Customer Success.

Customer success (CS) is the business function dedicated to helping customers achieve their desired outcomes through use of a product or service. Unlike support (reactive problem-solving) or account management (contract renewal and upsell), customer success is proactive — monitoring usage, identifying at-risk accounts, and guiding customers to value before they disengage.

Customer Success vs. Support

Support is reactive: a customer has a problem, opens a ticket, support resolves it. Customer success is proactive: a CSM monitors health signals, reaches out to customers before issues become crises, and orchestrates resources (product, support, training) to accelerate the customer's journey to ROI.

Health Scores

CS teams quantify account risk through health scores — composite metrics that aggregate product usage data (login frequency, feature adoption, data volume), support ticket sentiment, NPS, and commercial signals (contract renewal date, QBR attendance). Health scores enable CS teams to prioritise interventions across a large book of business.

The CS Impact on Revenue

Customer success directly drives NRR by reducing churn and identifying expansion opportunities. CS teams are typically measured on net revenue retention, gross revenue retention, and expansion revenue from upsells — making them a revenue function, not just a cost centre. The ratio of customers per CSM varies significantly: 1:1 for enterprise accounts, 1:50+ for tech-touch (automated) segments.