Career Guide: Client Success Manager (CSM)
Here’s what you need to know.
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What Is a Client Success Manager?
Customers are at the heart of every successful business, which elevates their satisfaction to a top priority. Whether it’s meeting a need or solving a problem, creating meaningful and effective customer relationships can catapult a business into a household brand with loyal followers.
A client success manager (CSM) ensures customers, or clients, are valued and retained. Their efforts reach beyond customer service into a proactive, strategic partnership where they introduce a product, emphasize its features and show how it meets a need. CSMs elevate customer lifecycles with excellent business-to-consumer relational connections, supporting strong brand awareness and intentional marketing strategies.
A CSM is sometimes confused with a customer support professional, and while they both play critical roles in the customer experience, their responsibilities and focuses are unique. CSMs engage throughout the customer journey to understand their needs and help meet them with products. Alternatively, customer support professionals primarily address issues and troubleshoot problems.
Today’s business landscape prominently features Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies that deliver digital services in exchange for a subscription. Their survival depends on proactive engagement and customer retention, making CSMs more critical than ever. Similarly, business-to-business (B2B) models thrive on the relationship management that CSMs specialize in.
If you’re passionate about business and customer satisfaction, a career as a CSM could be the perfect fit. This unique guide is your one-stop shop to learning all you need to know.
What Does a Client Success Manager Do?
At the top of a CSM’s priority list is client success and customer service management. This involves a host of responsibilities that imitate a cycle.
- Client onboarding: Sales teams land clients, but it’s up to the CSM to help them understand the product and service to use it most effectively.
- Product and service adoption: Oftentimes, customers purchase products or services and miss using notable features, so the CSM ensures clients are familiar enough to use as many capabilities as possible.
- Problem-solving: While customer support professionals are at the forefront, a CSM is available to offer customer advocacy, addressing issues and/or needs at a higher level.
- Customer engagement: Keeping clients engaged is a CSM’s bread and butter because it opens space for upselling strategies and contributes significantly to client retention.
- Performance assessment: Client success metrics like churn rate (percentage of customers who stop using a product or service), net promoter score (NPS; customer satisfaction scores) and product adoption are paramount in determining whether a CSM’s efforts are effective.
In addition to repeating this cycle with various clients or customers, a CSM is a highly collaborative employee. You’ll work with sales, marketing and product teams to ensure the client journey transforms into retention and loyalty. Plus, some CSMs train customer success teams to support with onboarding clients and other various needs.
More specifically, on-the-job tasks might include:
- Developing customized client onboarding plans.
- Leading meetings with customers to ensure products align with their goals.
- Monitoring product usage data and checking in with customers.
- Sharing product feedback with upper leadership.
- Managing accounts in customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Where Do Client Success Managers Work?
Due to their focus on the customer experience, CSMs often work in service-oriented industries that rely on strong, long-term relationships with clients, such as SaaS companies like Microsoft, Dropbox, Netflix, Slack and more. You can also find CSMs in healthcare, financial technology (or fintech), digital marketing, startups or enterprise settings.
With opportunities both remote and in-office, CSM roles are versatile in terms of flexibility. However, there are pros and cons to each setting.
| Remote CSM roles | In-office CSM roles | |
|---|---|---|
| Pros | Flexibility with schedule and location Strong efficiency due to fewer distractions | Face-to-face networking and interaction Culture of community with colleagues |
| Cons | No face-to-face networking and interaction Fewer opportunities to create community with teammates | Lower efficiency due to office distractions Structured schedule and location, limiting work-life balance |
Essential Skills for a Client Success Manager
An effective CSM leads by example with a host of both soft and hard skills. While this list isn’t comprehensive, it highlights strengths that are a must-have.
Soft Skills
- Communication: Communicating clearly with customers is critical because it helps you build strong, trusting relationships. And, as you collaborate with colleagues, clear articulation of plans and ideas will support efficiency and effectiveness.
- Listening: Active listening goes together with communicating well. You must clearly understand client and customer concerns to appropriately address them.
- Empathy: Your product or service is designed to meet a need, so offering empathy to those seeking your help should be supported with kindness and compassion.
- Emotional intelligence: In a people-oriented role, you’ll want to be able to read a room and notice communicative cues, both verbal and nonverbal.
- Problem-solving: As you identify client and customer needs, you must be able to think critically and address any concerns or issues that arise with thoughtful and innovative solutions.
- Relationship building and networking: A CSM’s entire role depends on the ability to build relationships and network well. This often means compiling your soft skills to understand others and know how to connect with them.
- Patience: Building relationships is seldom a speedy endeavor, and you’ll need to give clients, especially hesitant ones, patience to reduce churn rates and dissatisfaction.
- Resilience: Sometimes clients will fall off, and this could impact your company’s bottom line. A resilient attitude gives you the confidence and positive approach you need to keep going when challenges arise.
- Adaptability and flexibility: Whether it’s internal or external, change is inevitable in a people-centered role, so you’ll need to be agile as things ebb and flow.
Hard Skills
- Product knowledge: A deep understanding of all there is to know about the products or services you offer gives you the best chance at meeting customer needs well.
- Software application integrations: Successful CSMs can create cohesive systems of software applications to improve client experiences and operational efficiency.
- Application programming interfaces (APIs): Technical aptitude and API integration help CSMs share data across various platforms, creating opportunities for automation and personalized client experiences.
- CRM software proficiency: CSMs house customer information in CRM platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot to keep track of preferences and communication.
- Data analysis tool knowledge: Tracking performance metrics in tools like Excel or Microsoft Power BI is essential to identifying what’s working and areas of growth.
- Presentation: A manager is a leader, so it’s important that you’re able to present initiatives, findings and any other information relevant to your role.
Education and Experience Requirements
An effective CSM leads by example with a host of both soft and hard skills. While this list isn’t comprehensive, it highlights strengths that are a must-have.
Education
- µ²¹³¦³َ±ً±ô´ا°ù’s degree: Earn an undergraduate degree in business, marketing, communications or another relevant field.
- ²ر²¹²ُ³ظ±ً°ù’s degree: Earn a Master of Business Administration (MBA) or a master’s degree in another relevant field like organizational leadership.
- Certifications: Complete CSM certifications that equip you with specialized skills like the Cisco Customer Success Manager program.
Experience
Most employers require four to six years of experience in an entry-level role in customer service, sales or account management, where you’ll develop CSM skills and build confidence in the field. You can get started early and complete a relevant internship while earning your education.
Available Degree Programs
Salary and Job Outlook
When searching through CSM job descriptions, you’ll find that salary is often based on experience and location. You’ll also see that there are opportunities to specialize based on industry, like as a SaaS CSM.
Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median annual salary is $138,060.1
The field is projected to grow 6% from 2023 to 2033, faster than average.1
Career Path and Advancement Opportunities
Client success is a great line of work to grow in, as there are varying levels of opportunities. The best way to climb the ladder is to offer a proven record of strong performance, continue your education with certifications and build a network of like professionals who can connect you to valuable roles.
A career pathway in client success typically begins with entry-level roles such as coordinator or associate. These positions provide the foundational experience necessary to advance to a CSM role.
As you gain more experience and education while consistently performing well, you can progress to higher positions like senior CSM and eventually director of client success. The most experienced client success professionals often hold titles like vice president of client success. Opportunities for advancement may vary depending on the company.
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