What does a customer success manager do?
A customer success manager (CSM) ensures that clients receive the complete value of a company’s products or services, fostering long-term relationships and driving customer satisfaction. They act as the primary point of contact for key accounts, understanding each customer’s unique needs, goals, and challenges and ensuring they can succeed with the product or service.
A customer success manager serves as the bridge between the client and the company, proactively identifying potential challenges before they arise, offering solutions, and providing continual support.
In the Indian context, where personalised service and strong relationships are paramount, The role of CSMs includes managing accounts and expanding them, identifying upsell opportunities, and ensuring customers take full advantage of all offerings. They work cross-functionally with sales, product development, and marketing teams to effectively drive results and solve customer problems. These professionals are essential for helping companies retain clients, reduce churn, and enhance overall customer experiences.
Customer success managers are different from account managers. While the former focuses on customer satisfaction and retention, the latter focuses primarily on sales and revenue generation. Also, note that client relationship managers have similar roles and responsibilities as CSMs, but they may have a broader focus on overall client relationships, including sales and support.
Job description: Template
We’re seeking a dynamic customer success manager to join our team at [Company X].
As a CSM, you will be responsible for understanding our customers’ needs, ensuring excellent customer experience, fostering long-term loyalty, and ensuring they get the most value from our products and services. You will be crucial in helping us build strong, lasting relationships with our clients/customers. The ideal candidate is passionate about customer service, satisfaction, and success, with excellent communication skills.
If you are a results-driven and customer-centric professional looking to make a meaningful impact, we encourage you to apply for the role and become part of a customer-focused, dynamic team. Along with a competitive salary, we offer a collaborative work environment and comprehensive benefits, including performance bonuses and professional development opportunities.
Objectives of the role
- Managing and growing relationships with key customers, acting as their primary point of contact.
- Engaging proactively with customers to understand their goals and challenges and offering solutions that align with their needs.
- Ensuring high customer retention and satisfaction levels by delivering exceptional service and support.
- Gathering customer feedback and communicating product improvement suggestions to the development team.
- Collaborating with internal teams to address customer feedback, resolve issues, and ensure the smooth delivery of products and services.
- Developing and executing customer success strategies that drive product adoption and maximise customer value.
- Monitoring customer health metrics, tracking success KPIs, and regularly reporting on customer outcomes to leadership.
- Advocating for the customer within the organisation to ensure their needs are prioritised.
Your tasks
- Onboard new clients and guide them through product setup, training, and initial usage to ensure successful implementation.
- Conduct regular check-ins and business reviews with customers to assess progress, gather feedback, and discuss future goals.
- Identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities to expand customer use of the company’s products and services.
- Oversee the customer lifecycle management and identify areas for optimisation.
- Conduct customer onboarding sessions to ensure successful product adoption.
- Create and deliver customised reports, presentations, and performance insights to demonstrate the impact of our solutions.
- Lead customer training sessions, workshops, and demonstrations to enhance product knowledge and usage.
- Assist in the development of customer success playbooks and resources.
- Serve as the liaison between customers and internal teams, such as product development, sales, and support.
- Manage customer escalations and ensure issues are resolved quickly and effectively.
Required skills and qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, or a related field.
- 3+ years of experience as a customer success manager, account manager, or in customer success, account management, or customer service roles.
- Experience in managing customer success programs, customer retention, and upselling strategies.
- Ability to analyse customer data and usage trends to identify areas of improvement.
- Understanding of product management and its impact on customer experience.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build and maintain long-term relationships and work cross-functionally.
- Excellent problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities, with a customer-focused mindset and a proactive approach.
- Strong organisational and time management skills, with the ability to manage multiple accounts and priorities simultaneously.
- Familiarity with CRM tools, customer success platforms, and analytics software.
- Solid negotiation skills to handle complex customer accounts.
Preferred skills and qualifications
- Advanced degree in Business, Marketing, or a related field.
- Relevant certification in Customer Success, Account Management, or related fields (e.g., SuccessHACKER, CSM certification).
- Experience in SaaS, technology, or B2B industries.
- Knowledge of customer success best practices and frameworks.
- Experience with customer success tools like Gainsight, ChurnZero, or HubSpot.
- Experience with data analytics and reporting.
- Experience in managing large enterprise-level accounts.
- Proficiency in handling customer escalations and resolving conflicts.
- Multilingual abilities, especially in regional languages.
