What Does a Customer Success Manager Do? Your Guide

As a customer success manager (CSM), sometimes called a client success manager or customer service manager, you build customer loyalty and foster long-term customer relationships by ensuring customers have a positive experience. You’ll address customer concerns and provide customer support. 

While in this managerial position, you may be responsible for ensuring a positive relationship with customers, managing customer satisfaction, and using customer service data to set and enforce the company’s customer service goals. Important tasks might include:

• Managing interactions between customers and the company

• Acting as a sales guide for customer-facing employees

• Guiding new and existing customers through the sales funnel

• Fostering customer retention by ensuring a smooth customer journey

• Training employees on how to provide customer assistance

• Managing a sales or customer support team

• Collecting and analyzing data to improve customer service health

Learn more about the everyday tasks of a CSM from industry leaders at Salesforce:

Customer success manager skills 

The most effective managers employ specific technical and people skills every day. These critical skills can be helpful to anyone working in this role: 

Technical skills

• Project management 

• Onboarding 

• Data analysis 

• Customer service 

• Product or service support 

• Budget management 

• Record keeping 

• Create customer service goals 

• Financial goal setting 

Workplace skills 

• Leadership 

• Patience  

• Teamwork 

• Communication 

• Problem-solving 

• Sound judgment 

• Confidence 

• Adaptability 

• Positivity 

Customer success manager salary

A customer success manager's salary varies by location, company, and years of experience. According to Salary.com [1], the average salary for a customer success manager in Canada is $121,882 a year. 

Because many customer success managers work on commission in addition to a base salary, the types of goods or services sold can greatly affect their income.  

How to become a customer success manager

Some customer success managers may hold a bachelor’s degree, even though this is not necessarily required to work in this role. Earning your degree may give you a competitive edge.  In some cases, experience in leadership and management will be sufficient. Because traditional career paths for customer success managers involve managing people, moving into a leadership position can give you that experience. 

Focus on what type of customer success manager job you want. Narrow the industry and look for industry-specific requirements beyond customer service and management skills. Some companies prefer candidates who are proficient in their industry. For example, a tech company may seek out an individual with experience in product management or product training for a similar tech company. 

Depending on the company, you may follow a sales pathway, while in other companies, you may follow a marketing pathway. 

Becoming a customer success manager may involve these steps:

1. Hold an entry-level position as a customer service representative. 

2. Transition into a team leadership role overseeing a small group of employees. 

3. Move into a managerial role.

4. Work towards a specialization, such as product development or maximizing profit growth rate.  

5. Seek a customer success manager position within your company or apply to similar companies if yours does not have openings. 

Customer success manager career path: 

This position straddles several departments, allowing for a good amount of mobility. It’s an evolving and relatively new position. As a customer success manager, you may move into other management roles or change departments.

Most customer success managers follow the sales or marketing pathway within a company. This means a customer success manager may step into a manager role, such as account executive/account manager, product sales/marketing manager, product manager, or enterprise customer success manager. 

You may find yourself on the pathway to positions like vice president of sales or chief customer officer (CCO) if you stay with a company for a while and gain success and experience in your roles. 

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Take the next step toward a career as a customer success manager by building your customer service and leadership skills. Gain job-ready skills in sales operations with the Salesforce Sales Operations Professional Certificate or develop your management skills with the Leading People and Teams Specialization from the University of Michigan.