Customer Success Team Roles: 15 Titles, Duties & Skills

Searching for the right mix of Customer Success roles? Below you’ll find the 15 titles that appear in practically every mature CS org, with plain-English explanations of what each person does day to day, the skills that make them effective, and the metrics that prove their impact. Consider it a cheat-sheet you can hand to leadership or recruiters when headcount discussions start flying.

Modern SaaS companies treat Customer Success as both a revenue catalyst and a safety net against churn, which is why the function has splintered into specialized positions. Job titles differ from scrappy startup to public enterprise, yet the underlying responsibilities—driving adoption, renewals, and expansion—stay remarkably consistent. The rise of product-led growth and usage-based pricing has only accelerated this trend, making clarity around scope and ownership non-negotiable.

The list is organized top-down—from executive visionaries to hands-on tacticians—so you can see how a Customer Success department matures as headcount grows. By the end, you’ll know exactly which roles you have covered, which to hire next, and how they should collaborate to keep customers (and revenue) growing.

1. Chief Customer Officer (CCO)

The Chief Customer Officer is the executive glue that keeps every post-sale function marching toward the same north star: net revenue retention. When your ARR passes the “too big to fail” threshold, one VP can’t juggle Support, Services, and Customer Success alone. Enter the CCO—a C-suite peer to the CRO and CPO who owns the entire customer lifecycle and turns it into predictable, expandable revenue. Their remit reaches from onboarding playbooks to board-level reporting, so hiring a seasoned operator here sets the tone for every other customer success team role on this list.

Where the CCO sits in the company hierarchy

• Member of the executive leadership team, usually reporting directly to the CEO
• P&L accountability for all post-sale revenue streams (renewals, expansions, services)
• Oversees VPs or Directors of Customer Success, Support, Professional Services, and sometimes Education

Core duties & strategic responsibilities

• Design and refine the end-to-end customer lifecycle strategy and health frameworks
• Align CS with Product, Sales, and Marketing to ensure a unified customer narrative
• Champion a customer-centric culture—executes initiatives like “voice of customer” councils
• Own board-level metrics such as Net Revenue Retention (NRR) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Must-have skills & experience

• Proven executive leadership across multiple SaaS growth stages
• Financial acumen: forecasting, budgeting, and tying CS activities to revenue models
• Cross-functional influence; can break silos and secure resources from peer executives
• Deep understanding of SaaS metrics, usage analytics, and change management

Success metrics to track

• Logo and dollar retention rates
• NRR and expansion ARR contribution
• Growth in referenceable accounts and advocacy pipeline
• Improvement in aggregate customer health scores

2. Vice President / Director of Customer Success

If the CCO sketches the blueprint, the Vice President or Director of Customer Success is the general contractor who turns that vision into a sturdy, repeatable operation. Sitting one level below the C-suite, this leader owns the day-to-day performance of the entire CS org—budgets, headcount, processes, and results. They are expected to speak both “boardroom” and “Zoom room,” translating lofty retention targets into concrete playbooks that frontline teams can execute without friction.

Role in scaling strategy to execution

• Operationalizes the CCO’s customer-lifecycle strategy into quarterly OKRs and team charters
• Designs an org structure that maps to customer segments, product complexity, and ARR tiers
• Acts as the connective tissue between CS leadership and peer functions like Sales Ops and Product Management

Key duties & responsibilities

• Headcount and territory planning, including ratios for CSMs, Onboarding, and Digital CS
• Process standardization: onboarding workflows, health-score thresholds, escalation paths
• Budget ownership for tools, training, and professional services
• Customer segmentation and coverage models (SMB, mid-market, enterprise)
• Executive sponsor for high-value accounts and strategic escalations

Essential skills & qualities

• Inspirational team leadership with a knack for hiring and coaching managers
• Change-management chops to roll out new processes without disrupting renewals
• Data-driven decision-making; fluency in dashboards, forecasting models, and cohort analysis
• Forecast accuracy and scenario planning to align resources with revenue targets

Metrics & KPIs

KPI	What It Tells You
Gross churn	Effectiveness at protecting existing ARR
NRR by segment	Health of each customer tier
CS-sourced expansion ARR	Impact on upsells and cross-sells
Employee engagement score	Team health and retention

