to keep up with the tides, stand out from the competition, and continuously win the trust of customers, Customer Success departments need to prioritize innovation at all levels.

A comprehensive and actionable success plan is a cornerstone of Customer Success. Success plans serve as roadmaps for aligning services and solutions with the specific goals and needs of each customer. These plans are instrumental in setting clear expectations, tracking progress, and adapting strategies to meet evolving customer objectives. By developing success plans, Customer Success professionals can effectively steer their customers toward their desired outcomes.

The data and insights from metrics can help Customer Success Managers monitor customer behavior, understand patterns, and measure progress, which can ultimately help them make strategic decisions. While several metrics are crucial to Customer Success, one might be the most valuable and effective metric to track: net revenue retention, or NRR.

The traditional view of Customer Success is often centered around service and support. However, in the rapidly evolving business landscape, CS leaders increasingly find themselves responsible for revenue metrics. This shift dramatically changes how organizations perceive the role of Customer Success. Asking CS leaders to “own a number” aligns them more closely with the company's broader business objectives, which elevates the role of CSMs in the organization.

Customer Retention plays a central role in an organization's profitability and sustainability and allows the organization to grow and accomplish its goals. While many elements of an organization impact retention, Customer Success generally owns this metric and uses different tactics to cultivate and monitor it. Customer Success can use tried-and-true customer retention management strategies to keep customers engaged and cultivate long-term relationships with them. 

Customer feedback is a valuable asset for Customer Success Managers: it helps them hear where improvements can be made and understand which efforts are successful. Customer feedback also allows customers to feel seen and heard, leading to stronger customer relationships, improved loyalty, and a better customer experience. But it’s not enough for Customer Success to simply seek customer feedback; they also have to close the customer feedback loop.

The world of Customer Success is driven by customer communications: these conversations are where needs are understood, goals are outlined, and achievements are shared. But one of the main things differentiating Customer Success from other customer-facing functions (such as Customer Support) is the method of communication. Customer Success mainly practices proactive communication with clients, shaping how Customer Success Managers tackle issues, approach bottlenecks, and help customers achieve their desired outcomes.

Building team resilience is more than just a hot topic: it’s a dynamic and collaborative framework that can shape how your team and organization operate and how they respond and adapt to different challenges, setbacks, and changes. Team resilience involves the collective strength arising from shared values, effective communication, and a mutual commitment to overcoming obstacles. It can be a powerful tool, allowing a team to capitalize on good times and navigate tougher ones. But it won’t happen independently: building team resilience takes work from leadership and individual contributors. 

Customer centricity is an approach that prioritizes customers' needs, preferences, and overall satisfaction rather than focusing on products or services. Organizations embracing customer centricity orient their strategies around creating exceptional customer experiences, leading to other positive outcomes. A culture of customer centricity doesn’t happen overnight. It must be built and cultivated so all organizational actions stem from this framework.

In the rapidly evolving world of Customer Success, mastering a consultative approach is more than a skill—it's a necessity for those looking to excel in understanding and meeting each customer’s unique needs. A consultative approach allows a CSM to transition from merely a service provider to a trusted advisor. It's about deeply understanding the customer's business, challenges, and objectives to provide tailored, strategic solutions that drive their success.

Transitioning into a leadership position can be a mix of challenges and excitement. It is evident that the success of a new team leader depends not only on their skills and experiences but also on the practices and processes they implement to lead their team effectively. A new leader's list of concerns is long and varied, and there’s a lot to balance. To start, here are a few key things that every new leader should keep in mind to succeed in your position and also ensure your team succeeds.  

In today’s customer-centric business environment, the quality of customer experience is crucial to a company’s success. Understanding and enhancing this experience ensures customer satisfaction and loyalty, which are key drivers of sustained business growth. A positive customer experience directly impacts how customers perceive and interact with a brand, influencing everything from retention rates to word-of-mouth marketing. By improving customer experience, CS leaders can address immediate customer needs and foster long-term relationships that contribute to a stable and growing customer base.

Finding new hires who are talented and prepared to excel in your Customer Success organization can be challenging. But once leaders identify and hire this top-tier talent, it’s not enough to simply leave them to jump into their roles. Instead, new Customer Success hires must go through a robust CSM onboarding plan, which gears them up to succeed in their role and best meet customers' needs. 

As organizations navigate complex technologies, customer expectations, market trends, and fast-paced competition, the work of Customer Success has shown to be pivotal, contributing to increased product adoption, engagement, and customer retention. As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond, it’s essential to understand precisely what Customer Success is today, its role in organizations, and how it can be a cornerstone for sustained growth and profitability. 

With 2024 here, we’re looking ahead to what’s to come in Customer Success and how we can expect the industry to shift in the coming months. Here’s everything you need to know about trends that drove Customer Success in 2023, as well as 2024 Customer Success predictions from leaders in the industry.

Many things play a role in the revenue an organization earns, from the products or services it sells to the training of the employees. But one thing plays a surprisingly significant role in revenue, especially regarding the future revenue your company is earning: customer onboarding. 

While much of what Customer Success does is in the interest of boosting retention and minimizing churn, customer retention management as a methodology is a strategy that CS can deploy and use as their North Star for fostering long-term customer relationships.

For Customer Success Managers who want to serve their customers best, it’s necessary to have a wide breadth of knowledge regarding both their own product and industry, as well as their customers’. This subject-matter knowledge is called domain expertise, and it’s incredibly valuable in Customer Success roles.

Customer Success works with a lot of data and information, from customer health scores to detailed notes on accounts. While all of this information can be incredibly valuable, it can also be intense to manage. Instead of letting your most crucial insights get lost in the shuffle, you can instead deploy a CS dashboard.

In the realm of Customer Success, maintaining a strong, trust-based relationship with clients is paramount. However, there will be moments where, for the sake of the company or even the customer's best interest, professionals need to decline requests, adjust expectations, or push back on certain demands. How one conveys that "no" can significantly impact the client's perception and the ongoing relationship.

Whether you’ve recently graduated or you’re looking to change career paths, getting a job with no experience can be challenging. Fortunately, it is possible to not only get a job with no experience, but to secure your dream position early in your career. If you’re looking to land your first role in Customer Success, know that this goal is well within reach, but doing this requires a combination of drive, patience, creativity, and preparation.

