Main Responsibilities and Required Skills for Customer Success Manager
A Customer Success Manager is a person who assists clients in getting the most out of the product or service they've purchased. They accomplish this by offering assistance, answering inquiries, and resolving issues for their consumers. In this blog post we describe the primary responsibilities and the most in-demand hard and soft skills for Customer Success Managers.
Get market insights and compare skills for other jobs here.
Main Responsibilities of Customer Success Manager
The following list describes the typical responsibilities of a Customer Success Manager:
Accelerate
Accelerate the contract renewal process and ensure customer satisfaction.
Achieve
Achieve individual performance targets for retention of annual recurring revenue (ARR / GDDR).
Adapt
Adapt to dynamic market forces and environmental developments.
Advocate
Advocate for our Client needs internally by delivering insightful, quantitative feedback.
Advocate for the customer to internal stakeholders.
Advocate the customers' needs / issues internally, across departments.
Anticipate
Anticipate clients' requirements and possible challenges - help our clients to succeed.
Anticipate future customer needs and proactively reach out to resources at VMware to address them.
Anticipate customer needs and proactively offers solutions and best practices.
Assist
Assist customers in driving user adoption and change management within their organization.
Assist customers with implementation of our testing solutions.
Assist implementation team as needed with setting up and onboarding clients.
Assist with accounts through defined implementation and onboarding process.
Assist with all aspects of booking needs.
Assist with the development of customer educational, marketing, and sales material.
Attend
Attend regular office meetings as required.
Attend weekly sales / operations meetings to discuss customer relationships.
Build
Build and Conduct Executive Business Reviews.
Build and develop relationships with high value customers.
Build and maintain strong, long-lasting client relationships.
Build and manage the customer support team.
Build, manage and nurture your portfolio of accounts.
Build Mutual Success Plans.
Build ongoing customer relationships to ensure satisfaction and product loyalty.
Build rapport and relationships with customers.
Build professional relationships quickly, with stakeholders at all levels.
Build strategy for your accounts to drive loyalty and minimize customer attrition.
Build strong relationships with your customers as a trusted advisor.
Build value-based relationships with customers.
Capture
Capture key customer insights in order to drive positive business change.
Coach
Coach customers on activities that align with their business use cases.
Collaborate with
Collaborate and learn from an experienced Go to Market team and PredictHQ leadership.
Collaborate closely with internal teams in different regions.
Collaborate with Absolute's sales, service, and support teams to escalate customer needs.
Collaborate with sales team to nurture existing clients and / or identify areas of improvement.
Collaborate with sales to define roadmap and bring new cases to market.
Collaborate with the Product team to improve the experience for Qualia users on products sold.
Collect
Collect and categorize customer feedback to relay with product and growth teams.
Collect and communicate intelligent customer feedback to drive ongoing product improvements.
Collect case studies and other evidence that can be used by sales and marketing teams.
Collect client feedback to act as internal advocate for our clients.
Collect & document business and technical intel about Chargify customers.
Collect your personal data for recruiting, global organization planning, and related purposes.
Communicate
Communicate customers priorities to the rest of the organization.
Communicate these opportunities to the internal team and roll out to clients.
Communicate with our clients across a variety of channels, including Slack, Zoom, and email.
Conduct
Conduct daily rounds Monday through Friday.
Conduct demos on the products and showcase new functionality for existing clients.
Conduct face-to-face Operational Reviews when requested.
Conduct quarterly or monthly account reviews with customers.
Conduct Success Planning Sessions and Quarterly Business Reviews, manage contract negotiations.
Conduct user Interviews and gather feedback about the Bushel platform.
Contact
Contact customers proactively on a regular basis and develop intimate relationships.
Contribute to
Contribute as a mentor and guide to more junior members of the Customer Success team.
Contribute to the development of customer resources.
Contribute to the ideation, development and productization of CDS enhancements.
Coordinate
Coordinate clients, service providers and internal team members.
Coordinate the resolution of technical issues raised by customers.
Coordinate training events with the technical team.
Create
Create a Customer Success Plan that tracks milestones and measure progress against the same.
Create and implement processes that enable us to deliver the highest quality data.
