Customer success is a proactive discipline in which a company works to make sure its customers get lasting value from a product, instead of waiting for them to report problems.
Why it matters
For subscription businesses, revenue depends on renewal. Customer success teams watch usage, run check-ins, train users and flag accounts at risk of leaving. It differs from support, which reacts to problems that customers raise. Common measures include renewal rate, net revenue retention, product adoption and customer satisfaction scores. The goal is to link the customer's outcomes to the vendor's growth.
Example
A success manager sees that a client with 50 licenses has only 9 active users. She runs a training session and shares two workflows that fit the client's team. Active users reach 31 within a month, and the client renews.
Common mistakes
- Treating it as another name for support.
- Contacting customers only when they are about to cancel.
- Having no usage data to show which accounts are healthy.
Related
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