3. Customer Success Team Lead / Manager of Managers

Think of the Customer Success Team Lead as the player-coach who keeps a pod of CSMs firing on all cylinders. They translate departmental targets into bite-sized weekly goals, spot coaching moments in real time, and jump on escalations before they snowball into churn. In orgs with multiple regions or segments, each Lead becomes the mini-GM of their book of business, ensuring processes feel consistent even when products, contract sizes, or cultures differ. Because they still carry limited customer exposure, this role demands both strategic foresight and tactical hustle—a training ground for future directors.

Position in the org chart

• Reports to the VP/Director of Customer Success
• Manages 4–10 individual contributor CSMs or onboarding specialists
• Acts as first escalation point before issues reach executive leadership

Daily responsibilities

• Run weekly 1:1s focused on pipeline, health scores, and skills coaching
• Monitor dashboards for churn signals; reassign resources as needed
• Lead deal-strategy or renewal prep calls; shadow QBRs for quality control
• Maintain and refine playbooks, ensuring adherence and continuous improvement

Key competencies

• Servant leadership and situational coaching
• Conflict resolution across customers and internal teams
• Process optimization paired with a bias for action
• High emotional intelligence (EQ) for motivating diverse personalities

KPIs to measure

Metric	Why It Matters
Team renewal rate	Direct line to revenue retention
Average onboarding time-to-value	Early indicator of long-term health
Playbook adoption rate	Shows operational rigor
Escalation resolution time	Gauges effectiveness under pressure

4. Customer Success Manager (CSM)

The CSM is the quarterback once the contract ink dries. They sit at the intersection of product expertise, consultative account management, and renewal ownership—guiding customers from “first value” to “can’t live without it.” A strong CSM turns usage data and casual check-ins into boardroom-ready business outcomes, making their role the backbone of most customer success team roles.

Purpose of the CSM role

• Act as the customer’s strategic advisor and internal advocate
• Drive product adoption that maps to agreed business goals
• Surface expansion opportunities while protecting renewal revenue

Typical duties & touchpoints

1. Lead onboarding hand-offs and schedule success planning sessions
2. Conduct quarterly business reviews (QBRs) and periodic health checks
3. Monitor health-score dashboards; trigger playbooks for risk or upsell signals
4. Gather product feedback and loop it to Product and CS Ops
5. Coordinate with Support and Implementation on complex issues or upgrades

Critical skills

• Relationship-building and executive stakeholder management
• Consultative selling techniques and value articulation
• Deep product/domain expertise with the ability to demo advanced workflows
• Proactive problem-solving rooted in data analysis and prioritization

Success metrics

Metric	Target Insight
Adoption depth & breadth	Is the platform woven into daily workflows?
Renewal rate	Are customers committing to another term?
CSM-sourced expansion pipeline	How much upsell ARR is being unlocked?
CSAT / NPS for owned accounts	Do users actively recommend the product?

5. Onboarding / Implementation Specialist

Getting customers live fast is the single highest-leverage move in the entire post-sale journey. The Onboarding / Implementation Specialist owns that sprint from signed contract to first measurable value. They juggle timelines, data maps, and anxious stakeholders so the first 30–90 days feel smooth, not stressful. Without this role, even the best CSM spends half their week firefighting instead of driving strategy. That’s why most SaaS companies carve implementation out as its own craft—and staff it with project managers who speak both API and ROI.

Why onboarding is a standalone specialization

The early stage of the customer journey has a disproportionate impact on renewal odds. A slipshod kickoff breeds ticket backlogs, low adoption, and, eventually, churn. A dedicated specialist prevents that domino effect by combining technical chops with change-management finesse—something a quota-carrying CSM rarely has bandwidth for.

