In a recent study published in Rutgers Business Review, the authors call out 5 recommendations for companies who might be late to the party, and might now be in the starting phase of creating a Customer Success Manager (CSM) organization. These recommendations, the authors contend will keep the company make the most from their investment and create longer term deeper connection with their customers.
In summary, we offer five recommendations to those deploying CSMs or
considering doing so:
1. Make customer success part of your own organization’s strategy
2. Train your CSMs to be truly useful and aware of how to educate the
customers they are working with to benefit the most from their
knowledge and skills
3. Assume that your competitors will be deploying CSMs if they are not
already doing so
4. Recommend that the CSMs focus on those areas in the customer’s
organization that are high in importance and poor in results
5. Let a CSM or CSM team engage early with even firms that are only
prospective customers rather than waiting for a formal arrangement.
I really love recommendations #4 and #5 above. Many times CSM focus on areas they are comfortable in and ignore the areas where they can bring the most value but they might not know as well. And bringing CSM during the sales cycle is the right thing to do since customers are going to work extensively with their assigned CSM and hence a good CSM team is a positive selling point.
Wrapping up with typical CSM work load as detailed by the authors.
References:
One Approach to Repeat Business: "Customer Success Mangers" published in Rutgers Business Review Vol 5, No. 1.