The best CSMs aren’t the ones who know your product the best.

They’re the ones who understand your customer’s business the best.

Yet somewhere along the way, Customer Success became synonymous with:

None of these things are inherently bad.

But they aren’t the reason customers renew.

And they certainly aren’t the reason executives believe your company is worth another six or seven figures.

The problem is that we’ve trained CSMs to manage the customer relationship instead of managing the customer outcome.

That’s a very different job.

The next generation of Customer Success leaders need to move their teams through four stages:

Relationship Manager → Product Expert → Strategic Advisor → Business Partner

And the final stage is where the real value is created. Let’s review some of the history on how we got here….

This is where most Customer Success organizations started.

The CSM’s job was essentially:

“Make sure the customer is happy.”

The CSM built relationships.

They knew their contacts.

They knew when someone’s birthday was.

They knew which stakeholders liked the product and which ones didn’t.

They were responsive.

They answered questions.

They scheduled regular meetings.

And when something went wrong, they jumped in to help.

This created strong relationships.

But there’s a problem.

Relationships alone don’t create business value.

A customer can love their CSM and still churn.

I’ve seen this happen repeatedly.

The CSM gets the dreaded email:

“We really appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but we’ve decided not to renew.”

The CSM is shocked.

“But they loved us!”

Exactly.

Being liked isn’t the same as being valuable.

The next evolution was becoming a product expert.

Now the CSM could do more than manage the relationship.

They could teach the customer how to use the platform.

They understood features.

They knew best practices.

They could recommend workflows.

They could troubleshoot problems.

They became the customer’s product consultant.

This was a better than just being a relationship manager

But it created another trap.

Customers don’t buy software because they want to become experts in your software.

They buy software because they want to change something about their business.

Increase revenue.

Reduce costs.

Improve productivity.

Reduce risk.

Save time.

Improve customer retention.

Increase win rates.

Whatever the business outcome may be.

Knowing every feature doesn’t necessarily make a CSM strategic.

It can actually make them more tactical.

The conversation becomes:

“Here’s what our product can do.”

Instead of:

“Here’s what your business needs to accomplish.”

That’s a major distinction.

This is where Customer Success starts to get interesting.

The CSM stops asking:

“Are you using the product?”

And starts asking:

“Is the business getting the outcome it expected when it bought the product?”

That’s a much better question.

A strategic CSM understands:

They aren’t simply managing adoption.

They’re helping the customer think.

This is the point where a CSM can walk into an executive meeting and say:

“You told us your priority this year was improving sales productivity. You’re currently measuring logins and usage, but neither of those tells us whether productivity is actually improving.”

That’s a strategic conversation.

And sometimes the most valuable thing a CSM can do is challenge the customer.

This is the destination.

The CSM becomes someone the customer considers part of their extended team.

Not because they attend every meeting.

Not because they’re incredibly responsive.

Not because they know every feature.

But because they understand the customer’s business well enough to help them make better decisions.

A business partner can say:

“I don’t think the problem you’re trying to solve is actually the problem.”

They can say:

“Based on what we’re seeing across your organization, I think your biggest constraint is manager adoption, not rep adoption.”

They can say:

“If your goal is to increase revenue by 20%, I’m not sure this initiative is going to materially move that number.”

They can say:

“You’re spending $500K on this program. Let’s talk about what the business needs to get back from that investment.”

That’s a completely different relationship.

The customer doesn’t see the CSM as a vendor anymore.

They see them as a business partner.

Here’s a simple test I use to think about this.

Ask yourself:

If your product disappeared tomorrow, would the customer still want your CSM in the room?

If the answer is no, you probably have a product expert.

If the answer is yes, you may have a business partner.

Because the value of a business partner isn’t tied exclusively to the product.

Their value comes from their ability to help the customer navigate the business.

That’s what makes them difficult to replace.

Here’s another uncomfortable truth.

We’ve built compensation plans, scorecards, and performance reviews around activities:

These metrics are easy to measure.

But easy to measure doesn’t mean important.

Imagine telling a salesperson:

“Your quota is to have 40 meetings this quarter.”

That would be ridiculous.

We understand that meetings are an input.

Revenue is the output.

Customer Success needs the same mindset.

Meetings aren’t the goal.

Adoption isn’t the goal.

Engagement isn’t the goal.

Business outcomes are the goal.

The CSM’s job is to create the conditions that produce those outcomes.

The easiest way to identify whether someone is operating as a business partner is to listen to the questions they’re asking.

A relationship manager asks:

“How are things going?”

A product expert asks:

“Are you using this feature?”

A strategic advisor asks:

“Are you achieving the outcomes we agreed on?”

A business partner asks:

“What is preventing you from achieving the business result you need?”

That’s a much deeper question.

And it opens an entirely different conversation.

A business partner wants to understand:

What’s the strategic objective?

What’s changing in the business?

What does the executive team care about?

Where is the constraint?

People?

Process?

Technology?

Skills?

Budget?

Leadership?

What number needs to move?

Revenue?

Margin?

Productivity?

Retention?

Conversion?

Time?

Now, and only now, does the product conversation become relevant.

There’s a misconception that becoming a business partner means CSMs need to become industry experts or former executives.

They don’t.

They need something more important:

Business curiosity.

They need to be willing to ask:

“Why?”

“What happens if that doesn’t change?”

“How are you measuring that?”

“Who owns that number?”

“What does your CFO think about this?”

“What happens if you don’t hit the target?”

“Why is this a priority now?”

“What would success look like six months from now?”

These questions don’t require you to have all the answers.

They require you to care enough to understand the problem.

If you want business partners, stop hiring primarily for:

“Great communicator. Relationship builder. Customer-focused.”

Those are table stakes.

Look for:

Business acumen.

Curiosity.

Executive presence.

Commercial thinking.

Problem-solving ability.

Comfort challenging assumptions.

Ability to connect actions to outcomes.

I’d rather hire a CSM who can walk into a meeting and ask a difficult question than one who can flawlessly run a QBR deck.

Because decks can be taught.

Business judgment is much harder to teach.

Product training shouldn’t disappear.

But it shouldn’t dominate the onboarding experience.

CSMs need training on:

And most importantly:

How to have a business conversation.

Teach CSMs how to read an annual report.

Teach them how to understand a P&L.

Teach them how revenue is generated.

Teach them how their customer’s customers buy.

Teach them what their customer’s CEO is talking about.

Because when a CSM understands the business, they can finally connect the product to something that matters.

The future of Customer Success isn’t about becoming more efficient at managing customers.

It’s about becoming more valuable to customers.

AI will automate more of the tactical work.

Automated health scores.

Automated summaries.

Automated follow-ups.

Automated meeting preparation.

Automated adoption campaigns.

Automated customer communications.

That’s not a threat to great CSMs.

It’s an opportunity.

Because it frees them to spend more time doing the thing that technology can’t easily replace:

Thinking with the customer.

Challenging them.

Helping them prioritize.

Connecting problems to outcomes.

Connecting outcomes to financial impact.

And helping executives make better decisions.

How are you focused on being a stronger business partner? 

What challenges do you face as a CSM or CS leader in this area? 

Reply to this anytime and let me know how you are currently making this shift!

Onwards,
Mark