Our analysis reveals that high-performing companies treat customer success as a core strategic function. Their leaders design and implement a disciplined, end-to-end approach that puts the customer at the center of the organization.
The journey begins with defining a clear customer success vision—a guiding north star. From there, leadership aligns the organization by building the right capabilities and operating model. These capabilities typically fall into three levels:
- Core: Managed exclusively within the customer success function.
- Shared: Jointly managed with cross-functional teams (e.g., sales, marketing).
- Enterprise: Owned at the organizational level, enabling success across departments.
To support this model, leaders establish a governance structure that enables seamless collaboration between customer success and key functions such as product, engineering, and support.
With the foundation in place, companies use strong KPIs, measurement systems, and data to track impact and accelerate progress. Crucially, they invest in fostering a customer-centric mindset across the enterprise. This cultural shift—while often the most challenging—is what ultimately embeds customer success into the organization’s DNA.
When done well, customer success becomes more than a function—it becomes a boardroom conversation, a strategic differentiator, and a driver of long-term growth.
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