The best KPIs that I have seen include: * Net Revenue Retention * Gross Revenue Retention * QBRs completed * Health score impacted (e.g., number of customers who move from red to green) * Number of Account Plans created * Customer Success Qualified Leads generated * Multi-year contracts secured (if CSMs own renewal) * Price increases generated within contracts (again if CSM owns renewal) * NPS

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.

Here are the most problematic KPIs to commit to, especially as CS leader: 1. Pure Satisfaction Metrics * Raw NPS/CSAT targets * "Customer happiness" scores Why: Too easy to game, often doesn't correlate with business outcomes, and heavily influenced by factors outside CS control 2. Zero-Tolerance Metrics * "0% churn rate" * "100% renewal rate" * "No escalations" Why: Creates a culture of hiding problems versus addressing them. 3. Activity-Based Metrics Without Outcomes * "X QBRs per quarter" * "Y customer touches per month" * "Z training sessions delivered" Why: Drives busywork instead of value; teams hit numbers without impact. Without specific outcomes, check-in meetings have zero value 4. Metrics Without Context * "Increase product adoption" * "Improve time to value" * "Reduce support tickets" Why: Too vague to be actionable or measurable 5. Metrics You Can't Influence * Product development timelines * Sales cycle length * Engineering bug fix rates Why: Sets you up for failure when you lack control over outcomes 6. Lagging-Only Indicators * Annual churn rate without leading indicators * Lifetime value without progress metrics Why: By the time you miss these, it's too late to course-correct Better Approach: * Choose metrics with clear line of sight to influence * Include both leading and lagging indicators * Set realistic ranges rather than absolute targets * Establish baseline for each metric that you are trying to improve. If you don't know where these metrics stand now, how will you know if you have improved it. It is common sense but you will be surprised at how often this happens. * Focus on trends over time versus point-in-time goals

The best Customer Success candidates demonstrate a genuine interest in the industry they are supporting, whether it’s a passion for enhancing the customer experience, like at Zendesk, or a strong enthusiasm for technology. They excel in communication and problem-solving, building lasting relationships while thoroughly understanding customer needs. A proactive, solution-focused mindset is essential, along with the ability to navigate complex situations with empathy and clarity. Top candidates also thrive in fast-paced, ever-changing environments, showing adaptability. Last but not least, the best customer success candidates must have a commitment to continuous learning.

This is one of the most critical components of customer success leadership both when establishing a CS function or joining a team with an already established CS org. If a CS team sits within the sales organization, there may be a natural alignment already anchoring the full team to joint business-based KPIs like churn reduction or retention/renewal outcomes. In this case, it's important to recognize how each team contributes to those shared outcomes - while the KPIs may be shared, the path to achieving the KPIs can (and likely should) differ by team. For example, CS may lean more into product adoption and customer value assurance in service to retention or renewal outcomes, whereas sales is responsible for growing the customer base or growing the renewal. If the sales and CS teams are managed separately within the organizational structure, it becomes even more key to have conversations around how CS incentivization and measurement models serve the broader organizational and business outcome goals. For example, showcasing how boosting customer product adoption through well-timed customer engagements leads to customer value and stronger renewal outcomes. One of the most effective ways to anchor teams on commonly shared KPIs is to be very specific about how the actions (inputs) lead to results (outcomes) - ensuring this narrative is reinforced consistently through the organization. It's also important to be transparent on each team (sales/CS) around how team members are measured if there are differences in accountability structures - this builds trust and confidence that while actions may differ, 'skin in the game' is present for all teams in service to business outcomes.

It's better to have the right soft skills, always! In fact, I'd go one step further than that and say it's even more important to have the right attitude/mindset first. Because if someone has the right mindset, and they're hungry to learn and take feedback on board (we call that Growth Mindset) then the soft skills and the hard skills can always be taught.

Given the cost-cutting and economic headwinds facing so many companies right now, many roles are collapsing into single roles - and there is a definite trend to have CS leaders hold responsibility for outcomes AND revenue (renewals, expansion). And it is a touch chicken or the egg: is it better to have a CS leader add to their plate revenue responsibility or have a Sales leader add outcomes to their plate? I - no surprise! - favor adding revenue to the CS plate. Why? Being customer-centric and understanding the leading indicators of outcomes and value delivery are a much better foundation for driving revenue as the lagging indicator than vice versa. The best ways to get adept enough to handle managing revenue targets: 1. Find courses in sales management you can take. You need to understand how to run forecasting, how to set standards for deal progression, get smart about any potential contract renegotiations, create a bag of tricks when it comes to expansion sales plays. 2. Find and cultivate a mentor who is a VP of Sales. The edge cases are where they get ya... you want to have a mentor who can warn you what to watch for, and to act as a sounding board when weird things happen in deals. There are very few leaders out there who have experience with both CS outcomes and Account Management leadership with revenue responsibility. So you want to be the candidate who can demonstrate the knowledge that you can bring the goods, even if you haven't done it before.

We have our Customer Success organization broken into 2 groups - Strategic Customer Success and Scaled Customer Success. In the Strategic Customer Success group I have managers who are responsible for a team of CSMs and also serve as the DRI on customer success for one or more products. CSMs need to have a strong understanding of multiple products because we only have one CSM per customer, and customers ideally use more than one product. Each manager coaches and supports their CSM team, and they provide leadership and guidance where they are the DRI across the entire team. In Scaled Customer Success, we have managers who oversee a group of Scaled CSMs. Rather than own a customer, our scaled CSMs own a product or customer lifecycle stage. For example, we may have a Scaled CSM who only owns churn mitigation for one product line.

Unlike a lot of Customer Success departments, we’ve chosen to align our team to customer KPIs rather than commercial/upsell targets. As such, we have less overlap in goals between CS and Sales. Of course, we’re both targeting Gross Renewal Rate and ensuring we maintain the customer base, but we don’t extend that to upsell targets in the same way as commission-based CS teams. Currently, we’re focused on exploring how we can share “time spent” efficiency and reach KPIs to help keep us accountable for spending as much face time with our customers, tech, and agency partners as we can over the course of many key city hubs whilst being mindful of the cost of trips.

Here are a few mistakes I see most often: 1. Not doing their research on the company/role they are interviewing for. It is surprising how many interviews I have participated in where the candidate had clearly not reviewed our company's product offering or job description. One of the keys to interviewing is to showcase why you are the best fit for the role. The best way to do this is to fully understand what the company does and what they are looking for, and to articulate how you meet those needs. 2. Not asking enough and/or not asking the right questions. I tell candidates all the time it is just as important that we interview them, as it is they interview me (the hiring manager) and our company. Accepting a role at a huge company is a huge commitment, and as a candidate, you want to make sure you know exactly what the role is, the expectations and what you are walking into. 3. Talking for too long and over-explaining. While I want to make sure a candidate has sufficient time to answer questions, it becomes concerning if they tend to ramble on for a long period and have trouble directly answering the question. When I am interviewing a candidate I am always picturing myself as one of our customers and what the zoom experience would be like for our customer, if we hired this candidate. Our customers are looking for CSMs who can provide clear and concise answers to their questions and candidates must showcase that skill during the interview process.