In today’s customer-centric business environment, the quality of customer experience is crucial to a company’s success. As Customer Success leaders, understanding and enhancing this experience ensures customer satisfaction and loyalty, both of which are key drivers of sustained business growth. A positive customer experience directly impacts how customers perceive and interact with a brand, influencing everything from retention rates to word-of-mouth marketing. By improving customer experience, CS leaders can address immediate customer needs and foster long-term relationships that contribute to a stable and growing customer base.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

With 2024 nearly here, it’s an excellent time for Customer Success functions to revamp their processes and practices. When it comes to churn reduction, there are many new ways that Customer Success can tackle this mission-critical focus. From emerging technologies to understanding customer expectations in 2024, here’s everything CS functions need to know about reducing churn in 2024 and beyond.

It’s crucial for Customer Success to understand and respond to customer needs. It’s not enough for Customer Success to simply guess what customers want or assume they know best. Instead, Customer Success must consistently seek honest feedback and actively listen to customers. One useful strategy for gaining valuable customer insight is using customer voice analysis. 

When it comes to finding ways to make a business as profitable as possible, it’s common for leaders to look for places to cut costs. While saving money for an org can be a crucial technique for increasing profitability and improving margins, there’s one area that you definitely shouldn’t skimp on when it comes to costs: your customers.

For Customer Success professionals, understanding and optimizing the interactions between Customer Success and Sales is pivotal. These two departments, while having distinct roles, are intricately linked in ensuring a seamless customer journey. From the initial acquisition by the Sales team to ongoing engagement and support by Customer Success, a well-coordinated partnership ensures that customer needs are anticipated, met, and even exceeded, leading to higher retention rates and growth opportunities.

The quarterly business review (known as QBR, or sometimes as an executive business review) is a valuable opportunity for both Customer Success Managers and their customers. When leveraged correctly, CSMs can showcase how they’ve helped customers accomplish their goals, reaffirm their value, and address any risks or unexpected results that have popped up. Without it, relationships might falter, and customers may fail to see all of the value your product and CSMs bring.

At its core, managing up is not just about handling superiors but also about optimizing resources, gaining visibility, and advocating for your team. By understanding and navigating senior leadership's priorities, leaders can secure better tools and training, ensure their team's achievements are recognized, and foster professional growth opportunities.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

While AI has been around for a while, there have been recent (and monumental) advancements in AI, namely generative AI, which can create original content. While you might have heard about tools like ChatGPT (which answers questions in a human-like fashion), this appears to be only the beginning of what AI can do. AI is starting to transform industries, and Customer Success is no different. 

One of the main goals of a Customer Success team is reducing and preventing churn at their organization. In many cases, Customer Success Managers can spot early warning signs that a customer is going to churn and take steps to intervene and turn these ailing accounts around. What this means is that Customer Success teams can learn how to spot these high-risk customers by learning how to identify the early signs and symptoms. But identifying these customers is only the first step: Customer Success teams also need to have strategies in place to help correct these situations.

Whether you’re just starting out in your Customer Success career or if you have many years of experience in your role, how do you make sure your skills are current and you’re up to date on the latest best practices so you can perform your job to the best of your ability? The answer is with continuing professional development.

In the world of Customer Success, customer escalations can often set off alarm bells. When situations heat up, customer issues can sometimes get elevated up the chain of command. This can lead to concerns about customer dissatisfaction and the potential for churn, and rightfully so: unhappy customers are at risk of moving on to a new product or service. But the good news is that escalations can be avoided when customer issues arise, and if they do occur, there are ways to skillfully navigate them.

Working to overcome imposter syndrome is important as it can hinder your personal and professional growth. When individuals undervalue their abilities, they often avoid pursuing new opportunities or challenges due to fear of failure, limiting their potential. By overcoming imposter syndrome, individuals can improve their self-esteem, embrace their accomplishments, and create a healthier psychological outlook.

In the fast-growing SaaS and subscription-based economy, creating continuous value for customers has never been more critical. Customers need to feel like they’re getting their money’s worth month after month, year after year, or they’ll churn to a competitor who appears to have a more enticing, valuable offer. And as the competition gets more fierce and different value propositions come to market, there’s one secret weapon that organizations can use to create ongoing value for their buyers: Customer Success.

The 2023 Customer Success Thought Leadership Awards honor the exceptional individuals who are revolutionizing the industry and community through their unparalleled thought leadership, mentorship, and innovative approaches. These remarkable CS professionals are making a profound impact in the field, and their shared experiences provide valuable insights we can all learn from.

A robust digital customer success strategy is essential in today's increasingly digital marketplace. As businesses rely on digital platforms and tools, customer interactions have largely moved online. A solid digital Customer Success strategy allows companies to optimize these interactions and provides structured methods for businesses to engage with customers, resolve their issues, and proactively anticipate their needs. This strategy plays a critical role in enhancing customer satisfaction, improving retention rates, and increasing customer lifetime value.

Did you know that November is Career Development Month? It’s just around the corner and an excellent time to refocus on your career goals and progress. How do you feel in your career in Customer Success? Where do you want to take it? And, maybe most importantly, how can you get to your desired future career state?

When the economy is thriving, Customer Success Managers will probably feel it: you might be onboarding more customers, current customers might be eager to expand, and your team might even grow (thanks to new hires). But during a down economy, Customer Success teams can have a very different experience, and it might even be difficult to make it through to the end and round the corner. 

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

When the economy is booming, Customer Success teams can feel it. You might be onboarding new customers left and right, your current customers might be eager to expand, and your budget is probably fairly padded. But during a down economy, things can look slightly different, and usually, economic challenges lead to a tighter budget. When the economy is struggling, Customer Success teams might need to plan for a budgeting cycle that is scaled back but still supports robust Customer Success operations and business growth.

Employee turnover rates remain high, and the impacts of employee turnover are costly. Whatever the reason for employee turnover, it can greatly impact organizations. There are many ways to address reducing turnover and steps that decision makers can take to tackle this issue in their own organization. One tried-and-true tactic can not only be effective for reducing turnover but also lead to a more successful and skillful team: providing employees with excellent training opportunities. 

We all understand that no company is immune to discontent customers. It's an inevitable part of doing business, especially when you work in a Customer Success role. However, the magic lies not in avoiding these situations but in how you respond and adapt to them.

While the current economic climate may be challenging, when Customer Success teams know ahead of time how to recalibrate and adjust their strategies to operate in a post-recession economy, they can maximize their success and impact. 

