The important thing is to start measuring items. Your initial 'goal' may be off, but you won't know that until you start measuring it and having your team work towards a KPI. Be open with them that this is a trial period that nobody's performance will be managed based on if they hit the number out of the gate. And then adjust from there -- if people are overachieving, up the target; if people are consistently struggling to hit, lower the bar. Once you've found the sweet spot, then you can add compensation, performance management, etc. on top.

I think one of the biggest 'surprises' was that regardless of the maturity level of the CS organization, some of the same considerations held true in both cases: * The role of CS is constantly evolving alongside other customer facing roles. Even if you have the ability to build a strategy at the start, the need to commit to regular check-ins on how CS strategically fits within the broader organizational goals remains present. Examples include: Are the measurements and incentives the right ones to drive behaviors that lead to ideal customer and business outcomes? Do we have the right skillsets within the CS team to drive results? How quickly will we be expected to scale? * Cross functional relationships were very key in both places to maintain a value-based customer journey and agility in creating value for the customer - across product, engineering, sales, marketing. One notable difference in this respect is the proximity to which CS teams find themselves with these other teams in each scenario. For example, when a CS team is being built, there's often a necessary and natural deep partnership between CS and product/engineering to understand customer response to product features, gather continuous feedback, iterate on that feedback, and maintain product quality. This often creates a much more nimble and fast feedback-to- action process than you might find in a more established organization where CS is one input in a more complex feedback collection network. * Consistently investing in building and refining the CS impact narrative is key in both cases - when establishing a CS function, it's critical to think early about how impact and value will be measured so you can build perspective around headcount modeling and resourcing, so you can talk confidently about how the team contributes to business outcomes, and so you can think in the right ways about scaling outcomes. When moving into an org where CS is already established, you often have to consider these same things, but for slightly different purposes and within different constraints. In this case, you are working within the bounds of existing processes and measurement models, so it becomes important to assess current state, determine where gaps in impact and potential exist, assess the ideal pace of change, and build step-work plans to evolve.

This answer is entirely dependent on the what field/product the CSM works with, who their target persona is and what resources are available based on company maturity. For someone dealing in cybersecurity, working mostly with CISOs, technical skills are more important. For someone in general CRM, maybe not so much. My feeling is that process experts > product experts. I find the best CSMs have strong business acumen, can step into a customer relationship and understand where there is opportunity to either (1) inject their product into existing process to create efficiency or (2) suggest a new process built around their product that drives better outcomes. That is less about deep technical knowledge and more about an ability to understand what value means to your customers and how your product can deliver that. Assuming that you have resources available to you that allows you or the customer to solve a technical issue when they arise, your true value is driving results vs. troubleshooting.

Yes! In the past, we had various approaches to driving adoption in our accounts that would cause temporary boosts but didn't result in sustained adoption. Now we have a motion that's working! First things first: you have to understand why users do/don't adopt to move the needle on this. When/where do the users get value from using your product (things that would make them come back)? How easy is it for them to pick the product up and use it without instruction? What use cases are easiest to start with? For us, we learned that users do best when their leaders are setting the tone: why they purchased the product, when/how they should use it, and what metrics the organization will start to rally around from the product. We are leaning into that with a motion of Rollout and Adoption planning (which is a flavor of success planning) which was actually invented by some members of our CSM team: * Identify key user groups and use cases that align to the outcomes our customers want to achieve. This is done through a focused conversation with our executive/champion in the account. * Prescribe use cases (simple to advanced) that align to those outcomes. * Provide the customer with templates to communicate those to their users about Why, When, How to use the platform. * Orient user training (both online and live) around those key use cases and help train the users. * Measure results, discuss them with the customer * Rinse and Repeat

The future of Customer Success is evolving beyond traditional retention-focused roles into a strategic, revenue-driving function with deep technical expertise. Based on my experience leading CS teams and scaling operations, I see the future heading in these key directions: 1. CSMs as Technical & Strategic Advisors CSMs will bridge the gap between product and business, offering technical consultations, best practices, and optimisation strategies. Their expertise won’t just drive adoption but will also contribute directly to customer efficiency and profitability, impacting net margin, not just ARR. 2. Revenue Ownership & Expansion Focus Customer Success will increasingly take on measurable revenue responsibilities, not just renewals but expansion, cross-sell, and monetisation of value-added services. CSMs will play a key role in identifying consumption-based opportunities, AI-driven efficiencies, and premium consulting engagements. 3. Integrated Customer Lifecycle Management Customer Success will no longer operate in a silo, it will be deeply embedded with Sales, Product, and Finance to drive long-term customer growth. CS-led revenue forecasting, pricing model optimisations, and margin-conscious technical consultations will become a standard practice. My Thoughts..! As the industry shifts, CS leaders must redefine customer value beyond retention, leveraging technical expertise, revenue accountability, and AI-driven insights to drive not just customer success but business success as a whole.