Create and maintain stellar presentations for actual and prospective customers.
Create and manage a Customer Support function to address bespoke user queries.
Create and provide input on new and existing workflows.
Create Digital Customer Success Plays within Gainsight Journey Orchestrator.
Create engaging content that represents our brand in collaboration with other departments.
Create referenceable customer relationship.
Create web-based products that help consumers manage their credit and identity.
Define
Define and iterate on what customer success looks like at Nayya.
Define business objectives for the customer and develop a strategic direction for success.
Determine
Determine the needs, living standards and economic viability of prospect customers.
Develop
Develop and implement tailored programs that provide continued value to the customer.
Develop and maintain CI Pipelines.
Develop and maintain key customer contacts, including at a senior level.
Develop and monitor policies and procedures, operating structure, information flow, etc..
Develop and nurture customers to become Brand Ambassadors on behalf of the company.
Develop customer plays to respond and mitigate any risks (including churn rate and escalations).
Develop customer success stories and client references with Marketing Communications.
Develop deep empathy for the company's end users.
Develop industry and product expertise in order to advocate best practices.
Develop, manage and maintain strong, positive customer relationships.
Develop plans with each Customer for SaaS deployment, change management, and adoption programs.
Develop positive working relationships with Customer System Champions.
Develop, prepare, and nurture customers for advocacy.
Develop services plan, and overall services alignment, to drive consumption of licenses.
Develop strong relationships with all key decision makers and influencers across e-commerce teams.
Develop trusted advisor relationships with key accounts and customer stakeholders.
Direct
Direct and oversee end to end testing and commissioning of each Solution.
Direct customers to relevant content within the Absolute Learning Hub.
Drive
Drive adoption across multiple departments, stakeholders, and business users.
Drive adoption of all of the features of the Finn AI platform by each customer in your portfolio.
Drive adoption of our products through success planning and KPI measurement.
Drive and ensure the deployment of Adobe Document Cloud.
Drive and execute customer renewals.
Drive change and improvement and get involved with global initiatives to continue to evolve the team.
Drive customer workshops to ensure adoption and facilitate roadmap discussions.
Drive key KPIs for restaurant activations and growth.
Drive product improvements on various fronts by collaborating with our Product Management team.
Drive, refine, and optimize our customer success strategy.
Drive subscription renewals, expansion and cross sell bookings.
Drive the adoption of Fixflo features / usage across your portfolio.
Drive Usage and Adoption through activities defined as critical to ensure a customer success.
Engage
Engage and understand your customer's workforce and processes.
Engage and understand your customer's workforce, processes, and challenges.
Engage customers via strategy calls, driving product value and usage.
Engage proactively with accounts ahead of renewing contracts in order to ensure renewals.
Engage relevant internal and partner resources to ensure customer delight.
Engage with business leaders to thoughtfully help them identify opportunities.
Engage with key contacts to build an ongoing relationship around feedback, updates, and support.
Engage with the customer to identify expansion opportunities.
Ensure
Ensure client compliance with our processes and procedures.
Ensure complete and accurate customer data across systems.
Ensure customer satisfaction is met or exceeded while managing business optimization.
Ensure customers use the product correctly and oversee usage.
Ensure no customer churn occurs that is within our control to mitigate.
Ensure seamless and positive merchant experience during transition from Merchant Approval Team.
Ensure that any issues related to on-board new customers are addressed.
Ensure that customers are completely and accurately onboarded.
Ensure the accuracy of the Intake Form in order to progress the on-boarding to the Analysis stage.
Ensure timely and accurate customer health updates are captured.
Ensure timely and successful customer.
Ensure workflow management system and customer-facing tools are updated.
Escalate
Escalate and track and manage incidents.
Establish
Establish and grow relationships with leaders and decision makers.
Establish and maintain excellent relationships with your portfolio of Unbabel customers.
Establish and track clear KPIs, retention goals and process milestones for our customers.
Establish consultative and trusted relationships with clients.
Establish professional relationships and trusted advisor status with key customer stakeholders.
Establish relationships of trust with the customers in your portfolio (Tiers 1&2 only).
Establish timelines and hold customers to them.