In this era of digital transformation and customer-centric business models, understanding the psychological aspects behind Customer Success is more important than ever. The psychology of Customer Success seeks to explore how human behaviors, emotions, and perceptions influence customer interactions and how you can harness them to boost customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business growth.

Those who work in Customer Success are no strangers to dealing with all types of clients. While some clients might be a dream to work with, others can have specific, unique needs or be downright challenging. And one of the common challenges a CSM can face can involve customer expectations. How can you deal with a customer with unrealistic expectations?

In modern work environments, the importance of embracing diversity and cultivating inclusivity cannot be overstated. It is essential to recognize the immense value that neurodiversity adds to our Customer Success teams. By creating inclusive work environments that celebrate neurodiversity and the unique perspectives it brings, we can elevate our CS teams to new heights. 

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

One of the most exciting things about working in Customer Success is the possibilities that are present in the Customer Success career path. That’s because this career path is anything but stagnant and pre-determined; instead, the CS career path is rich with limitless potential and can result in many options. But because of how open the Customer Success career path is, it’s up to each individual contributor to be the architect of their own CS career and take it to the place they dream about.

Customer Success Managers are tasked with ensuring your customers are able to make the most of your product, by maximizing customer outcomes and proactively helping customers accomplish their dreamiest goals. But who is responsible for making sure Customer Success Managers are best prepared to tackle those responsibilities? 

In order to reach the desired client outcomes, it’s necessary to have a high-performance Customer Success team that can deliver incredible results repeatedly. To achieve this level of performance consistently, Customer Success teams need to be optimized, have effective systems and processes in place, and undergo ongoing Customer Success training to gain and maintain the skills necessary to work at this level. 

Customer Success teams today are operating in a volatile business landscape: from economic uncertainty to transformative workplace technology, there’s no shortfall of changes happening in the workforce. To ensure they’re staying ahead of the curve and not left behind, Customer Success teams must be agile and adaptable in response to these changes. Adapting to evolving needs is essential to ensure success in the face of constant change. Developing new skills and learning agility are central to this success. 

Although you may love your job, it is only natural to think about your next steps or next career move. Maybe you are craving more responsibility, more recognition, or to work with a larger group of people within your organization. No matter your reason, you want a promotion!

Discover how to 10x your productivity using ChatGPT, the AI revolutionizing how we work. We’ll explore the science behind productivity, what’s holding us back, and how to leverage ChatGPT to revolutionize your approach to tasks and finally unlock your full potential.

For some products you purchase, the value becomes apparent immediately. However, for most SaaS products, access to the product alone will not bring about value. It usually takes time and requires the customer to collaborate with other internal teams or undergo an onboarding process. Your role as a CS leader is to help your CSMs understand how to shorten the time to value by strengthening the onboarding process and applying strategies or techniques that improve the customer experience.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

While excelling in basic Customer Success skills and competencies provides teams with an excellent foundation for thriving in uncertain economic times, Customer Success teams also need to deploy advanced success strategies to navigate times like these. One such strategy is growing revenue through account expansion.

Unlock the true potential of ChatGPT in your content strategy and process building! Learn insights and techniques that will elevate your ChatGPT experience and streamline your workflows.

Customer Success teams today don’t just need to be experts in their field, and it’s not enough to simply excel in the standard Customer Success best practices. Given the recent tumultuous and uncertain state of the economy, Customer Success teams must take additional steps to excel during these tough economic times.

Navigating tough economic times in Customer Success requires success strategies in a few distinct areas. The Customer Success role becomes even more critical to their organizations during economic uncertainty. When clients are working with reduced budgets and the pursestrings are tight, they might be looking for ways to cut corners, making it paramount that Customer Success Managers build and strengthen relationships and demonstrate just how valuable their product is to their customers’ business. 

Time management is a crucial skill for a Customer Success professional to master. Responding to customer emails, onboarding new clients, leading internal meetings, and writing reports are just a few daily tasks a CSM is expected to perform. It is easy to feel overwhelmed! By utilizing time management strategies proactively, you can ensure that you accomplish all of your tasks efficiently and minimize your stress levels. 

Discover the transformative power of artificial intelligence in the world of Customer Success. This engaging and interactive session will open your eyes to the potential of ChatGPT to revolutionize your daily tasks, customer interactions, and career.

A customer health score refers to the metrics you can use to determine the overall “health” of your customer. The health score allows you to determine the probability that a customer will grow, stay consistent, or churn. How health scores are determined and calculated can vary significantly from one organization or industry to the next, so developing a customer health score strategy that makes sense for your specific product is essential.

To succeed in the ever-changing economic landscape, Customer Success teams can take practical steps to enhance their work quality. By seeking opportunities to improve outcomes, streamline workflows, and develop skills, they can overcome economic challenges and flourish amidst them.

Upskilling opportunities give your Customer Success pros the power to learn new skills which are vital for their roles and give them a competitive edge. But after you select a winning upskilling program and deploy it, how can you prove that it’s actually getting the job done? 

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

If you have a team of Customer Success all-stars, you might think formal training isn’t necessary for them. And we get it: Customer Success training might seem time-consuming, it takes energy, and of course, comes with a price tag. But even if your Customer Success team is running like a well-oiled machine and is top-performing, training is something you absolutely need.

The ability to influence others in Customer Success is critical - you are working and interacting with many different people, from colleagues to customers, on a daily basis. Understanding how to harness the power of influence within your Customer Success role will not only help you become successful, but it will also strengthen relationships as you help your customers and peers experience success as well.

An upskilling program can be incredibly valuable for your Customer Success team: it has the power to supply them with the skills they need to stay relevant in their roles and can help boost critical metrics like employee retention. But for your Customer Success rockstars to have access to an upskilling program that delivers the results you hope for, you will need to get that program funded. 

One customer may do well with lots of interaction from your Customer Success team, while others find excessive communication unnecessary. Utilizing segmentation allows your team to personalize your customer engagement strategy to fit the needs and personalities of your customers. By segmenting your customers into different “buckets” or groups, you can develop more customized engagement plans for each one. 

Upskilling and reskilling are not just ideal or “nice to have.” Given the state of the work landscape and employment today, developing new workplace skills is a mission-critical matter and time is of the essence. Lackadaisical upskilling and reskilling will not cut it; rapid and efficient upskilling is vital.

