Customer success- it’s one of those titles, departments, functions that you kind of know what it is, but honestly don’t really understand what it means. Well, here’s the thing- it means a lot of different things, and is different at each company.

At some companies, customer success teams are responsible for providing tech support, education, and relationship management. Other CS teams are built as revenue generating machines, focusing on renewals and upsell. These are just a few models.

All in all, I like to think of Customer Success as the team, the function, the people, who make sure your customers are getting what they need in order to be successful using your product. Customer Success should be at the heart of your company and help inform how nearly every other department operates.

And the metric at the center of the heart? Customer retention.

I know, I know- that’s super broad. Besides, every product is different, so your customers’ needs are probably a bit unique. What’s NOT unique is trying to drive customer retention. Most importantly, your CS team is the conduit to learn about your customers, figure out how to keep them around for the long run, and grow your business.

Retention is the name of the game, and ultimately the metric that will drive the success or failure of most tech companies. It’s typically the last major metric companies think about. Driving MQLs and signing sales contracts is really exciting, so companies leave out their key puzzle piece at the beginning: retention.

Similarly, a Customer Success function is typically the last team to be formed. There are a lot of different teams that could (and should) think about retention- but having a customer success engine running from the beginning has the potential for huge impact.