Evangelize
Evangelize customers, all across the organization, from CxO to end-users.
Execute
Execute content strategies that helps increase reach and drive referrals.
Execute contract renewal management for portfolio accounts.
Facilitate
Facilitate engagements to proactively identify at-risk customers based on low usage / utilization.
Facilitate Executive Business Reviews, facilitate workshops.
Facilitate periodic (weekly, monthly, quarterly).
Facilitate setting outcomes and measurable objectives with the Customer.
Facilitate testing and iteration of the platform with power users.
Facilitate the gathering of business requirements workshops.
Foresee
Foresee risk and implements mitigation strategies.
Foster
Foster a success-oriented, accountable environment within the Services organization and company.
Foster end-user insight and empathy across the consumer business.
Guide
Guide and educate customers utilizing various self-help options and articles.
Guide your customers to Content Operations best practices, leveraging your knowledge of the Kapost.
Help
Help generate customer references and case studies.
Help identify and build great customer success practices across the team.
Help manage customer integrations between their existing tools and their SPOTIO account.
Help train new Customer Success Managers by participating in team on-boarding sessions.
Identify
Identify and assess renewal risks for clients.
Identify and facilitate upsell and expansion opportunities.
Identify and mobilize growth opportunities within accounts.
Identify areas in which current clients can use their existing InMoment products more effectively.
Identify client references for sales and marketing.
Identify common customer challenges & develop suggestions for product development team.
Identify customer resource requirements and dependencies and address gaps.
Identify Customer risk, and work with extended Adobe team to create and execute on "get well” plans.
Identify customers at risk for churn that require additional stakeholders' attention.
Identify, develop, and recognize new opportunities for expanding your Customers' business value.
Identify low usage and take action to increase adoption.
Identify new sales opportunities (upsell or cross-sell) through customer engagements.
Identify opportunities for cross selling within existing accounts.
Identify opportunities for customers to act as Tapsend advocates (e.g. testimonials, case studies).
Identify opportunities for expansion or cross-selling to current accounts.
Identify opportunities for upgrades and growth.
Identify opportunities to expand our partnership with customers.
Identify our champions within your assigned accounts.
Identify up-sell opportunities and collaborate with Account Executives to generate new proposals.
Identify upsell opportunities to maximize customer growth.
Interact with
Interact with product management teams to advocate product enhancements needed to meet.
Interact with a broad level of client contacts - from Learning Managers to CLOs and Directors.
Interact with customer dashboards to help them achieve success by helping them find ecommerce errors.
Investigate
Investigate customer's current lead workflow and marketing technology stack.
Lead
Lead and participate in activities that drive product adoption and customer happiness.
Lead client's onboarding experience, adoption, and expansion across a range of relationships.
Lead customer's onboarding, adoption, and expansion across a range of Cloud Management Products.
Lead new enterprise customer onboarding.
Lead on customer meetings ensuring actions are taken and followed up.
Lead the effort to deliver an overall positive customer experience with Absolute.
Lead training and onboarding sessions with new customers.
Learn
Learn about school district initiatives and look for new activities Xello can support.
Learn about the software and sources of information CSMs use regularly to work with customers.
Learn Customer's use cases and Confiant application.
Learn their business priorities, strategic initiatives, and both Marketing & Content Operation goals.
Leverage
Leverage data insights to manage progress, performance, and priorities.
Leverage our Client Response Operating Model to ensure clients will always receive quick support.
Leverage experience and knowledge through information sharing.
Maintain
Maintain a deep understanding of Tableau's platform and speak with customers about the most relevant.
Maintain and develop the CRM database.
Maintain and update Rebellion bug databases, documenting test results accurately.
Maintain compliance with Inovalon's policies, procedures and mission statement.
Maintain deep understanding of Tableau's platform.
Maintain / grow revenue from your customers by creating and demonstrating top and bottom-line value.
Maintain professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops.
Manage
Manage and be responsible for the economic buyer relationship with each assigned CancerIQ enterprise.
Manage and communicate client risk indicators and develop a plan to resolve those risks.
Manage and grow the customer relationship post-sale.
Manage a portfolio of enterprise customers and their onboarding and post deployment.