I want to first understand which activities or metrics correlate to churn, renewal and expansion. Then I know how to target my CS team and which activities to track off the back of that, as well as which metrics I need to keep a close eye on. So I don't think there's an easy one size fits all answer here. But I certainly think that broad strokes I will be tracking Health/adoption,GRR and NRR wherever I am, as well as understanding where you're losing WHY and WHO you're losing - is it specific company types, sizes, tenure etc.

I've found two KPIs to be difficult to commit to: 1. Customer Health. If you have a robust algorithm to measure customer health (influenced by a number of inputs ), it can be hard commit to a certain outcome. To frame this another way, I've often observed customer health scores as being a bit of a black box where it's hard to tie the actions you take to specific outcomes when there could be a number of variables outside of your control that influence the ultimate score. I much prefer to commit to lead measures that are directly within the control of the team. KPIs related to customer engagement are a good example of things that are more directly within the team's control. 2. Upgrade rate. Many CSM teams are measured on Net Revenue Retention. As part of this, your CSMs may be responsible for identifying growth opportunities within the install base of customers. I find it's effective to measure the team on how many growth opportunities the team identifies but not the close rate or upgrade rate, especially if the Sales or Account Management team owns the closing motion. 

There are so many career paths for a Customer Success Manager! I don't view the CSM's path as necessarily linear, but a "typical" one might be: 1. Customer Success Associate 2. Customer Success Manager 3. Senior or Enterprise Customer Success Manager 4. Strategic Customer Success Manager 5. Manager of Customer Success 6. Director of Customer Success 7. Head of Customer Success That said, there are a lot of different specializations, such as Customer Success Operations, Renewal Management, or large-scale Customer Success (sometimes called 1:many or "digital"). These specializations are great goals for someone who has been in Customer Success for several years and would like to advance in paths that are not necessarily management. 

* Model Performance Metrics: Accuracy, Precision, Recall and some other measures here. * Operational Metrics: Latency (time taken for generating responses, the lower the latency the better), Uptime and Reliability: * Business Impact Metrics: Customer Retention Rate, NPS, CSAT * Customer Feedback and Sentiment Metrics: * Feedback Scores: Collects customer feedback on AI interactions, providing qualitative insights into the effectiveness and user satisfaction. * Sentiment Analysis: Analyzes customer sentiment from feedback and interactions, helping understand the emotional response to AI-driven services. * Economic Metrics: * Return on Investment (ROI): Evaluates the financial impact of AI initiatives, comparing the benefits derived from AI tools against their costs. * Cost Savings: Measures the reduction in operational costs due to the automation and efficiency gains provided by AI * Usage and Engagement Metrics: * Adoption Rates: Tracks the adoption of AI-driven features by customers, indicating their perceived value and usability. * Feature Utilization: Measures how frequently specific AI features are used, helping identify popular functionalities and areas for improvement

You're going to want a well-rounded set of knowledge and tools to set you up for success in Success. These include the practice of Customer Success, business metrics, core components of Customer Success, and supplementary industry knowledge. Below are some of my favorites that I've treasured over the years: Community Seekers - Success Coaching If you want to network and learn alongside others, Success Coaching is an excellent place to start in your CS career or level up as you grow. https://successcoaching.co/ For the DIY’er - The Gainsight Blogs & CSM Certifications This content speaks all the love languages of Customer Success professionals and every post is relevant and insightful. https://www.gainsight.com/blog/ A MUST-have for all CSMs - Value-first Onboarding, the Product Adoption Academy Onboarding is crucial for the success of all customers and there is a refined art to crafting & measuring this experience for CSMs. Don’t skimp on this topic! https://academy.appcues.com/courses/value-first-onboarding CS & Business Metrics - Crash Course in Customer Success and SaaS Metrics Hands down, the main questions I hear from new CSMs are around business metrics. Dave Kellog is the LeBron James of SaaS metrics and will explain everything you need to know. Excellent video, grab a notebook! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8hKPfH1q88 Separate yourself from the pack - Jeanne Bliss Understanding business metrics and a product will get you far but what separates you from others is heart and no one on earth does this better than Jeanne Bliss. She has worked with the best customer-first companies and never lets you forget why we’re here…humanity in business. https://www.customerbliss.com/ Staying on top of industry changes - Dave Kellog & Tomasz Tunguz Being aware of what’s happening in Tech will be a massive advantage for you. There are so many great blogs and resources to help you stay on top of what’s happening in the tech world so find what speaks to you! What speaks to me are the Dave Kellog & Tomasz Tunguz blogs...I swear, they're fortunetellers. Dave Kellog - https://kellblog.com/ Tomasz Tunguz - https://tomtunguz.com/