Customer success teams are crucial to organizations from SaaS companies to small businesses to global corporations. But what exactly does a customer success (CS) team do? What might your team structure look like? And what should you look for in candidates to build an effective, successful team? We’re answering all of these questions and more about building a CS team for your organization.
What Are the Roles of a Customer Success Team?
The main goal of a customer success (CS) team is to improve customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value. The day-to-day tasks of a CS team will vary based on your business model, but they may include:
- Checking in with customers to maintain relationships and improve account health
- Building loyalty and preventing churn
- Preventing and fixing customer issues and problems
- Identifying opportunities for process improvements, upsells, cross-sells, and overall growth
- Acting as a strategic advisor for the customer
- Analyzing and reporting on customer success data
Your CS team may also be involved in prospecting and onboarding tasks to support leads as they move through the pipeline. And, they should be an internal advocate for a customer-centric mindset across your organization.
What Should Your Customer Success Team Structure Look Like?
Every company’s CS team structure should be unique to their needs. Some teams may need a single customer success manager or specialist while others may need large, dedicated teams.
For example, a customer success team structure at a small company might look like this:
- Director of Customer Success
- Customer Success Specialists/Representatives
In a larger company, it might look more like this:
- VP of Customer Success
- Directors of Customer Success
- Customer Success Managers
- Customer Success Specialists
- Customer Success Analysts
- Customer Success Representatives
- Customer Success Managers
- Directors of Customer Success
It’s also important to note that customer success is a mindset, not just a job title. Every hire you make within your organization should be familiar with customer success principles and ongoing education on the topic is highly recommended.
And, customer success goes far beyond your CS team. Customer support, account management, and implementation teams will likely all work in tandem to serve, retain, and grow your customer base.
What to Look for When Hiring for Customer Success Roles
While customer success principles are centuries old, the industry itself is relatively young, which means that many companies aren’t sure what to look for in a job candidate. In addition to looking for individuals with proven customer success and account management success, some traits and skills to focus in on include:
- Experience with reporting and analytics; a data-driven mindset
- Process-oriented individuals who are dedicated to continuous improvement and documentation
- Persuasive communicators who are strategic with their language and conversations
- Confidence in your business goals and vision
- A positive, professional mindset
- Problem-solvers at heart
How Do I Know If I Need a Customer Success Team?
Every company can benefit from a customer success specialist or team. However, there are a few key signs that your organization is in dire need of a CS program.
- Do you have low customer/net revenue retention? Do you feel behind the eight ball or like you’re constantly putting out fires?
- Have you lost confidence in the long-term success and stability of your current customers? Do you struggle to identify key accounts that present the opportunities for growth?
- Do you feel blindsided when you lose a customer? Are you unsure what you could have done to keep them? Are you spending too much on new customer acquisition?
All of these are signs that you have lost focus and could benefit in both the short and long term from a dedicated customer success team.
Empowering Your CS Team
Once you’ve found the right people, you need to set them up for success. From setting goals and outlining KPIs to providing them with tools to do their best work, a team is only as successful as its leadership.
RevSetter is an intuitive platform can help your CS team thrive and grow with tailored company insights, easy relationship tracking, visual customer mapping, and more. Create plans, set goals, and manage tasks, time, and priorities to make an impact on your overall customer success.