Manage a portfolio of healthy customers.
Manage a renewal pipeline including amendments to existing contracts etc..
Manage a varied customer list (SMB, mid-market, enterprise or strategic accounts).
Manage client documentation within our systems.
Manage critical escalations with clear resolution plan and drive to closure.
Manage customer relationships, account on-boarding, and account outreach.
Manage product and technical queries from the customer that occur on your accounts.
Manage projects for a particular solution.
Manage the customer onboarding process and consistently document success.
Manage the delivery and health of high value and key accounts.
Manage the renewal process and identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Manage your portfolio of accounts and become a trusted advisor to our clients.
Maximize
Maximize value realisation and ROI from the solutions and services they buy from Adobe.
Measure
Measure and monitor regularly.
Measure and report on progress toward achieving customer's definition of success over time.
Meet
Meet established deadlines and support post-project renewal / upsell activities.
Meet or exceed monthly, quarterly, and annual new opportunity targets.
Meet pre-defined metrics around revenue growth through upsell / cross-sell & deep Webex adoption.
Monitor
Monitor and report on metrics associated with program execution.
Monitor current market conditions to seek opportunities to maximize margins and minimize retail risk.
Monitor customer engagement to identify at-risk customers who require attention.
Monitor customer health and escalate churn risks.
Monitor, report and manage the financial health of the client.
Monitor the health of the customer relationship.
Onboard
Onboard customers and highlight resources available to a new customer.
Onboard new customers to the platform.
Oversee
Oversee customer configuration and phased launch activities.
Oversee onboarding process as customers move from implementation to production.
Own
Own a book of business and be responsible for adoption and renewals for your clients.
Own a Customer Success strategy for Enterprise and emerging mid-sized life-sciences customers.
Own all aspects of your own portfolio of customers (10-50, depending on the size).
Own & lead customers through the contract renewal process.
Own the complete customer lifecycle of onboarding, adoption, expansion and renewal.
Own the ultimate success of our customers, ensuring they.
Participate in
Participate in events / seminars and maintain a deep understanding of the workforce management space.
Participate in sales demonstrations and help with RFP responses.
Participate in product development, report bugs, and capture customer feedback.
Participate in projects as required.
Participate in Quarterly Business Reviews.
Participate on cross-functional teams to discuss accounts and look for trends or commonalities.
Perform
Perform consistently and successfully across KPIs, metrics and objectives.
Perform outbound calls to current, former and prospective customers promoting our services.
Perform regular health check meetings with large key accounts.
Prepare
Prepare and execute on jointly agreed customer success plans.
Prepare customized business cases when required and manages the negotiation for customized rates.
Produce
Produce digital content at industrial scale to maximise efficiencies.
Produce regular issue status reports and quarterly activity reports for the Leadership Team.
Produce and manage various reports related to customer service management.
Produce winning proposals and presentations.
Provide
Provide Account Team leadership on channel (multi-channel) account strategy.
Provide business reviews and updates to clients at a senior level.
Provide client relationship management for all assigned clients.
Provide clinical / scientific education to help inform and influence product decisions.
Provide coaching and support to super users.
Provide constant feedback to Sales Executives on the progress of your efforts to expand an account.
Provide consultancy with sales accent.
Provide continual mentorship to team members.
Provide customer and market feedback to the product team to help build features and solutions.
Provide customers with information on the features and benefits of our services.
Provide day-to-day guidance and support to managed accounts.
Provide elements of "customer success” including best practices.
Provide guidance on strategic IT Roadmaps.
Provide input and engage in the account planning at assigned customers.
Provide insight with respect to the availability and applicability of new IHSM products and features.
Provide progress analysis related to customer engagement.
Provide regular customer updates to sales team and business managers.
Provide timely response to customer support inquiries via phone and email.
Provide training on key aspects of the solution.
Provide updates, executive summaries, and guidance to the EI executive team as required.
Provide updates to team on weekly meetings or when required.
Provide valuable feedback and insight to the product team and developers.
Respond
Respond in a meaningful and quick manner.
Respond to, and support administrator and teacher queries.
Respond to customer support queries effectively and in a timely manner.