Main responsibilities

• Own project plans: milestones, dependencies, and go-live dates
• Coordinate data migration and system integrations with customers’ IT teams
• Deliver role-based training sessions and create tailored enablement assets
• Run weekly status calls, flag roadblocks, and adjust scope when needed
• Conduct post-implementation retros to feed lessons into CS playbooks

Must-have skills

• Strong technical aptitude (APIs, SSO, data mapping)
• Formal project-management frameworks (PMP, Agile, Kanban)
• Instructional design and adult-learning principles
• Clear, empathetic stakeholder communication across execs and end users

Key metrics

Metric	Signal It Sends
Time-to-first-value (TTFV)	Speed of delivering a win that matters
Onboarding CSAT	Customer sentiment during the rollout
Implementation completion rate	Percentage of projects finished on scope & schedule
Post-onboarding adoption	Usage levels 30–60 days after go-live

6. Customer Success Operations (CS Ops) Manager

Even the most talented CSMs stall out when their data lives in six spreadsheets and every playbook is “tribal knowledge.” That’s where the CS Ops Manager earns their keep. Part business analyst, part systems architect, this role builds the engine room that allows all other customer success team roles to scale—without turning every renewal into a game of guess-and-check.

What CS Ops brings to the table

• Central source of truth for health scores, usage data, and renewal forecasts
• Process governance so every customer touch follows the same repeatable steps
• Tool ownership (CRM, CSP, BI) that keeps workflows automated and auditable

Duties & responsibilities

• Administer and integrate the CS tech stack—HubSpot, Gainsight, Salesforce, etc.
• Design health-score models, segment logic, and automated playbooks
• Produce weekly dashboards for C-level and frontline consumption
• Run quarterly process audits to spot bottlenecks and drive continuous improvement

Required skills

• Process mapping and documentation mastery
• Data analytics: SQL, Looker, or similar BI tools
• Change-enablement chops to roll out new workflows without disrupting renewals
• Strong vendor management and light-weight scripting/API familiarity

Metrics that matter

Metric	Why It Counts
NRR forecast accuracy	Validates health scoring and pipeline models
Automated touch coverage	Shows efficiency gains from tech-touch programs
Playbook adoption rate	Indicates process compliance across teams
Time to insight	Speed from data capture to dashboard availability

7. Customer Success Analyst

Dashboards don’t magically appear, and “gut feel” doesn’t cut it when millions in renewals are on the line. The Customer Success Analyst is the data translator who turns raw product usage, survey scores, and billing records into bite-size insights the team can act on tomorrow morning.

Role overview

• Owns analytic workflows that predict churn, surface expansion potential, and benchmark adoption across segments
• Sits inside CS Ops or reports directly to the VP of CS, partnering tightly with RevOps and Product Analytics

Key activities

1. Build and maintain cohort models for retention, expansion, and feature adoption
2. Run churn-risk and upsell propensity scoring, then pipeline those insights to CSMs
3. Perform A/B tests on playbooks (e.g., QBR cadence) and summarize lift
4. Package findings into slide-ready stories for QBRs, board decks, and quarterly planning

Ideal skill set

• Advanced Excel/SQL and at least one BI platform (Looker, Mode, Tableau)
• Statistical literacy: regression, t-test, confidence intervals
• Customer journey mapping and storytelling chops
• Hypothesis testing mindset with strong prioritization skills

Performance indicators

KPI	Why It Matters
Insight adoption rate	Proves recommendations drive behavior change
Predictive model lift	Measures accuracy of churn/upsell scores
Dashboard usage	Validates that stakeholders rely on the data
Time-to-insight	Speed from request to delivered analysis

8. Digital / Tech-Touch Customer Success Manager

Some customers—especially long-tail or freemium users—won’t justify a dedicated CSM, yet they still expect guidance and value. The Digital / Tech-Touch Customer Success Manager (often called a “Scale CSM”) solves the math problem by replacing 1:1 calls with automated, data-driven programs that feel personal at volume.