In an increasingly interconnected world, it's essential to recognize that economic disparities between countries can create unequal opportunities for individuals seeking professional development. By embracing Purchasing Power Parity, SuccessCOACHING is committed to breaking down barriers and providing equal access to our top-quality training programs for Customer Success professionals across the globe.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

When it comes to achieving your dream Customer Success results, upskilling your team is the answer. Upskilling is a way to close any skills gaps, improve performances across the board, and the key to keeping your team members engaged in their roles. But upskilling a CS team isn’t simply going to happen without a plan. You need to build a winning upskill strategy that will lead your team members to learn valuable new skills and create improved results. 

Even if your Customer Success team is up to par right now, they’ll likely need team training in the near future to upskill in a way that keeps them relevant in their roles, and that keeps your CS function ahead of the curve. But how can you know when it’s time to help your Customer Success team upskill? As it turns out, there are some tell-tale warning signs you can look out for.

In the past, there were certain “musts” for job applicants, such as degree requirements, previous work experience, and titles or positions held before. But now, more frequently, organizations (including Customer Success functions) are shifting away from a degree-centric hiring practice and instead are focusing on skills-based hiring. 

A common tool for understanding a product's vision and direction is a product roadmap: a visual representation that shows where a product is heading and what actions must be taken to achieve certain milestones in the product journey.  Historically, the product roadmap has been owned by the Product Management team. But with the rise of CS and the shifting business priorities towards customer outcomes, Customer Success now plays a crucial role in shaping the product roadmap to benefit both organizations and their customers.

Effectively communicating is crucial to your success as a Customer Success professional. Whether you are proposing a new idea to leadership, explaining something to colleagues, or describing a new vision to your customers, storytelling is the way to ensure that your message is heard.  

Upskilling refers to learning new skills and competencies for career advancement, and it has become necessary in almost every field. Today’s jobs are changing rapidly, meaning the required skills are also changing.  While it’s relevant across the workforce, upskilling is particularly crucial for those in the field of Customer Success and can help CSMs stay relevant in their careers and execute strategic career advancements. 

Part of the problem with conversations about hiring and resources is that they can largely be based on guesswork from the CS Leader. Capacity planning takes that guesswork and turns it into concrete data you can use in your request for more resources. 

How well do your customers understand the technical nuances of your product? When users understand the technical ins and outs of how your product works, they’re able to not only use it with ease: they’re able to use it to solve their most troublesome pain points, therefore getting the most value out of it.

When it comes to the profitability of a business and its ability to achieve its future goals, just about nothing matters more than engaging your buyers. Sure, getting new customers is great. But once they’re onboarded and integrated, the work is far from over; in fact, it’s just beginning. This continued customer satisfaction and subsequent retention is the main purpose of Customer Success in the first place. But how can Customer Success departments engage with current clients in order to activate and retain them?

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Customer Success relies heavily on having solid communication skills. One skill is the “art of asking,” or how to ask your customers, peers, or colleagues questions in a way that will help you gather valuable feedback or insights. Asking the right questions at the right time in the right way will enable you to better understand your customers or peers and help you gain their trust.

Sales and Customer Success are customer-centric functions of an organization, and they operate like two sides of the same coin. Sales acquires new customers, closes deals, and passes those new customers to CS, which nurtures relationships and provides proactive solutions.  While this relationship should be seamless and symbiotic, there can often be a gap between Sales and Customer Success, which can lead to real-world issues for both teams and customers. 

The desired outcomes a customer is trying to achieve with your product may be a few steps removed from the high-level corporate objectives, and it may not be obvious how those outcomes aid in accomplishing the corporate goals. It’s important for you, as an external partner, to recognize and understand the connection between desired outcomes and business objectives so that you can tie together meaningful solutions and drive real value toward helping them realize their ultimate goals.

Most organizations today have a dedicated Customer Success function, and while that can take different shapes, many organizations have complex Customer Success departments with many roles. Whether you’re looking for a new job in Customer Success, are eager to grow your professional CS experience in a different direction, want to flesh out your own CS team, or are just curious, here’s everything you need to know about Customer Success roles.   

Metrics allow CS leaders to develop and establish processes that will maximize the lifetime value of customer relationships. When properly tracked, customer success metrics can give you insights into things like customer churn, adoption rates, product satisfaction, and more. Many different types of metrics can be used, so it can get complicated when determining which metrics you should focus on with your CS team.

Customer Success teams are tasked with helping customers actualize their goals with a product or service. Knowing what customers truly want is easier said than done. Customers don’t always know exactly what they want results to look like, and if they do, they can sometimes have trouble sharing that vision accurately with their Customer Success Managers. But understanding what customers want is a crucial foundational step in translating those desires into concrete goals and successfully achieving those goals.

The customer experience has always been critical to Customer Success teams, but this year, it appears to be more vital than ever. But an excellent customer experience doesn’t happen on its own, and Customer Success teams need to measure their work to ensure they’re providing top-tier experiences. For this, they can turn to customer experience metrics. 

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Customer Success significantly impacts how companies perform financially and has a powerful impact on retention, churn, customer loyalty, and customer lifetime value. All of these factors mean that Customer Success has an economy, one of which involves the costs, value, and economic impacts of Customer Success functions on organizations.

How productive is your Customer Success team? Like, how productive are they really? While your team might be proficient in the core Customer Success skills and competencies, it’s very likely that they’re not maximizing their productivity. However, with a few tips, you could vastly increase overall team productivity and streamline operations.

So you need to scale your Customer Success team. To effectively scale Customer Success, organizations need to be careful of one thing: that quality isn’t compromised. How can leaders scale Customer Success while keeping the caliber of work high?

In today’s digital-first world, businesses are deploying new automation strategies to meet the needs of a large number of customers while still delivering superb-quality service. And while Customer Success has historically required a high-touch and highly personalized approach, there’s an emerging new segment of Customer Success work which takes advantage of automated digital tools while still providing customers with an experience that feels deeply personalized and value-additive: Digital Customer Success.

Value realization is when the customer truly understands the value they are achieving from using a particular product or service. Understanding how to determine, measure, and demonstrate value realization can result in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as greater opportunities for upselling or expansion.

2023 is well underway, and there continues to be a lot of change, both in the economic climate and the Customer Success industry. Now more than ever, Customer Success teams have had to find ways of proactively delivering an exceptional service that creates value for customers in order to retain them, while at the same time handling high volumes of work efficiently. 

