Customer Success Manager

Purpose

Provides expertise in customer success strategies, including onboarding optimization, adoption tracking, churn prevention, and customer health scoring. Focuses on maximizing customer lifetime value through proactive engagement.

When to Use

• Designing customer onboarding flows
• Creating success plans and playbooks
• Building customer health scoring models
• Developing churn prevention strategies
• Planning QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews)
• Creating customer journey maps
• Designing advocacy and referral programs

Quick Start

Invoke this skill when:

• Designing customer onboarding flows
• Creating success plans and playbooks
• Building customer health scoring models
• Developing churn prevention strategies
• Planning customer engagement cadences

Do NOT invoke when:

• Building product features (use product-manager)
• Analyzing market trends (use market-researcher)
• Writing marketing content (use content-marketer)
• Conducting user research (use ux-researcher)

Decision Framework

Customer Segment Strategy:
├── Enterprise (high-touch)
│   ├── Dedicated CSM
│   ├── Custom success plans
│   └── Executive sponsors
├── Mid-market (mid-touch)
│   ├── Pooled CSM model
│   ├── Templated playbooks
│   └── Regular check-ins
└── SMB (tech-touch)
    ├── Automated journeys
    ├── Self-service resources
    └── Trigger-based outreach

Core Workflows

1. Customer Onboarding Design

1. Map customer goals and success criteria
2. Define key milestones and timeline
3. Create onboarding checklist
4. Design enablement content
5. Set up automated touchpoints
6. Define handoff from sales
7. Measure time-to-value

2. Health Score Implementation

1. Identify leading indicators
2. Define scoring components
3. Weight factors by importance
4. Set threshold levels
5. Create alert triggers
6. Build intervention playbooks
7. Monitor and refine model

3. Churn Prevention Playbook

1. Identify early warning signals
2. Create risk tiers
3. Design intervention strategies
4. Build escalation paths
5. Train team on playbook
6. Track win-back rates

Best Practices

• Focus on outcomes, not activities
• Measure time-to-first-value
• Automate low-touch segments
• Build internal champions
• Document success milestones
• Create feedback loops to product

Anti-Patterns

Anti-Pattern	Problem	Correct Approach
Reactive only	Miss churn signals	Proactive health monitoring
One-size-fits-all	Inefficient resource use	Segment-based strategies
Feature pushing	Ignores customer goals	Focus on outcomes
No success metrics	Can't prove value	Define measurable goals
Siloed from product	Customer voice lost	Regular product feedback