Why digital CS matters

• Lets you cover thousands of low-ACV accounts without ballooning headcount
• Creates always-on, in-app guidance that meets users when and where they need help
• Frees human CSMs to focus on strategic, high-value customers

Responsibilities

1. Build lifecycle email cadences, in-product walkthroughs, and push-notification campaigns
2. Manage user communities, FAQ webinars, and self-serve knowledge hubs
3. Run A/B tests on nurture flows to optimize activation, adoption, and upsells
4. Monitor engagement dashboards and trigger human intervention for high-risk cohorts

Must-have skills

• Marketing automation (HubSpot, Marketo) and product-led growth tactics
• Content strategy + light HTML/CSS for tweaking in-app guides
• UX thinking and behavioral analytics (Mixpanel, Pendo)
• Test-and-learn mindset with strong copywriting chops

KPIs

Metric	Target Insight
Engagement with digital assets	Are users consuming the content?
Self-serve adoption rate	How many questions are answered without Support?
Cost-per-customer served	Operational efficiency of the program
NRR for tech-touch segment	Revenue impact compared with high-touch cohorts

9. Customer Education Specialist / Instructional Designer

Even the slickest UI can’t replace structured learning. The Customer Education Specialist designs courses, videos, and documentation that help users climb the proficiency curve on their own schedule—scaling expertise faster than any one-to-one touch could. In a crowded market, great education is a competitive moat: it drives adoption, deflects tickets, and turns power users into product evangelists.

Purpose of customer education

• Shorten the “how do I do this?” learning loop
• Enable advanced use cases that unlock upsell features
• Reduce support volume by promoting self-service habits
• Increase stickiness through continuous skill development

Core duties

• Build and maintain LMS curricula, certification paths, and micro-learning modules
• Produce screen-capture videos, how-to articles, and interactive walkthroughs
• Partner with Product and CS Ops to update content at every release
• Analyze learner feedback to refine materials and fill knowledge gaps

Key competencies

• Adult-learning theory and curriculum design
• Storyboarding, video editing, and copywriting skills
• Familiarity with authoring tools (Articulate, Camtasia, Notion)
• Data orientation to measure and iterate on course effectiveness

Metrics to track

• Course completion and certification pass rates
• Ticket deflection percentage linked to education assets
• NPS or CSAT delta among trained vs. untrained users
• Time-to-adoption for features covered in the curriculum

10. Renewal / Account Manager

Once adoption is humming, someone still has to secure the signature that keeps revenue on the books—and ideally grows it. That’s the Renewal / Account Manager (often abbreviated “AM”), a quota-carrying rep who lives at the commercial finish line, turning satisfied users into multi-year, higher-value contracts.

Distinction from a CSM

While a Customer Success Manager focuses on product outcomes and health, the AM owns the financial transaction. They step in 90–120 days before term-end, partnering with the CSM but driving pricing, paperwork, and procurement hurdles to closure.

Responsibilities

• Build renewal forecasts and flag risk early to leadership
• Negotiate terms, pricing adjustments, and multi-year incentives
• Structure and close upsell or cross-sell opportunities tied to customer goals
• Manage all contract logistics—legal redlines, PO numbers, signature routing

Skills required

• Commercial acumen and command of subscription finance
• Negotiation & objection-handling tactics grounded in value selling
• Forecast discipline and CRM hygiene to hit commit numbers
• Calm, persuasive communication with both champions and procurement teams

Success indicators

KPI	Revenue Signal
Renewal rate	Core retention performance
Expansion ARR	Added value from upsells/cross-sells
Average Contract Value (ACV) growth	Deal-size momentum
Forecast accuracy	Reliability of revenue commits

11. Customer Support Liaison / Escalation Manager

Even best-in-class products stumble, and when they do, high-stakes customers want answers—fast. The Customer Support Liaison (or Escalation Manager) is the pressure valve that keeps a technical fire from turning into lost ARR. Part diplomat, part project manager, they orchestrate Support, Engineering, and Customer Success so issues are resolved quickly and transparently. Within the larger mix of customer success team roles, this position protects renewal odds whenever something breaks in production.

