Being a Customer Success (CS) leader isn’t easy. It never has been. But if you’ve been in the field for a while, you might argue that it’s harder now than it’s ever been.
The CS role has evolved steadily since it was introduced by Vantive in 1996, adopted by other CRM companies in the early 2000s, and ultimately becoming mainstream as the explosion of SaaS vendors followed the example of the Salesforce Customers For Life program.
While the role has evolved and matured over time, the CS function’s focus has always been to help customers get value from a company’s products—a crucial part of reducing churn and securing renewals and recurring revenue.
In recent years, business models have evolved, customer expectations have increased, and the growth-at-all-costs mentality has been replaced with a focus on capital efficiency and scalable growth through customer expansion. As a result, CS teams must double down on demonstrating a direct correlation between their activity with customers and measurable bottom-line results.
CS has long sought to be viewed as a mission-critical discipline, and today we are starting to get what we wished for. CEOs and Boards of Directors are paying attention to metrics across the entire customer lifecycle – from adoption and engagement to retention and growth – and CS leaders must now find ways to demonstrably do more with less.
Widening retention gaps are driving major shifts
Throughout its evolution, CS leaders have faced the challenge of achieving retention goals, consistently blocking and tackling obstacles impeding success—from the very first day of the customer relationship.
While CS leaders have grown accustomed to these early hurdles and fully embraced them as part of the job, the work is far from simple. Most of these challenges have stemmed from trying to close the gap between big, sometimes aggressive, sales and marketing promises and the reality of delivering a product that’s still evolving. While software is never perfect, front-line CS teams often end up as the downstream catch-all, walking a tightrope between getting customers up and running with the realities of the tech and managing their expectations along the way.
But now, the stakes are even higher. CS leaders not only have to close these same gaps, they also need to anticipate changing customer needs, maintain focus despite the flurry of demands coming at them, and deliver measurable results—while navigating tighter margins for error. There is no time, money, or energy to spare.
These added complexities come from all angles, including:
- Tightening budgets, both within their own companies and for their customers
- Increased accountability for Gross Retention as well as expansion to drive NRR
- Integration with other functions as subject matter experts
- Rising customer expectations
- Alignment with C-Suite expectations
With competing priorities and constant interruptions, the CS leader of today is held to focus on what matters most: activities that deliver the greatest impact while effectively managing their teams and processes.
Retention at all costs is no longer the objective
Traditionally, retention at all costs was the defining mantra of CS. CSMs were tasked with doing whatever it took—often in reactive mode—to keep customers happy and successful. This approach meant constant feats of heroism and firefighting, addressing issues as they arose, and bending over backward to meet customer demands, all in the name of renewals and retention.
While it underscored the value of CS within organizations, it also created inefficiencies, with teams focused more on saving at-risk accounts than building proactive strategies for long-term success.
Over time, resilience became the defining trait of CS, transforming it into a proactive, solution-driven discipline—one that turns challenges into opportunities to deliver value and foster lasting customer loyalty. Today, this adaptability is more critical than ever, enabling CS leaders, myself included, to tackle growing demands, deliver measurable outcomes, and balance customer needs with business priorities.
So as a modern-day CS leader, where do you focus to become a driving force in business transformation? How do you prioritize strategies that accelerate the biggest impact?
Don’t get pulled into late-stage transactional focus
It’s tempting to prioritize metrics like NRR, GRR, or expansion quotas and work backward from those targets. While these metrics are important, they often have long lag times and can pull teams into a reactive, late-stage mindset focused solely on renewals and upsells. This approach risks reducing your CS team to a junior sales team, undervaluing the broader role they play in driving long-term customer success.
Instead, lay the foundation for success early in the customer lifecycle:
- Address the root causes that impact retention and expansion before they become issues.
- Think of renewals and upsells not as the goal but as the natural by-products of customers receiving quick wins and sustainable value from your product.
Listen, verify, and repeat to ensure you understand your customer’s aha moment
The concept of value is often overused to the point of losing meaning, but its essence remains vital. It however should be an outcome your customers expect, expressed in their terms—not a task or metric defined by your company. While putting CSMs in an awkward position to choose customer value over scorecards, without delivering this value, everything else your team tries to accomplish will be met with inefficiency and frustration.
To deliver value effectively, you need two key components:
- A clear understanding of what success means to each customer.
- A team of practitioners who are experts in your product and its application to real business outcomes.
Spend some time on your new customer handoff and your kickoff process
All too often, the transition from sales to post-sales is informal—left to quick conversations or scattered notes. This lack of structure leads to misaligned expectations and delayed value realization. Many teams spend more time fixing the downstream issues than taking a moment to address the root cause. Whereas a structured process gets customers started with a clear path to value.
Formalize the process with a standard operating procedure (SOP) for new customer handoffs:
- Automate the transfer of critical information from sales.
- Validate you have a clear understanding of what your customer defines as success – before kickoff, and use your kickoff call to refine and align on expectations.
- Use your new SOP to formally monitor drop-offs or areas for improvement to continuously optimize efficiency and effectiveness.
Hire practitioners, not just communicators
While communication skills are critical, they aren’t enough. Not to drive meaningful results. CS teams need practical product expertise to solve problems and deliver tangible outcomes for customers, especially as products evolve and require guidance.
- When hiring, look for candidates who bring both strong interpersonal skills and deep product knowledge.
- Building a team of facilitators with only soft skills limits their ability to deliver the real results customers expect.
Time to deliver value has to start on day one
Just as you held your new customer to signing that contract on time, you need to reciprocate by making good on delivering the promised outcomes, quickly. That starts with onboarding.
Whether you own onboarding or not, the CS team’s future success and managing that ever present NRR number, hinges on setting the right foundation during this critical phase. Capturing your customer’s value expectations before day one, pre-sale, helps set the tone to deliver value on day one. Onboarding isn’t just about completing tasks—it’s about ensuring customers realize their desired outcomes as quickly as possible.
A strong onboarding process is directly linked to long-term retention and expansion, making it one of the most impactful areas for a CS team to focus on.
Effective onboarding is the strongest lever CS leaders can pull to drive the new era of business transformation. It sets the foundation for long-term customer success by accelerating adoption, boosting satisfaction, and securing retention—all while delivering the meaningful business outcomes customers expect from day one.
By prioritizing onboarding as a strategic advantage, CS leaders are not just supporting transformation—they’re leading it.
