What do you think?
Rate this book
The Customer Success Professional's Handbook: How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers--While Driving Growth For Your Company
The definitive “Customer Success Manager How-To-Guide” for the CSM profession from Gainsight, who brought you the market-leading Customer Success
The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That’s because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you’re no longer selling just a product. You’re selling an outcome. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are committed to capturing and delivering those outcomes by listening to their customers, understanding their needs, and adapting products and services to drive success. Although several existing resources address the customer success imperative, there is no authoritative instruction manual for the CSM profession—until now.
The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook is the definitive reference book for CSMs and similar roles in the field. This practical, first-of-its-kind manual fills a significant gap in professional customer success literature, providing the knowledge every CSM needs to succeed—from the practitioner level all the way to senior leadership. The authors—acknowledged experts in building, training, and managing Customer Success teams—offer real-world guidance and practical advice for aspiring and experienced CSMs alike. The handbook is written by practioners for practioners. An indispensable resource for front-line Customer Success Managers, this much-needed
Demonstrates how to build, implement, and manage a Customer Success team Helps new CSMs develop their skills and proficiency to be more employable and grow in their careers Provides clear guidance for managers on how to hire a stellar CSM Presents practical tactics needed to drive revenue growth during renewal, expansion, and customer advocacy opportunities Explains proven methods and strategies for mentoring CSMs throughout their careers Offers valuable insights from Gainsight, the Customer Success Company, and the broader customer success community with more than a dozen of the industry’s most respected leaders contributing their perspectives Currently, with over 70,000 open positions, Customer Success Manager in one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. The Customer Success Professional’s How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers—While Driving Growth For Your Company will prove to be your go-to manual throughout every stage of your CSM career.
The Customer Success Manager has become a critical asset to organizations across the business landscape. As the subscription model has spread from the cloud and SaaS to more sectors of the economy, that pivotal role will only grow in importance. That’s because if you want to compete and thrive in this new environment, you need to put the customer at the center of your strategy. You need to recognize you’re no longer selling just a product. You’re selling an outcome. Customer Success Managers (CSM) are committed to capturing and delivering those outcomes by listening to their customers, understanding their needs, and adapting products and services to drive success. Although several existing resources address the customer success imperative, there is no authoritative instruction manual for the CSM profession—until now.
The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook is the definitive reference book for CSMs and similar roles in the field. This practical, first-of-its-kind manual fills a significant gap in professional customer success literature, providing the knowledge every CSM needs to succeed—from the practitioner level all the way to senior leadership. The authors—acknowledged experts in building, training, and managing Customer Success teams—offer real-world guidance and practical advice for aspiring and experienced CSMs alike. The handbook is written by practioners for practioners. An indispensable resource for front-line Customer Success Managers, this much-needed
Demonstrates how to build, implement, and manage a Customer Success team Helps new CSMs develop their skills and proficiency to be more employable and grow in their careers Provides clear guidance for managers on how to hire a stellar CSM Presents practical tactics needed to drive revenue growth during renewal, expansion, and customer advocacy opportunities Explains proven methods and strategies for mentoring CSMs throughout their careers Offers valuable insights from Gainsight, the Customer Success Company, and the broader customer success community with more than a dozen of the industry’s most respected leaders contributing their perspectives Currently, with over 70,000 open positions, Customer Success Manager in one of the fastest-growing jobs in the world. The Customer Success Professional’s How to Thrive in One of the World's Fastest Growing Careers—While Driving Growth For Your Company will prove to be your go-to manual throughout every stage of your CSM career.
267 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 14, 2020
220 people are currently reading
351 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
November 8, 2024
Great book for people interested to have overview of customer success. After being a CSM for mere 6 months, I found some parts a bit too basic, but for people not in CSM yet - a perfect time to read.
March 8, 2020
This is an excellent practical guide for both CSMs and leadership. Great tips for leadership, especially operationally. I find this one to be less theory than the current “Bible” of Customer Success (very similar covers, btw), and more practical implementation.
May 25, 2025
Looking for a great starting point in customer success? This book is it! I absolutely loved reading it and would strongly recommend it for anyone just getting their feet wet. For those with more experience, it's probably not going to introduce many new ideas, but it's perfect for a quick refresher on the fundamentals.
The way the book is put together is actually super helpful, and knowing its structure can help you dive right into the parts you need:
* It kicks off by explaining what customer success is all about.
