How Do I Become a Customer Success Manager?

To become a customer success manager, it's important to develop your communication skills as well as increase your technological knowledge of the industry in which you hope to work. This career doesn't focus on just providing customer service, but also client support in the use of company products or systems. Firms that hire customer success managers tend to look for individuals with good technical skills, a mature attitude, self-motivation and a strong ability to communicate with a wide range of people.

In general, a bachelor's degree is often the minimum educational requirement for this position. Excellent courses to complete if you want to become a customer success manager could include business management, marketing, technology, communication, critical thinking, leadership skills and supervisory techniques. In addition to getting a formal education, you should focus on gaining work experience that allows you to successfully solve customer problems. This experience can then allow you to include your customer success stories on your resume. You may want to seek out positions in both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies to prepare to eventually be a customer success manager in either type of business.

Working as an account manager in a B2B environment and/or client support in a B2C call center capacity may help you gain valuable experience in preparing for customer success manager duties. Any positions in which you can help customers solve problems in using company products or services can give you some experience with the skills needed to become a customer success manager. You should also show an ability to not just communicate well with customers, but also focus on building good customer relationships.

Retail jobs with a potential for promotion into supervisory positions can also be helpful on your career path to become a customer success manager. For instance, after showing promise and reliability as a front line worker in a fast-food restaurant, it's often possible to be promoted as a shift supervisor, then into assistant management. The earlier you can start this type of leadership progression, the more time it will leave you to be able to become a manager. Solid team leadership experience is only going to enhance your customer success manager qualifications during the interview process.

You should be prepared to travel when seeking a job in customer success management. Traveling to client locations to help with the setup of company systems or products may be required when you become a customer success manager. While some of these jobs may require that only 10% or less of your time be spent on business travel, others could be up to 30% or even more.