Building a customer community can be daunting or overwhelming, especially for a business that is just starting out or experiencing growth. However, the benefits of building a customer community around your brand or product are often worth the challenge. Building a strong customer community can help take your business to the next level while also helping to strengthen your customer base.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

You might have heard about the recent viral chatbot, ChatGPT, which seems to be something of a know-it-all. Users can type in questions and receive conversational - and powerful - results. Because of the capabilities of ChatGPT, and other similar AI chat models, there are some questions about how conversational AI models might impact how we work. Can conversational AI impact human roles, and will it impact Customer Success?

While astute Customer Success Managers know how to utilize skills like active listening and open communication with their customers, there are still parts of the job that may be left up to some level of guesswork. One way Customer Success Managers can gain a deeper understanding of what customers need to succeed is by looking at customers’ interactions with the company and the product. This is called behavioral analytics.

Understanding exactly how customers are using your product is a crucial part of being able to tailor Customer Success efforts to meet customer needs. If Customer Success teams understand precisely what features a customer is using, which features of a product they’re not using, and even how long they’re using them for, they can focus on ways to improve how customers are engaging with the product.

Customers are a company’s most valuable asset, and while acquiring new customers is a powerful driver of revenue, there’s something else that can be even more essential for a company’s bottom line: finding opportunities for revenue expansion. 

Having discovery conversations with your customers is crucial to their success. These conversations not only allow you to build your relationship with your customer, but they also help you understand their desired business outcomes. With this information, you can build an effective success plan and help your customer work through any pain points they may be experiencing to ensure a positive customer experience.

Whether a full-blown recession hits or not, and even when these tumultuous economic times level out, one thing remains true: Customer Success organizations need to take steps to become recession proof. By recession proofing your Customer Success organization, you’re ensuring it’s not only healthy today but that it can continue functioning, growing, and serving both customers and employees, no matter what economic times may come.

For Customer Success, leveraging partners can help you better manage your customers post-sales, improve customer engagement, and reduce churn. Partnerships in Customer Success can take many forms, but they all should involve sharing data, information, and tools. 

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

As important as closing deals and marketing to potential customers is, just about nothing is more important than retaining customers once you have them. For that, organizations turn to a Customer Success team, charged with maintaining customer relationships and working proactively to solve customer problems. But many organizations don’t necessarily have a CS team from the moment they’re open for business and decide to build one out later in their journey.

Just like a football team never heads to the field without some plays ready to go, a Customer Success team should never try to accomplish its goals without guidelines and defined processes. That’s where a Customer Success playbook comes into the picture. This valuable item includes protocols, procedures, and expectations that Customer Success teams can use as a blueprint to help them achieve their goals.

Within the past few years, there has been a trend of talent coming into Customer Success from education backgrounds. While the two industries may not seem anything alike at first glance, there are actually many skills that teachers or educators possess that will enable them to have great success in the CS industry.  

During times of economic stress and uncertainty, SaaS organizations can feel the pressure and be particularly vulnerable to these conditions if they’re not prepared. Organizations need to not just be built to grow as quickly as possible, they need to be able to weather economic storms and maintain steady growth. This can be accomplished with a durable growth strategy, and Customer Success plays a critical role.

Everyone has had experience with a bad meeting. Maybe it started late, the agenda was unclear, or perhaps there was no one actually in charge of leading the meeting to begin with. The end result is a group of frustrated or unhappy people who probably don’t accomplish much.

Customers are your organization's most vital asset and there are several different ways that customers drive profits. Sure, excellent customer retention is powerful for successful organizations. But there’s something else involving current customers that can contribute to even more explosive growth: expansion.

Even if your team members are excelling in their current positions, it is important to have a plan in place that will allow them to nurture their careers and work towards specific goals. As a Customer Success leader, it’s your responsibility to have a professional development plan in place to help them get there.

While Customer Success teams are saddled with massive responsibilities and charged with critical missions such as reducing customer churn and boosting retention, the work of Customer Success is anything but isolated. That’s because Customer Success's work has a rapid ripple effect, deeply impacting other departments in a very immediate way. 

With 2023 upon us, it’s an excellent time for Customer Success teams to take a look at their operations, optimize the way they work, and find areas for improvement. Instead of simply continuing with some of the same missteps, teams can conduct a self-audit to spot any Customer Success mistakes they might be making and identify ways to correct them.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

As we look forward to the year ahead, the future is bright in the world of Customer Success. With 2023 upon us, we asked some of the top CS leaders to make their best Customer Success predictions about where the industry is heading and what we can expect. 

When it comes to qualified customer leads, not all are created equal, and some can be particularly valuable. In general, qualified leads have traditionally come from departments such as Sales or Marketing. But there’s a newer category of qualified leads on the scene that is unique from the others, and that has a higher potential of converting: product qualified leads.

A customer’s product experience is possibly the single biggest factor in determining if they love a product and remain a customer, or if they decide to churn to a competitor. Think about it: if a customer is having a poor experience with a product, why would they stick around?

Customer Success Managers need to be skillful in many areas: they need to have excellent communication skills, have to be able to navigate difficult conversations, and have to work through the different complexities that come with helping customers achieve their goals. But one set of skills fundamentally impacts the way Customer Success Managers are able to perform their duties: product knowledge and domain expertise. 

In the business world, and especially in the Customer Success industry, the best relationships are built on trust. Customers are looking to do business with individuals that can help them make long-term strategic decisions for their organization in order to help them reach their goals.

While there’s not one right way to approach a new Customer Success career, there are several common pathways that one might take. From careers in marketing and sales, to less typical starting points such as retail and teaching. In this article, we are revisiting ten of the most common pathways someone might take to enter a career in Customer Success.

Effective leadership allows a team of people to drive forward with a clear focus, empowers them to work to their full potential, and allows them to make important decisions. Leadership skills can be practiced at any level, regardless of your title. There are many ways to practice and develop leadership skills so you can continue to evolve as a leader for your team or department.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Customer Success teams proactively work to help customers find value, and keep them successful, fulfilled, and happy. But sometimes customer accounts can take a turn for the worse. Whether the reason is known or not, and whether your customer vocalizes concerns or is quietly drifting away, Customer Success teams are the one thing that can help turn things around when accounts start to turn red.

Customers are the beating heart of Customer Success and the reason why Customer Success Managers show up to work every day. And while ‘tis the season to show customers you care, customer appreciation doesn’t only have to happen once a year around the holidays. Instead, it should happen all year long.