* Then, it dives into the principles, best practices, and some key concepts that beginners (and even some intermediates) might not be familiar with.
* The final few chapters are specifically for the big guns – business owners and folks managing customer success teams at a high level. While the info here is gold, it might not fully click for beginners who haven't yet gained some hands-on experience with the earlier parts of the book. It's tough to apply strategies if you're not in a position to implement them!
The way the book is put together is actually super helpful, and knowing its structure can help you dive right into the parts you need:
* It kicks off by explaining what customer success is all about.
* Then, it dives into the principles, best practices, and some key concepts that beginners (and even some intermediates) might not be familiar with.
* The final few chapters are specifically for the big guns – business owners and folks managing customer success teams at a high level. While the info here is gold, it might not fully click for beginners who haven't yet gained some hands-on experience with the earlier parts of the book. It's tough to apply strategies if you're not in a position to implement them!
July 25, 2020
This book is an absolute delight to read. After a long long time, I ordered a business book. And I almost finished this cover to cover in one sitting. It is rich with simple and specific suggestions, templates, and guidance.
As we are building our CS practice, reading this book has given me a lot of ideas to experiment with.
So if you are a CS leader or a CSM you must have this book in your bag all the time.
I will continue to use this as a resource guide for me to keep going back to when I am looking for something specific.
The material in this book will clearly last your CS efforts for a period of 2-3 years if you work through the various aspects mentioned here.
As we are building our CS practice, reading this book has given me a lot of ideas to experiment with.
So if you are a CS leader or a CSM you must have this book in your bag all the time.
I will continue to use this as a resource guide for me to keep going back to when I am looking for something specific.
The material in this book will clearly last your CS efforts for a period of 2-3 years if you work through the various aspects mentioned here.
April 23, 2024
Enjoyed the way the book is structured and the stories behind.
It has been a good companion for me now that I’m working in the field of Customer Success, the practicalities and recommendations are being really helpful for leveraging a humble customer success strategy for our product.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is in the fields of Developer Relations, Customer Success, and Product Adoption.
It has been a good companion for me now that I’m working in the field of Customer Success, the practicalities and recommendations are being really helpful for leveraging a humble customer success strategy for our product.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is in the fields of Developer Relations, Customer Success, and Product Adoption.
January 11, 2021
A great guide for CSMs
Insightful and clear, with sensible, actionable advice for Customer Success Managers. Covers the topic comprehensively from history and career options to operational best practices, supporting systems, and scaling business.
Insightful and clear, with sensible, actionable advice for Customer Success Managers. Covers the topic comprehensively from history and career options to operational best practices, supporting systems, and scaling business.
August 24, 2021
Great book if breaking into CS to learn more about the CS fundamentals. Valuable resource for any CS Pro to utilize and reference. The stories and examples shared were very helpful! Highly recommend!
March 23, 2021
Great book for newbies and experienced CSMs. Includes graphs and other data to help you determine the metrics you want to rely upon.
April 25, 2021
Special interest, but a must-read for every B2B SaaS company
May 7, 2021
Extremely useful. Should be mandatory read for every subscription based business. Might not agree with everything, but for sure got to think about many things that I didn't before.
March 2, 2022
Great, detailed book!
November 21, 2022
This book is a great overview if you are interested in getting into the CS profession.
June 29, 2023
Great guide for CSMS and CS Leadership that covers best practices, core skills and just provides a solid overall overview of the CSM career and it’s value in the market today.
September 26, 2021
Had to read the book for work as CSM is my role. A bit frustrating reading it as in our company we are not fully involved in all the aspects a CSM would and should be.
A good and practical guide to the role of customer success manager.
Love the structure of the book
The book is very “america oriented” and some aspects/tatics and process are not doable in EMEA
A good and practical guide to the role of customer success manager.
Love the structure of the book
The book is very “america oriented” and some aspects/tatics and process are not doable in EMEA
June 23, 2020
Any customer success manager should buy this book. Any customer success leaders should buy this book for your team. Tons of valuable information. As a leader who has helped to build customer success, I disagree with some of the thinking here, notably that I think CSM's should carry renewal and upsell quota. But it is an excellent training guide for people in the growing customer success field.
February 4, 2022
Great book to help me with my job. An actual user-manual style approach to this book has allowed me to actually implement some of the suggestions.
Highly recommend this to any CS Pro, or any Exec going through the process of setting up a CS Org.
Highly recommend this to any CS Pro, or any Exec going through the process of setting up a CS Org.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews