Frequently Asked Questions About Customer Success
To see a list of all available question & answers, click on the categories below.
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You may also be interested in The Questions of Customer Success resource in the Library.
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How Can I Make the Case for the ROI of my Customer Success Group?
This is increasingly an absolute necessity for Customer Success execs who want to keep their job and those of their team members. There are two basic approaches: intuitively, and empirically. Start with the intuitive as it’s easier, but don’t […]
Is My Customer Success Group At-Risk?
While your Customer Success group may be meeting all of its KPI’s, and your customers all love working with their CSMs, there is another set of customers that are even more important to satisfy: the senior management team and […]
What Customer Success Books Should I Read?
In 2016, three people from Gainsight collaborated to produce the first published book on Customer Success. Since then, there have been many more, and The Customer Success Association maintains a complete and up-to-date list of all of them. The […]
Where is the best place to advertise for open Customer Success positions?
In addition to all of the standard approaches to publicizing an open Customer Success Manager position or for an executive CS leadership opening, the best place to advertise is in the Customer Success Jobs Board thread of The Customer Success […]
How will AI Impact the Future of Customer Success?
Tech-touch, or Self-Success, is the answer to scaling Customer Success teams. But while AI, or Artificial Intelligence, will someday have a significant role in Customer Success, it will never replace the CS team. If carefully designed and implemented, AI […]
What are the elements of a good Customer Success Technology Suite?
Which software vendors are active in the Customer Success space? These questions are constantly being asked by Customer Success teams and their companies worldwide. Two of the most popular pages on the Customer Success Association website are the Customer Success […]
What Is The Customer Success Blueprint?
Congratulations! You’ve just been tapped to start a brand new Customer Success group for your company. (Or to re-start a failed Customer Success group or initiative.) Now the fun begins. Where to start? What are the priorities? What resources […]
Can A Company Outsource Its Customer Success Group?
Can a company outsource its Customer Success Group? Yes, it can, and there are several vendors who will supply services to outsource some or all of the functions of a CS group. The Catalog of Available Customer Success Outsourcer […]
What Would Be Your Top 3 Interview Questions for a Candidate CSM?
What evidence do you have that speaks to your domain expertise and credibility in my company’s vertical market? Conference presentations, blog articles, white papers, certifications earned, awards received — please describe your professional background that would suggest to my […]
What Benchmarks or Industry Standards are there for Customer Success?
“What’s the Industry Standard for number of accounts per CSM?“ “How often should you do Customer Value Reviews or QBRS, etc.?” “What percentage of the company by employee size is customer success?” Definition: Benchmark / Industry Standard A standard […]
How should a company start to design and build a new Customer Success group?
The decision to design a new Customer Success group is not something to be treated lightly. The role has to be carefully crafted if the team is to have any chance of long-term success. Unfortunately, the typical approach is […]
What Are The Best Certifications for an Aspiring Customer Success Manager?
There are some vendors (technology and training/recruiting/consulting companies) that have offered certifications upon completion of training courses for some time now. There is clear value in the training courses. I have been asked many times over the years by […]
What Are The Most Impactful Customer Success KPI’s?
How Should You Measure Customer Success? The mission of Customer Success is to increase sustainable proven value for both the customers and the company. Therefore the prime KPI for a customer success group is the value they have brought […]
How Many Customers or Accounts Can a CSM Reasonably Handle?
The question of “how many customers/accounts per CSM?” or “What is the CSM to Customer Staffing Ratio?” is constantly being asked by harried Customer Success executives all over the world. Everybody seems to be looking for an “industry standard” […]
What is the Process/Workflow of a Customer Success Group?
The Process or Workflow of a Customer Success Group are the normal range of activities that the individual Customer Success Managers do as they work to increase adoption of the product and to build more sustainable, proven value for […]
How can I get my first Customer Success Manager job?
This is a very popular question as people hear of Customer Success and realize that it’s the kind of job they’ve always wanted. But getting that first customer success job can be a challenge. The prime attribute of a […]
Where can I find local Customer Success Association chapters or other meetings?
The Customer Success Association maintains a list of local meetings and groups on the CustomerSuccessLocal.com page of the CSA website. We also publicize links to meetings, if the local group submits them, in the monthly Customer Success Calendar email […]
What is the Mission of Customer Success?
The Mission of Customer Success is to increase sustainable proven value for both the Customers and the Company. The essence is found in three core words: sustainable, proven, and value. The goal is increase, and the beneficiaries are the […]
What is the Definition of Customer Success?
Customer Success is a long-term, scientifically engineered and professionally directed strategy for maximizing customer and company sustainable proven value. Note the key words/concepts in that sentence: Long-term: A viable, effective Customer Success team and program is not something that […]
What Are Some Potential Career Paths for Customer Success Managers?
For a customer-facing CSM (as opposed to a team-leader Manager of Customer Success), the most likely career path, apart from staying in CS, would be into Sales at some point, capitalizing on their domain expertise. That ultimately could lead […]