What Is a Customer Success Manager & What Do They Do for a Business?

In many cases, it's necessary to hire someone whose job is to understand yourcustomer baseand focus on solving long-term needs. For most businesses, this person is called the customer success manager, or CSM.

在这篇文章中，我们将讨论客户成功经理是什么，成为有效的客户成功经理需要什么技能，以及该职位随着时间的推移如何使企业受益。

Think of the CSM as a mentor for your customers. They explain the sales process and ensure everything runs smoothly after a purchase. If customers have a question, they can directly ping their CSM and work with them to resolve any pressing issues.

While the main job of a CSM is to build relationships, this involves performing a variety of tasks for your customer success team. In the next section, we'll list a few of these functions, as well as provide the skills needed to execute them properly.

What Does a Customer Success Manager Do?

CSM的主要职责在下面的职位描述中涵盖。

From pre-sales to post-purchase, CSMs complete a variety of tasks and create a mutually-beneficial relationship with your customers. Take a look at a few of those responsibilities in the section below.

6 Responsibilities of a Customer Success Manager

1.倡导公司。bob全站app

Since a CSM works one-on-one with customers, they have an opportunity to significantly influence your customer base. They act as personal cheerleaders for your business explaining to customers why you can meet their specific needs. This positive reputation will not only keep your customers satisfied, but it will also encourage them to refer their friends.

2. Onboard new customers.

Onboarding is one of the biggest priorities for CSMs. That's because it's extremely important to educate customers on how to use your product. Onboarding should focus on features they need to learn, based on the projects they aim to complete. This way, they can get up to speed as fast as possible and be one step closer to achieving their goals.

3. Follow up on renewals.

The job of the CSM is to create loyal, repeat customers instead of one-time users. This is why renewals are key for this position. CSMs should keep track of customer product expiration dates — whether they be monthly, quarterly, or annually — and follow up with customers to renew their contracts. Without following up, you risk potential churn which impacts yourcustomer retentionrates.

4.鼓励销售和交叉销售。

Another way to increase acustomer's lifetime value通过upselling and cross-selling。CSMs are dedicated to fulfilling customer goals, which creates an opportunity to introduce premium products and services. When customers are ideal for an upgrade, CSMs can meet with them to explain why the additional purchase will be helpful. Since your CSM will have a rapport with the customer, they'll be more likely to trust your team's advice.

5.在客户与支持团队之间建立关系。

There are some questions customers will have that aren't the responsibility of the CSM. Technical issues, minor product problems, and basic business questions should be geared towards yourcustomer support team。CSMs should foster a relationship between customers and support, making it easier for users to solve small or short-term problems.

6. Be the voice of the customer.

作为直接与客户合作的人，CSM应该对提倡他们的需求负责。他们需要深入了解客户对您的产品的喜好，可以通过调查，评论，推荐等发现。CSMS应与其他部门组织，分析和共享此信息，以确保您的公司的决定始终考虑bob全站appvoice of the customer。

Now that we know what a customer success manager does, let's review the skills needed to be an effective CSM.

The following section has been segmented into two categories: skills that are essential to the customer success manager position and skills that are nice to have but won't necessarily make or break your career in customer success.

Necessary Customer Success Manager Skills

Below are the skills that you will definitely need to be a successful CSM.

1. Customer-First Mindset

像任何客户服务工作一样，客户应该始终处于您关注的最前沿。他们的成功等于您的成功，您可以在他们的需求和目标上投资越多，您就会越成功。

2. Communication

Customer success is all about proactive communication. The sooner you let the customer know about their opportunities to improve, the more likely you are to earn their trust and ensure their success.

其中一部分也能够有效地进行沟通。如果您无法清楚地定义客户为什么要做某事或购买特定产品，他们将对您的意图表示怀疑，并可能会通过这一机会。

3. Relationship Management

Relationship management refers to how you interact with customers over time. Most customer success managers have ongoing relationships with their customers, unlike frontline reps who typically work on one issue with one customer at a time, then move on to the next. As a CSM, even if you solve one problem for a customer, you need to be prepared for the next roadblock that comes their way.

4. Industry Knowledge

如果您对他们的业务或工作流程一无所知，很难赢得客户的信任。您了解客户的一部分越多，您就越能与他们的需求和目标联系起来。这也将帮助您提出创意解决方案，这些解决方案及其业务是独有的。

5. Problem Solving

As a customer success manager, you’re viewed as an excellent problem solver. Customers look to you to solve their issues and clear roadblocks that challenge their success. In this role, you’ll need to think on your feet and provide solutions that satisfy both short- and long-term needs.

6.管理期望

解决问题者的一部分是管理期望。虽然您当然想满足客户的所有需求，但将会有一些不可能的情况。当确实发生这种情况时，您需要管理客户的期望，这样他们就不会对所提供的解决方案感到失望。

7.同理心

Empathy is a core component of any customer service role. The more you can relate to what your customers are going through, the easier it will be to identify effective solutions. Even if you don’t have any experience in their industry or role, you need to be capable of understanding the emotions that customers are feeling when they reach out to you.

8. Active Listening

积极倾听is the practice of listening to what your customers have to say then repeating it back to them in their own words to show you understand what they meant. Active listening builds rapport with customers because it shows that you genuinely care about their success and understand the frustration or confusion they’re going through.

9. Teaching/Mentoring

Oftentimes, the customer success manager is viewed as the product expert. Since you represent the company, you should know its products inside and out and be able to teach others how to use them as well. The best teachers can effectively communicate advice in a way that’s easy to understand, interesting to hear about, and relevant to the listener.

