Customer success manager (CSM) job descriptions vary greatly across companies,
depending on size and philosophy. Some are account managers re-labelled as
customer success managers, others go all in with the philosophy and many
partly implement it. Below are several job descriptions which cover this
range.
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Why does the CSM job description vary so much across different organisations?
Customer success is a relatively new concept.
Some companies grow with it in their DNA and others are looking to incorporate
it after. What does this result in?
On the one hand you have companies dedicated to customer success at a deep
core strategic level and this impacts every part of their business.
On the other hand there are companies trying to introduce customer success as
a new concept to their existing account management departments. You'll find
that sometimes it's account management re-labelled and slightly adjusted.
Then there are companies have been practising customer success without the
label for a while.
In between are smaller startups applying customer success as best they can but
naturally the CSM ends up wearing many hats across support, sales and
marketing materials.
1. Gainsight description for National Accounts CSM
Who can use this CSM description?
Gainsight is a large (500+ employees) and growing
SaaS company.
It builds customer success managment software.
Their CEO is a thought leader in the industry.
This job is for a CSM for national accounts but it's not a re-labelled account
manager, there is some overlap but the wording and order of the sentences
tells you that customer success is core to everything they do (naturally!).
This is a very good description to use for a company that prioritises customer
success and is hiring for large accounts.
GainSight CSM for national accounts job description
As a Customer Success Manager for National Accounts, you’ll be managing a few
of our Enterprise/Named clients - driving adoption and outcomes leading to
renewals, expansion, and advocacy across your portfolio.
What You'll Do
Partner with our clients to deliver predictable outcomes and experiences for
their clients and predictable growth for their business by:
-
Delivering and communicating ROI for our clients, throughout the customer
lifecycle -
Being the trusted partner for the customer on use-case and product
functionality -
Quarterbacking experiences by various cross-functional teams at Gainsight,
on behalf of the customer
What We're Looking For
-
BA/BS (MBA/Master preferred)
-
Ideally 4+ years of experience in Management Consulting, Customer Success,
Account Management, Business Development, or another client-facing role -
Experience in working with complex, multi-divisional, multi-geographical
customers -
Strong leadership skills
-
Impressive executive presence and communication abilities
-
Ability to create structure in ambiguous situations and design effective
processes -
Bias for action
-
Passion for technology and for being a part of a fast-growing SaaS company
-
Experience working with cross-functional teams (e.g. Sales, Product,
Marketing, Services)
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2. Upscope small SaaS CSM description.
Who can use this description?
This is for smaller SaaS companies looking for customer success managers that
are willing to wear several other hats including more general support and
onboarding work.
Upscope is for supporting customers like never before using instant
interactive screen sharing.
The core philosophy of Upscope is around customer success, so there's a
commitment within all tasks to that strategy.
Note: As it's still developing, the CSM has more input into the road map than
might be expected at a larger organisation.
This is a good description to use for smaller startups with a dedication to
customer success but who need employees to work across other areas.
Upscope CSM job description
Upscope is a SaaS company providing no-download, instant and interactive
screen sharing for supporting customers like never before. The Upscope CSM
will lead customer success initiatives, keep the company focused on customer
outcomes and play a central role in directing the future of the product.
What You'll Do
At Upscope, the customer success manager will understand customer outcomes
through ongoing collection and analysis of data and feedback and turn this
into onboarding and retention strategies as well as feed into the product road
map. They'll be involved in all aspects of support, account management,
demonstrating the product, educating customers and more. All team members look
to customer success for input across all key decisions.
-
Understand customer outcomes by communicating with customers, analyse
customer health metrics, run NPS and gather other feedback via Intercom and
Survicate. -
Represent the voice of the customer to provide input into every core
product, marketing and sales process -
Collaborate closely with team members support renewals and expansion
opportunities -
Serve as the primary contact for the onboarding of new customers, the
training of platform end users, as well as post go-live support -
Collaborate with the engineering and development team to set up or configure
our software platform as per customers’ requirements and troubleshoot
technical issues raised by customers -
Gauge customers’ levels of engagement with the company and provide feedback
to the other teams regarding product and service improvements -
Provide insights to customers to ensure that they get the most out of the
platform with the aim of helping grow our customer base -
Being the main point of contact between the company and a number of named
enterprise accounts
What we're looking For
Experience
-
2+ years customer success or account management experience in a SaaS or
software company. -
Proven track record of working in a customer facing role
-
Experience of working with Intercom or similar live chat platform useful but
not essential -
Have, or be willing to learn, basic technical skills in html, javascript,
css and connecting to APIs to confidently discuss technical terms
Skills and Qualifications
-
Educated to degree level preferred but not essential
-
Experience working with, and managing, stakeholders and customers
-
A high level of accuracy and attention to detail is required
-
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
-
Flexible approach, able to operate effectively with uncertainty and change
-
Driven, self-motivated, enthusiastic and with a "can do" attitude
3. Headspace rapidly growing SaaS CSM job description
Who can use this description?
Compare this description to Gainsight and notice how Gainsight prioritises
certain terms.
Headspace has 200+ employees and is rapidly growing.
While above, Gainsight straight off talks about customer outcomes and ROI,
Headspace has more of an account manager description but one which clearly
shows a passion for customers.
This is a good CSM description to use for companies where the account manager
title has changed to customer success but where the company naturally
understands the philosophy of focusing on customer outcomes.
Headpspace CSM job description
Headspaces Customer Success team engages our corporate customers to drive
Headspace adoption and demonstrate ongoing value. This critical function is
responsible for onboarding new customers by engaging executive teams in the
launch, driving ongoing adoption, and managing renewals. It works with the
rest of the Headspace organization to uncover new ways to make Headspace a
part of everyday life and to improve our product.
What You'll Do
-
Drive retention and growth among our most valuable customers by
understanding their business needs and helping them succeed -
Enable successful roll-out of Headspace to customer employees, including
sharing and developing relevant creative assets, brainstorming ideas, and
attending launches virtually or in person -
Maintain a cadence of communicating with customers about their adoption
trends, sentiment, and mining opportunities for deeper engagement -
Identify opportunities for customers to act as Headspace advocates (e.g.
testimonials, case studies) -
Collaborate closely with Sales to support pilot customers, renewals, and
expansion opportunities -
Marshall resources across the Headspace org as needed to support customers
needs -
Represent the voice of the customer to inform our sales process and product
roadmap
What We're Looking For
-
3+ years in a Customer Success, Relationship Management, Account Management,
or similar role -
Experience working with large enterprise customers
-
Exceptional communication skills, highly organized, collaborative and detail
oriented -
Experience building and maintaining relationships, while working to mitigate
churn and drive engagement and renewals -
Empathetic, positive attitude with a desire to help our customers reach
their goals
Skills
-
Results-driven mentality, with a bias for speed and action
-
Strong analytical skills, with the ability to translate data into insights.
Experience with Excel preferred -
Strong PowerPoint/Keynote skills. Experience with Adobe InDesign or
Illustrator preferred but not required -
Comfort in a startup environment we move quickly and wear many hats in a
dynamic environment
