Another very special thank you to contributors for directly sharing insight and perspectives for this publication: John Gleeson<\/a> (Founder & GP of Success Venture Partners \/ Co-Founder of Customer Success Meetup), Abbas Haider Ali<\/a> (VP Customer Success at GitHub), Amy Oilman<\/a> (SVP of Customer Success at Conversica), Andy Mowat<\/a> (VP of Revenue Operations at Carta), Eliot Offutt<\/a> (VP Customer Onboarding at Forma.ai<\/a>),Elena Hutchison<\/a> (Founder of Up\/Right Analyst Relations), Mark Kosoglow<\/a> (Co-founder and CEO at Operator), Scott Gifis<\/a> (CEO at NoFraud), Neil Weitzman<\/a> (Founder & Fractional CRO \/ GTM Operator at revenue\u2022x), Richard Harris<\/a> (Founder of The Harris Consulting Group), Rita Jhaveri<\/a> (CEO at CX Growth Advisors), Justin Strackany<\/a> (Sr. Director of Customer Success at Decisions), Marko Buric<\/a> (Head of Cloud Customer Experience, Bay Area Enterprise at Google), Joanna Johnston<\/a> (SVP Customer Success at Gong), and Erin Guagenti<\/a> (VP of Customer Success at Productiv).<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with a simple, but crucial insight: Customer Success is growing, and the demand for these roles is becoming increasingly evident. As shown by hiring trends, CS roles are steadily on the rise, with a clear shift towards prioritizing retention and expansion over new customer acquisition.<\/p>\n Customer success roles are rising in volume. By late 2023 and into 2024, the earlier volatility stabilizes more than previous years. Despite fluctuations, the data shows steady growth in the importance and demand for CS roles. CS roles have grown as a priority, which can be equated to many factors, one of which being economic pressures pushing companies to focus on customer retention over new customer acquisition.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a balanced, selective growth trajectory. Unlike the rapid expansion in Sales or Product, Customer Success hiring is stable and strategic, rooted in the need to drive retention and expansion revenue.<\/p>\n Hiring for CS roles is not just growing, it\u2019s evolving. We see an increasing trend towards specialized roles at all levels of seniority, with fewer executives and more individual contributors filling CS positions. This shift reflects the evolving nature of the CS function, where specialization \u2014 be it in post-sales engagement, growth, or technical support \u2014 has become a necessity.<\/p>\n A consideration around this data is that it is influenced by companies that are no longer growing at venture-backable scale.<\/p>\n \u201cMany startups have fallen out of the \u201ctriple-triple, double-double\u201d growth model that most go-to-market playbooks assumed for the past several years, which includes the baseline on which many Customer Success teams were structured. The reality now is that many companies no longer fit the venture-backed growth model and need to prioritize profitability. The primary ways to achieve this are by monetizing the post-sales motion or more closely aligning it with revenue.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere is also a separate category of companies experiencing true exponential growth\u2014AI companies, for example, which continue to raise at extremely high valuations, sometimes even before achieving product-market fit. For these companies, the traditional approach to Customer Success is still highly valuable: allocating extra resources to ensure customers find value in the product, delivering exceptional experiences, and building strong loyalty as they work toward product stickiness and repeatable, value-driven outcomes across their customer base.\u201d <\/em>–John Gleeson<\/a> (Founder & GP of Success Venture Partners \/ Co-Founder of Customer Success Meetup)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The job search process in Customer Success is among the longest in the entire go-to-market stack. Why is this?<\/p>\n CEOs making these hires consistently highlight that specialization has become a key priority since 2021. In the past, Customer Success roles tended to be more generalized across all levels, from individual contributors to senior leaders. Today, however, specialization has taken center stage, reflecting a shift in the demands and expectations of the role.<\/p>\n The macro environment plays a factor, but it\u2019s the specialized skills being increasingly required that makes CS roles a longer more deliberate process.<\/p>\n There is also a huge amount of ambiguity and conflation around CS roles and what specialization even means. Is it\u2026pre-sales? Post-sales? Onboarding? Retention? Engagement? Growth and expansion? Chasing down invoices?…<\/p>\n Scott Gifis<\/a> (CEO of NoFraud) advises: \u201cThis challenge becomes even more pronounced as companies cater to different customer segments or profiles with varying needs. For example, an enterprise CS program requires a dedicated approach, but determining the right strategy for each account often involves complexities that are difficult to standardize until you achieve significant scale. On the other hand, a scaled CS program comes with its own distinct goals, systems, and operational challenges.<\/em><\/p>\n The complexity grows further as companies consider their mix of products and potential services, adding another layer of nuance to customer success strategies.<\/em><\/p>\n The key takeaway: start with a crystal-clear definition of the function’s scope and avoid introducing unnecessary complexity too early in your journey. Additionally, ensure that your products and CX motions are designed to collect and act on data and signals effectively, enabling you to track impact and make informed decisions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n One evolving trend in go-to-market is the bifurcation of Customer Success roles. Generally, there are two distinct paths:<\/p>\n The divergence in CS roles, moving either toward highly technical or highly revenue-oriented focuses allows for clear ownership of KPIs.<\/p>\n While they both come with their advantages, they also come with their challenges. For example, in a revenue model, a CS leader may be tasked with transforming a team from high-touch, white-glove support to a consultative approach emphasizing value realization and expansion. For this transition to succeed, the leader needs deep domain and industry expertise to effectively coach and guide the team in value discovery. Leaders without this background often struggle to make meaningful changes quickly.<\/p>\n In areas like security, infrastructure, and other highly technical products, CS roles increasingly require technical depth. Positions that might have been branded simply as Customer Success through 2021 now carry a broader range of titles.