What is successful customer management?

Customer Success Management (CSM) is a new term in the field of SAAS in recent years. Below I will talk about my understanding based on my actual work experience.

The change of business model of software companies gave birth to the role of CSM. The business model of traditional software companies is license model, and the whole process focuses on sales rather than service. The business model of SAAS is monthly (annual) subscription. If you want to get more long-term stable income (CLV: customer life cycle value), you must open source and cut expenditure. Open source: In addition to acquiring new customers, we can also expand the payment scale of existing customers. Interception: improve customer loyalty and reduce losses. CSM is a role born to achieve this goal. It is more like an industry consultant, promoting customers to make better use of purchased products, tapping more product value, helping customers succeed in their industries and expanding the subscription scale.

Since it is a new position, the skill requirements are definitely different from traditional AM. Let me briefly list what I think are the key requirements of CSM:

In short, CSM should be the person who knows the industry and products best.

Unfortunately, when I searched for "customer success manager" on the recruitment website, there were few vacant positions and the salary was very low, which did not match the skills CSM should have.

Some SAAS companies I know don't have clear CSM positions, and most of them are responsible for some CSM work, such as customer support, pre-sales support, sales, product operation, product manager and so on. This phenomenon is directly related to the sales-oriented business model.