Respond to inbound calls, chats, and emails from clients.
Respond to requests from customers for information.
Review
Review, research and take action in response to customer inquiries.
Run
Run and report on our customer feedback process / NPS.
Run the renewal process for your assigned portfolio of accounts.
Schedule
Schedule and manage onboarding sessions to introduce new customers to the Vidyard platform.
Share
Share best practices on Adoption, Enablement & Change Management.
Share health updates regularly to internal and external stakeholders.
Share key customer feedback and insights with internal stakeholders on a regular basis.
Share results and actionable items with cross-functional stakeholders.
Strengthen
Strengthen our customer relationships by delivering amazing support.
Support
Support Innovation & Growth.
Support the client in their day to day activities.
Support the CSM team in technical customer discussions.
Support the development of strategic user cases, adoption roadmaps, and recommendations.
Take
Take a look under the hood of life at WeGift from our employees perspective.
Take ownership of any issues raised by Go1 customers.
Take ownership of customer issues and follow through to resolution.
Take responsibility for our clients' success throughout their entire lifecycle.
Take the lead role in defining our customer care workflows.
Track
Track customer feedback to help influence the product roadmap.
Track feature requests, bugs and product gaps.
Track record of high performance and extremely satisfied customers.
Track record of maintaining client retention rates and high levels of client satisfaction.
Track record of using data and reporting to guide decision making.
Travel
Travel as business requirements dictate.
Travel as needed for customer meetings and conferences.
Travel once a month for site visits with customers as needed to meet in person with clients.
Travel on-site when needed, typically about 15% travel expected.
Travel up to 25% to visit customers under normal circumstances.
Troubleshoot
Troubleshoot customer systems and business issues, providing recommendations for solution.
Understand
Understand and execute impactful solutions.
Understand and explain features and benefits of the product line as it relates to customer needs.
Understand and improve internal processes for troubleshooting customer issues.
Understand clients' needs and priorities in order to optimize the use of their platform.
Understand clients' needs in order to frame Oura's value in a way that supports their goals.
Understand client use cases and define plans to achieve success criteria.
Understand customer expectations and drive renewal and upsell.
Understand customer needs by collecting feedback and developing relationships.
Understand data models, data dictionaries, and data visualization.
Understand the customer's current process, goals and pain points.
Update
Update Salesforce as requested.
Use
Use a proactive, solutions-oriented approach to anticipate and prevent customer pain points.
Use key measures to improve your skills and manage time in order to win more sales.
Utilize
Utilize performance data, develop and share insights and optimize their current experience.
Utilize the company's products and tools to investigate data, product, and other issues.
Welcome
Welcome new customers and ensure a smooth handover transition from the sales team.
Work with
Work with cross-functional teams to find effective resolutions to more complex queries.
Work with partners to extend reach & drive adoption.
Work with sales executives on land and expand opportunities.
Work with the implementation and technical services teams to continue to improve tools and process.
Work with the merchants to ensure they are using Magento effectively and achieving success.
Work with the publishing team to develop curated lists of content for enterprise customers.
Work with the sales team to properly sell and position Success Services.
Most In-demand Hard Skills
The following list describes the most required technical skills of a Customer Success Manager:
Sales
Consulting
SAAS
Marketing
Customer Service
Excel
Business
Security
CRM
Gainsight
Support
Powerpoint
Zendesk
Customer Support
Customer Success Management
Professional Services
Customer-Facing
Process Improvement
Program Management
Customer Facing
Netsuite
Workday
Google Apps
Planning
Servicenow
Product Management
Most In-demand Soft Skills
The following list describes the most required soft skills of a Customer Success Manager:
Written and oral communication skills
Organizational capacity
Presentation
Analytical ability
Interpersonal skills
Problem-solving attitude
Attention to detail
Time-management
Creative
Self-motivated
Self-starter
Team player
Multi-task
Organized
Proactive
Detail-oriented
Priority management
Work independently with little direction
Flexible
Leadership
Collaborative
Work ethic
Positive attitude
Ambitious
Empathy
Enthusiastic
Adaptable to changes
Confident
Empathetic
Negotiation