<\/p>\n There\u2019s always nuance in organizational structures, influenced by factors like leadership dynamics, individual leadership skills, and go-to-market strategies.<\/p>\n That said, the prevailing consensus is that CS should report to the CRO if one exists. The reasoning is straightforward: the CRO owns revenue. Splitting responsibility across multiple leaders often results in fragmented ownership, where no one has clear accountability for the entire revenue flow.<\/p>\n It\u2019s like designing a menu. Just as an executive chef oversees the entire meal to ensure all the dishes complement each other, a single leader must own the full customer lifecycle to maintain alignment and cohesion. Without this unified approach, the \u201cmenu\u201d could fall apart, leaving the organization disjointed.<\/p>\n That said, there is always nuance. For example, Lattice, an HR tech company, made a significant structural shift about two years ago. They moved their commercial customer success team under marketing, separating it from the rest of the CS function and placing it under the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). This change was driven by a predominantly digital-led motion, with Customer Success Managers (CSMs) playing a supporting role.<\/p>\n Another emerging trend is presales teams taking ownership of customer success. By having Sales Engineers (SEs) own both pre- and post-sale processes, and aligning their compensation and incentives accordingly, you address a long-standing challenge: the disconnect between a high-touch, high-value sales cycle and the subsequent handoff to implementation. When SEs remain responsible for ensuring the solution delivers on its promise and overseeing renewals, there\u2019s no ball to drop. This continuity not only strengthens trust with customers but also ensures the program consistently delivers the value that was sold. Having continuity between sales and customer success isn\u2019t new, Kustomer went from $0 ARR to a $1.2B acquisition with both rolling up to one leader<\/a>. In this shift, SE and CSM titles often get replaced with Customer Engineers.<\/p>\n While Customer Success organizations can look differently from company-to-company, one thing remains constant: The catch-all CS role previously filled by a non-technical, non-revenue-focused individual no longer exists. That was a \u201cZIRP-era\u201d phenomenon that has since disappeared.<\/p>\n Many CEOs and CROs struggle to clearly define what a Customer Success team should do. This lack of clarity around the role’s scope and priorities often leads to extended hiring timelines and misaligned expectations.<\/p>\n As such, Customer Success organization often wind up operating as a remedial team that fixes problems that originate in other departments. Because of this, it can be difficult to tell whether your CS org in particular is causing problems with your revenue. Abbas Haider Ali and others detailed three clear CS failure modes in this deep dive on how to identify if your Customer Success organization is broken and how to fix it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Though the root causes of each of these issues warrant their own posts, suffice it to say: if your CS team is operating in one of the below modes, they\u2019re focused on the wrong problem set.<\/p>\n The title \u201cCustomer Success\u201d no longer captures the full scope of the role. It\u2019s one of the most specialized positions in the go-to-market stack, which explains why job searches for customer success leaders tend to be among the longest and most deliberate.<\/p>\n In customer success, domain expertise is paramount.<\/p>\n In a revenue-driven model, if a customer success leader is tasked with transforming a team from high-touch, white-glove support to consultative roles focused on value realization and expansion, they must possess a deep understanding of the domain and industry. This expertise is critical for effectively coaching and guiding the team through value discovery. Leaders lacking this foundational knowledge will likely struggle to make this transition quickly or effectively.<\/p>\n On the highly technical side of the bifurcation, the senior leaders likely need to help sell the value of the technical skill sets the CS Onboarding team brings to the table. Again, to do this industry and domain expertise is valuable.<\/p>\n Very few companies are at the ideal point in their maturity curve where CS is straightforward. The sweet spot is finding a company positioned on the steepest part of its breakout curve<\/a>, where growth and impact align.<\/p>\n However, the customer success landscape is increasingly challenging, with intense consolidation and heightened competition. Compounding the issue, many CEOs still don\u2019t fully understand the value of customer success or how to integrate it effectively into their strategies. Additionally, measuring impact in the world of CS remains notoriously difficult, making it harder to demonstrate its true value.<\/p>\n For a CS leader, joining a company without clear product-market fit (PMF) or evolving motions through growth stages can add even more complexity. For instance, a company might transition from an enterprise-focused model to a PLG approach to better align with market demands. In such cases, the CS strategies that worked under the first leader may no longer be a good fit, requiring a complete re-evaluation and adaptation of the CS function.<\/p>\n The post The State of GTM Jobs: Customer Success<\/a> appeared first on GTMnow<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The State of GTM Jobs: Customer Success At the crossroads of retention and revenue, Customer Success (CS) is a cornerstone for sustainable growth and is growing...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Customer Success is on the rise<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/customer-success-retention-and-renewal-data-1024x742-1.png\")
Trends in seniority for CS hiring<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/customer-success-job-hiring-1024x742-1.png\")
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Longer searches for CS professionals<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/clinicasantarosa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/customer-success-job-hunting-duration-1024x742-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
Specializations and reporting structure shifts<\/h2>\n
The bifurcation+ of the CS role<\/h3>\n
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Who should customer success report to?<\/h3>\n
The challenges around finding the right role for CS leaders<\/h2>\n
Role ambiguity that can lead to broken models<\/h3>\n
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The specialized nature of the role<\/h3>\n