Strategic change can be incredibly beneficial for Customer Success departments and their organizations as a whole. Whether it’s shifting to new, cutting edge Customer Success practices or guiding customers through change, Customer Success Managers need to not only be proficient at change management, but they also need to be skillful internal change agents.

The term “customer outcomes” can mean different things to different customers. That’s because what one customer may desire may not be what another customer wants. Essentially, customer outcomes are what your product can do for your customer and the measurable results that your customer can see.

Employee morale is far beyond “nice to have” in today’s workplace. Sure, it might be apparent that having team members who are motivated, positive, and genuinely enjoy their workplace is great for those individual team members. But increasingly, data is showing how critical employee morale is to Customer Success outcomes and to overall business outcomes.

Because the current status of their customers is ever-evolving, many Customer Success teams utilize health scores in order to take a more proactive approach with their customers. Health scores allow CS teams to determine who is healthy, who is at risk for churn, or who needs more intervention.

There are plenty of factors that are crucial to Customer Success outcomes, such as the skills of your team members and the goals of your department. One factor that can impact your team’s outcomes is the Customer Success tech stack. Depending on what type of organization you’re in and how your Customer Success department was built, your tech stack could be helping your Customer Success team achieve its goals, or it could be potentially holding it back.

There is an ongoing shift in the way companies are hiring employees. More and more, employees are hired based more on the skills they bring to the table and less on their educational background and the degrees they have. This hiring trend is called skill-based hiring and it’s transforming the hiring process for the labor market across the board, but specifically for middle-skilled positions.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Bringing your whole self to work means bringing your authentic self into your role. It is important to show your authentic self when working towards building relationships with your customers within your role and also building your personal brand. When you start to value your unique perspectives, experiences, and interests you may find that they are more relevant to your work than you previously thought.

When talking about post-sales roles in an organization, both Customer Success and Account Management come to mind. Customer Success and Account Management might seem similar on the surface, but both roles have distinct purposes.

According to studies, 75% of the time we are in conversations with others we are preoccupied, distracted, or forgetful. Immediately following the conversation, we can recall about 50% of what was said and then only 20% an hour later. This is why utilizing active listening strategies when communicating with a customer is so critical to helping that customer achieve the outcomes they desire.

It’s no question how crucial Customer Success is for businesses to thrive in today’s landscape. But building a Customer Success team for a startup is very different from building a Customer Success team for an established company, and comes with different kinds of considerations and challenges.

Data-driven decision making is the act of making organizational decisions using actual data, rather than relying on intuition or observation. Every industry - including Customer Success - aims to be data-driven so that they can ensure the decisions they make are not clouded by bias or false assumptions.

When Customer Success departments are looking to fuel change and drive improvements, they have a powerful tool at their disposal: customer feedback. However, obtaining feedback isn’t the end of the feedback process. That customer feedback then needs to be shared - both internally and externally.

For Customer Success teams, change is inevitable, and it can be a powerful thing. Whether you’re updating protocols that are time consuming, integrating new processes designed to make everyone’s life easier, or reorganizing the department, changes can spark powerful developments. Customer Success leaders need to understand the nuances of updating a team for these changes to be accepted and for them to stick.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Understanding economic and financial concepts might not seem vital to being a leader in Customer Success. But having a thorough understanding of CS economics is incredibly important because it allows you to lead your team to certain financial goals.

The 2022 Customer Success Thought Leadership awards recognize the Customer Success professionals who are furthering the industry and community through thought leadership, mentorship, and innovation. These professionals are making a difference in the field and we can all learn from their experiences.

Emotional intelligence is an extremely important and valuable skill for a CS professional. Having a high EQ not only helps you build relationships with peers, leaders, and customers, but it can also help you save a customer relationship that has gone south or enhance existing relationships by building stronger bonds.

As a customer-centric company, the ways your customers are interacting with your brand go far beyond simply using your product. Every interaction your customers have with your brand or product offers a potential opportunity for your company to provide an excellent experience. That’s why it’s important to identify these moments, which are called customer touchpoints.

As the Customer Success industry continues to grow, there are more opportunities for CS professionals looking to progress their careers than ever before. However, the increased opportunities also affect mobility and retention. Therefore, there is a significant push towards developing clearer career paths and progression timelines for those in CS.

While leading a Customer Success team, you’re likely going to encounter challenging times at one point or another. During these trying economic times, Customer Success leaders need to become pros at managing during a recession in order to keep their team motivated, encouraged, and efficient.

While it can be challenging to navigate trying financial times with customers, one of the biggest obstacles can come from upselling. When a client’s pursestrings are tight, how are Customer Success teams supposed to upsell? What can Customer Success Managers do to understand how to upsell, even during tough financial times?

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

As a business, customers are your most valuable asset, and Customer Success teams should be on the lookout for ways to increase the value of their current customers. Customer expansion doesn’t just immediately impact your bottom line by bringing in more cash - it also improves the ways customers use your product and can lead to better customer retention.

Even if your CS team doesn’t negotiate the business terms of a transaction, CSMs will find themselves negotiating when they’re trying to maintain scope, determine the next milestone in a customer journey, or even when helping enable the drive to adoption. Negotiation as a CSM is an important skill to possess.

Automation can be incredibly beneficial because it can free up internal resources while still providing a valuable and engaging experience for customers. But automation can be finicky because if it’s not designed and deployed strategically, it can send the wrong message to those customers instead.

Customer Success teams need systems to assess, analyze, and automate their Customer Success operations. Without technology and assistance from such tools, Customer Success departments just simply can not function. However, there is no one magic tool - rather a wide variety of tools that each have their own function, purpose, and benefits.

Companies who devote time, money, and effort towards training their CS employees will not only see an increase in employee skill levels and abilities and employee satisfaction but will also experience an increase in revenue and ROI as well. Investing in training will allow your organization to continue to evolve with the trends in the industry and the larger business landscape.

When attempting to quantify success without Customer Success KPIs, all you really have to work off is simply opinions. On the other hand, when you have data-supported facts, you can confidently say precisely how your team is doing and make decisions that drive behavioral change.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

If there’s one thing that can help you understand how your customers view your company and its offerings, it’s a Customer Advisory Board. When executed properly, this intentional group of customers can not only give you invaluable insight into what your Customer Success clients are really thinking, but it can also give you a place to validate and test new ideas and create some of your strongest brand champions.

