About The Customer Success Wiki

The Need

Dictionary word - designOver the years since Customer Success as a named role/department was created in 1997, the term has been used in many ways.   Some have thought that it is about fixing breaks; and used it as another, fancier name for Customer Support.  Others have seen the role as only being about increasing adoption of an application’s feature set.  Differentiating between Customer Success as a business strategy of the whole company vs. Customer Success as a distinct department has also been difficult for some.

The lack of consensus about the very definition of key terms and concepts has created a lot of unnecessary and expensive confusion in the worldwide customer success community and in companies trying to design and build their CS resources.

The Resource

Building frameworkThe purpose of The Customer Success Wiki is to create a definitional foundation for the future of the profession.

To build that foundation will require a common framework for articles defining terms and describing concepts and procedures.  There will be differences of opinion on both descriptions and meanings thereof; where such occur, we will need to note the points of disagreement and fairly and accurately present the logic and reasoning behind each position.  Over time, the community will decide on which is the best answer.

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The Timing

The challenge of documenting the core aspects of the profession is not an insignificant one, and will not be accomplished in a short time.  Building this resource will take years and the efforts of many people.   At the beginning, there is a handful of categories and the first drafts of a few articles.

Policy

Access to The Customer Success Wiki is open to all.  Within the articles here, while there may be links to non-public and or proprietary resources, the intent is for the basics to be freely available.

Version 1.0 — 9/1/19