10. Technical Skill

与上述点相似，这不足以了解您公司的产品；bob全站app您需要感觉客户在日常工作中使用的所有产品。这将使您了解他们的工作流程，以及如何帮助他们利用公司的产品发挥最大潜力。bob全站app

11. Reading and Writing

这一点可能看起来很明显,但是听我说完。大多数CSMs aren’t working face-to-face with customers — unless you count Zoom. Most of the time, you’re emailing back and forth with customers and occasionally hoping on a call to talk through high-priority items. With the bulk of the communication being done via email, your reading and writing skills need to be proficient in order to be successful.

12. Strategic Planning

The best CSMs not only teach customers how to use their products, but also how to use the company’s products to achieve a short- or long-term goal.

Take HubSpot, for example. Our customer success managers don’t just teach you how to use HubSpot, they ask about your marketing campaigns and your sales strategies, and they think critically about how HubSpot’s products fit into those processes.

Not every product is used in the same way, and often how a customer uses a product depends on their unique needs. As a CSM, your job is to identify the larger goals that customers are working towards and provide ideas for how they can use your products to achieve them.

13. Time Management

In a perfect world, you would only have to work with one customer at a time. But, most customer success teams deal with multiple customers simultaneously, and CSMs are typically responsible for managing several accounts all at once. This means you need to manage your time effectively and be capable of multitasking. After all, you don’t want a customer to feel like you’re spending all of your time with another client, and that their success doesn’t mean as much to you.

虽然这些是您绝对需要成功获得客户成功角色的技能，但让我们看一些不必要的高级技能，但绝对不错。

高级客户成功经理技能

14. Data Integration

我们懂了。如果您像我一样，您会因为您不是数学变化而获得客户成功。处理数字和创建电子表格的想法通常不是您的茶杯，但这可能是您说服客户所需的技能，即潜在的解决方案将使他们的业务受益。很难与数据争论，您可以用它来支持您的推理，客户就越有可能信任您。

15. Persuasiveness

You would think that customers are eager to talk to their CSMs. In reality, some are skeptical and believe their customer success manager is really just a sales or marketing rep in disguise.

在这个角色中，您可能会与经常反对您建议的客户合作。在这种情况下，具有一些可以将客户摇摆到您身边的说服技巧有助于。一旦您向他们展示了您的解决方案是正确的选择，他们就会开始更信任您。

16. Project Management

由于您同时与多个客户合作，因此您需要一次管理多个项目。请记住，您的客户可能不认识彼此，因此他们不在乎您错过了截止日期时与另一个客户合作。他们的项目对他们来说是最重要的，并且在截止日期之上保持最重要，这表明您对他们的目标进行了投资。

17. Creative Thinking

Not every problem is going to have an obvious answer. Sometimes you’ll need to get creative to find a solution that works for your customer. Part of this is knowing your customer’s resources and what they want to accomplish. Once you have an idea of what you can use to solve the problem, it becomes easier to identify creative solutions.

18.交叉销售和销售

As a CSM, you’re certainly not a sales rep. Your job isn’t to close deals or promote products, but rather guide customers to success.

Sometimes, however, a customer can’t succeed without a particular product or service. If they have to pay for that solution, the CSM is one of the best people available who can convince them that this purchase is worthwhile. After all, you know your customer’s needs inside and out, so you can explain how that product or service is the missing link for their success.

If you're considering a career as a customer success manager, or thinking of hiring one for your business, take a look below to see what the average salary is for this position.

Customer Success Manager Salary

Here is the average salary for a customer success manager in the United States according to three sources: Glassdoor, Payscale, and Indeed.

• 根据Glassdoor, the national average salary for a customer success manager in the United States is$81,414。This salary can range from about $55,000 on the low end to about $126,000 on the high end.
• 根据Payscale,the average salary for a customer success manager in the U.S. is$69,699。This salary rangees from about $48,000 on the low end to about $110,000 on the high end.
• 根据Indeed, the average salary for a customer success manager in the U.S. is$61,660。This salary rangees from about $55,000 on the low end to about $85,000 on the high end.

There are some roles that are very similar to the customer success manager. These roles have the same responsibilities and description, but just a different title.

Let’s review some of those roles as well as their salaries below.

Customer Success Specialist Salary

根据Glassdoor, the average salary for a customer success specialist in the United States is$ 51,573。这工资的范围可以从约33000美元low end to about $81,000 on the high end.

Customer Onboarding Manager Salary

根据Glassdoor，在美国，客户入职经理的平均工资是$49,105。This salary can range from about $30,000 on the low end to about $81,000 on the high end.

Senior Customer Success Manager Salary

根据Glassdoor, the average salary for a senior customer success manager in the United States is$95,689。This salary can range from about $63,000 on the low end to about $145,000 on the high end.

客户在董事会薪水

根据Glassdoor, the average salary for a client onboarder in the United States is$90,551。This salary can range from about $63,000 on the low end to about $145,000 on the high end.

Customer Success Operations Specialist Salary

根据Glassdoor, the average salary for a customer success operations specialist in the United States is$ 77,632。This salary can range from about $49,000 on the low end to about $122,000 on the high end.

客户体验经理工资

根据Glassdoor，美国客户体验经理的平均工资是$53,355。This salary can range from about $30,000 on the low end to about $96,000 on the high end.

Becoming a Customer Success Manager

在一天结束的时候,最好的客户成功anagers simply care about their customers. They know what their customers are working on, what goals they have, and what they hope to achieve with the company's products.

Armed with this information, CSMs foster short- and long-term success by pitching new ideas for how customers can use their products and solving problems before the customer even knows they're there.