When done correctly, client reviews can be hugely impactful in improving and solidifying your relationship with your customers. These regular check-ins give you opportunities to reflect on the work that has been done and reassess goals for the future. But conducting client business reviews is only the first piece of the puzzle. What do you do after you sit down with your client and revisit their needs and goals?

The benefits of having a diverse Customer Success team are many, but creating a diverse team isn’t as simple as hiring people from different backgrounds. Created in partnership with Success in Black, the Diversity in CS: Encouraging Diverse Hiring Practices roundtable examined the steps you need to take to increase the diversity of your CS team.

When you think of setting clear expectations, you might think of managers or leadership and their need to define things like goals, scope, and boundaries clearly. But individual contributors also need to be highly skillful at expectation setting for everyone, from their customers to their co-workers.

Proactive engagement can be a powerful tool to increase the quantity and quality of customer conversations across the entire customer journey. Shifting from a reactive engagement strategy to a more proactive strategy will lead to more valuable customer conversations, more leads, increased conversion rates, and increased revenue.

Creating a diverse team isn’t as straightforward as hiring people from different backgrounds to cross “diversity hiring” off your checklist. There are steps you can take in order to build Customer Success teams that are diverse, innovative, and effective, and ultimately create systemic change when it comes to diversity in your organization.

Customer journey mapping is a strategic approach to better understanding customer expectations and allows your organization to create a proactive, positive, personalized customer experience. We want to create a predictable, repeatable approach to driving customer value so that we can set expectations appropriately with our customers and also determine how our teams are executing the journey through strategic KPI identification.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

As a Customer Success leader, there will be times when you need to transition customer accounts to a new Customer Success Manager. It’s your job to help facilitate this transition to ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible. The last thing you want is the ball to get dropped and a customer to feel a lapse in service during the transition.

There are times when Customer Success Managers might need to transition customer accounts to a different CSM. This is a delicate time because customers shouldn’t feel the shakeup. When mismanaged, customer account transitions can leave that customer underserved and undervalued, so you need to take steps during a transition to ensure customers continue to receive the personal touch and excellent service they’ve come to expect.

There’s much more that goes into Customer Success career growth than simply being in the “right place at the right time” when a management position opens up. Instead, you can make proactive decisions while you’re an individual contributor to best prepare yourself for a management position and ultimately be seen as the ideal candidate when an opportunity presents itself.

For Customer Success departments, periods of hypergrowth can stretch and stress their teams and resources. Suddenly there are way more customers and maybe not that many more CSMs. Leaders and decision-makers need to take specific steps to properly lead their CSM team through these times of change to ensure that the team stays unified, everyone feels supported, and the level of service is the same or better for customers.

Today’s customers expect organizations to understand their goals and preferences and engage with them as individuals rather than simply customer types or segments. How can you deliver a personalized experience to your customers while maintaining a predictable and repeatable approach for delivering your customer experience and not “recreate the wheel” for each one?

If there’s one thing that can dictate the course of a day for a Customer Success Manager, it’s how they manage their time. CSM time management can be complicated, but in order to make the most of your workday, every CSM should become masterful at time management. Not only does excellent time management lead to a more productive workday, but also to a more enjoyable one.

Customer Experience has also become a much more prevalent department as companies look to create a memorable, positive experience with their brand or product that will keep customers coming back for more. This includes everything from the way we communicate with our customers to how they interact with the products and services we provide.

Here’s a question we should all consider: do we have future-proof skills? If we look back at how the workforce has changed in recent years, we can clearly see that certain skills and practices have become obsolete. Looking toward the future, all employers and their employees need to ensure their skills are resistant to the tides of change and that they will still have highly in-demand skills as the workforce continues to evolve.

After hard work, dedication, and skill-building, you get to finally soak in the experience of being a Customer Success leader. But the work doesn't stop once you land your leadership role. You need to take steps to continuously be the most incredible leader possible to both your team members and your clients. And the best way to do that is by building strong Customer Success leadership habits.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

For hard-working CSMs, transitioning into the role of Customer Success leader might be a natural and well-deserved career transition. The process of shifting from individual contributor to Customer Success leader is different for everybody. But many things need to happen before an individual contributor can become a Customer Success leader.

Deciding to pursue a career in CS is an exciting decision. But you first need to find the perfect Customer Success role, secure an interview, and execute it with confidence. To best prepare for the Customer Success interview process, there are certain interview questions you should be prepared to answer.

If you’re looking into jobs after graduation and considering a Customer Success career, you’ll probably find that there are tons of vacancies for Customer Success Managers. But how can you, as a new grad, stand out from other graduates and candidates who already have career experience?

In this Moments of Truth interview, Karla Kannan discusses why stakeholder mapping is critical and the importance of developing a governance body to drive change.

We are thrilled to announce that CCSM Level 5: Evolution joins the full range of Certified Customer Success Manager training programs that we offer! As of May 13, 2022, all five levels of our CCSM program were officially accredited by The CPD Certification Service.

While project management is quite different from Customer Success, surprisingly, the two fields have a lot in common, and transitioning from project management to CS is a move worth considering if you’re thinking of a change.

Customers are at the heart of retail work, and when you have a retail career, you’ll spend most of your time interacting with customers. Because of this customer-centric experience, you’ll be well-poised to transition into a Customer Success career.

In Customer Success, it is inevitable that you will have difficult conversations, whether it be with customers or colleagues. Navigating difficult conversations requires more than just luck - there are several techniques and tips you can use to make sure that your conversation goes smoothly.

Whether it’s nightlife, restaurants, hotels, or resorts, hospitality jobs can be vibrant, exciting, and rich with career opportunities. And while you probably think that a hospitality role requires very different skills than a Customer Success career, the two fields actually have more in common than you might realize.

You might not think that being a teacher sets you up for a blossoming career in Customer Success. While, on the surface, these two roles are incredibly different, they actually have many things in common. In fact, many of the core skills you use in your teaching career are also some of the core skills used in a Customer Success career.

Identifying appropriate KPIs and tracking them can help you understand if your practices are creating the expected success and help you identify weak points. As the world of Customer Success continues to evolve, the KPIs that organizations are using to measure effectiveness are also shifting.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

Both account management and CS roles involve overseeing a client’s relationship with your company, so yes, they are similar. But the roles have distinct differences (which is why they both exist in the first place). If you’re looking to make the transition from an account management career to Customer Success, here’s everything you need to know.

If you currently have a Customer Support career and you’re considering transitioning to a Customer Success career, you’re in luck: you’ll definitely be well-poised to make the transition, because many of the base skills are quite similar. But you’ll have to learn some new skills, and learn to tune into customers in a more proactive way.

A consulting career can involve a wide array of roles and positions. If you’re debating leaving your consulting career to switch to a Customer Success career, you’re in luck: many of the skills required for a robust consulting career make you an excellent candidate for Customer Success roles.

In this Moments of Truth interview, Jeff Justice Williams shares advice on being honest about your background and experience when pursuing a new role in Customer Success.

The Diversity in CS: Getting Started in Customer Success roundtable elevated the voices of Customer Success professionals who have only recently joined the field. During the live event, three Customer Success pros shined a light on getting started in CS.

Customer Success and the product team need to be able to work cohesively in order for customers to have the best experience possible. Because these two departments work in tandem, those who have a product management career or product team career are usually an excellent fit for transitioning to a Customer Success career.

There are plenty of pathways into a Customer Success career, but one of the most common routes is from Sales. On the surface, Sales is very different from CS, and most CSMs will argue that they are definitely not salespeople. But when we dig a little deeper, there are many skills that are actually similar between the two, and someone with a Sales career might find that they’re able to easily transition into CS.

In Customer Success, it is inevitable that you will have difficult conversations, whether it be with customers or colleagues. Navigating difficult conversations requires more than just luck - there are several techniques and tips you can use to make sure that your conversation goes smoothly.

How do you know which capabilities your Customer Success team excels at, and which ones they need to work on? And how do you plan a way for them to improve? A skills gap analysis is a great way of uncovering exactly how your team is performing at particular capabilities that are unique to your business and creating a plan of attack for improvement with your learning and development strategy.

Managing your first Customer Success team can feel overwhelming. As a first-time manager, it is important to have a clear vision and skillful leadership that will help catapult your team towards success. If you are able to create and manage an effective CS team, your team members will not only realize their own success but help bring about success for their customers.

Customer Success is a rapidly growing and evolving field, and we know that in order for it to be valuable, it’s critical for our training to keep pace with the changes in the industry. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce a significant curriculum release and let you know what is coming next for our industry-leading Customer Success training.

In this Moments of Truth episode, Guy Galon, the VP of Customer Success at Hysolate, discusses how predictions can help your Customer Success organization deliver better outcomes.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

How well do you understand what your Customer Success department is actually doing, what it’s capable of, and what it needs to change to achieve its goals? While you might think you have a good handle on things, have you ever sat down and actually plotted its capabilities?

Customer advocacy enhances the lifetime value of existing customers. Instead of simply hoping that your customers will tell others about their positive experiences with your product or service, it is imperative to plan for it ahead of time.

Professional development is vital for ensuring your Customer Success Managers are able to take concrete steps towards achieving their career goals and maintain a sense of fulfillment at work. But it’s not enough to just put a professional development plan in place and set your CSMs loose. You need to determine if your professional development plan is actually working and if it’s really helping employees get to where they want to go.

You might be wondering if you’d thrive in a Customer Success role. Here’s everything you need to know about the state of Customer Success right now, signs that you’d make an excellent Customer Success professional, and steps you can take to begin your search.

Automation has many benefits but if it's not designed strategically and utilized in the right way, it can send the wrong message to your customers. Your automation strategy has to be designed with the customer in mind. Beginning the journey toward infusing empathy into your automated programs can feel overwhelming, but ultimately it all comes down to process and mindset.

Your employees might love working as CSMs, may be skillful in what they do, and may be an all-around excellent fit for the job. But even if they excel in the key competencies and necessary skills, they still need a plan to nurture their career and reach their goals. And as a CS leader, it’s your responsibility to have a professional development plan in place to help them get there.

In the monthly jobs report, we take a look at hiring trends for Customer Success roles. The Job Report summary provides more detail regarding where the largest concentrations of jobs are located, which companies are hiring the most actively and what roles employers are looking to fill.

In this Moments of Truth episode, Sam Loveland from ServiceNow discusses how Customer Success has evolved to where it is today, and how data-driven decision making is shaping the future of CS.

For the first in our series of events celebrating diversity in Customer Success, and in partnership with Success in Black, we highlighted Black men who are leading efforts in Customer Success. These leaders shared their unique journeys and their perspectives on the world of CS and gave advice on how to succeed in the field.

So you’ve created the perfect L&D strategy, your budget is approved, and your team is on board. Now, you need to figure out exactly how to deploy your strategy. This means understanding exactly how to get your team to complete and adopt the program and put what they’ve learned to work.

Having a vision for your learning and development plan is one thing, as is building a business case for it and being able to steer your team through the change. But what steps do you need to take in order to actually develop your winning L&D plan? We’ve broken down this process into five concrete and easy-to-follow steps that you can use to create the best learning and development plan possible.

The impacts of sharing customer feedback are monumental. By capturing and sharing customer feedback with other teams internally, it creates a customer-centric culture. In addition, sharing customer feedback with customers and following up with them lets them know that you’re listening to them intently and have acted upon their feedback in a timely manner.

Being masterful at change management in Customer Success is no small undertaking for leadership, especially when it comes to your learning and development strategy. In order for an L&D strategy to be successful, and for a team to really embrace it, adopt it, and ultimately grow, leaders need to be experts at change management.

In this Moments of Truth episode, Andrew Schoaff from Zywave shares his experiences with transitioning from one Customer Success business model to another and gives advice on how to do so effectively.

Learning and development strategies are crucial to the growth of your Customer Success department, but there’s usually one catch: these strategies require you to know how to build a budget. Sure, you can create the ultimate L&D strategy that has the power to transform your team, align that strategy with your business goals, and even build an incredible business case to convince the higher-ups of your venture, but ultimately, you won’t get very far without a budget.

As a Customer Success leader, it might seem obvious to you why your team needs to undergo training and why a budget should be provided for a training initiative. But sometimes, it can be tough to convince your senior management or the board of your company of the same thing.

When you come up with a great L&D strategy, you might just be excited to get the ball rolling and be tempted to launch it ASAP. But here’s the thing: in order for your learning and development strategy to stick and succeed, you’re going to need to assess what might hold your team back or derail your efforts.