How the role bridges CS and Support

• Owns the formal escalation path once a ticket breaches standard SLA thresholds
• Sits in cross-functional war rooms, translating technical jargon into business impact for CSMs and execs
• Closes the loop by feeding root-cause insights into CS playbooks and Product backlogs

Key duties

1. Triage inbound escalations and assign severity levels
2. Coordinate real-time updates between Support, Engineering, and customer stakeholders
3. Draft and deliver executive-ready incident reports and post-mortems
4. Track follow-up actions to ensure permanent fixes are deployed

Critical skills

• Crisis communication and expectation management
• Technical troubleshooting literacy (logs, APIs, performance gauges)
• SLA governance paired with strong emotional intelligence
• Influence without authority across multiple departments

Metrics

• Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) for escalations
• Post-incident CSAT / NPS swing
• Escalation recurrence rate
• High-severity backlog trend

12. Professional Services Consultant

Some customers need more than a quick kickoff; they need white-glove muscle to mesh your software with their tech stack, processes, and people. The Professional Services Consultant fills that gap, selling and delivering project-based work that accelerates value and locks in stickiness—while generating its own revenue line inside the broader slate of customer success team roles.

Role in complex deployments

When implementations involve multi-instance integrations, custom APIs, or company-wide process redesigns, this consultant leads the charge. Think of them as a hybrid between a solution architect and a management consultant who lives post-sale.

Responsibilities

• Scope and price Statements of Work (SOW)
• Design project plans, timelines, and resource allocations
• Build custom integrations, migrations, or configurations
• Run onsite or virtual training workshops
• Transfer knowledge to Customer Success and Support for long-term ownership

Skills needed

• Deep product and domain expertise
• Structured consulting methodologies (e.g., TAM, ITIL)
• Project scoping and risk management
• Change-management and stakeholder facilitation

KPIs

• Services gross margin
• On-time, on-budget project delivery rate
• Retention rate of customers with attached services
• Post-project CSAT/NPS uplift

13. Community Manager

A healthy user community acts as a force-multiplier, giving customers a place to swap tips, celebrate wins, and surface pain points without waiting for a ticket reply. Managed well, it converts peer learning into product stickiness while slashing support volume and generating a steady stream of advocates.

Why communities amplify customer success

• Peer-to-peer answers arrive faster than staffed support, boosting satisfaction
• Public discussions reveal feature gaps and real-world use cases for Product to mine
• Shared success stories create social proof that fuels upsells and referrals
• Inclusive spaces deepen emotional attachment, raising renewal odds

Job duties

• Moderate forums, Slack/Discord spaces, and AMAs to keep dialogue civil and on-topic
• Curate and post best-practice content, release notes, and event recaps
• Identify power users; recruit them as champions or beta testers
• Track engagement analytics and report insights to CS and Product teams

Essential skills

• Online moderation and conflict de-escalation
• Content curation plus light copywriting/design chops
• Event facilitation—virtual meetups, webinars, hackathons
• Data literacy to spot engagement trends

Success metrics

Metric	Signal
Monthly active members	Community reach
Question answer rate	Peer support effectiveness
Community-generated content volume	Knowledge depth
NPS among community users	Impact on loyalty

14. Customer Advocacy / Reference Manager

When prospects ask, “Who else uses you and how’s it going?” the Customer Advocacy / Reference Manager supplies the proof. This role turns delighted users into storytellers—fueling pipeline, shortening sales cycles, and injecting authentic product feedback back into the company. In smaller orgs the function is a side-gig for Marketing; in growth-stage SaaS it earns its own seat because a single strong reference call can secure six-figure ARR.

Strategic value of advocacy

• Converts satisfied customers into a low-cost, high-credibility acquisition channel
• Generates case studies that double as enablement assets for Sales and CS
• Surfaces product love and gaps earlier than formal surveys can

Key duties

• Identify promoters via NPS and usage data
• Recruit and manage reference pools, speaker bureaus, and review programs
• Coordinate case studies, testimonials, and conference speaking slots
• Track advocate fatigue and rotate asks to avoid burnout

Required skills

• Relationship marketing and incentive design
• Storytelling and light copy / video production know-how
• Program management across multiple departments and timelines
• Data hygiene to tag advocates in CRM and measure impact

KPIs

Metric	What It Shows
Active advocate count	Program breadth
Referral or advocacy-influenced ARR	Revenue impact
Case studies published per quarter	Content output
Reference call win rate	Effectiveness at closing deals

15. Customer Experience (CX) Researcher / Program Manager

Great retention doesn’t come from hunches; it comes from evidence. The CX Researcher turns scattered feedback, usage logs, and survey scores into a 360-degree journey map leadership can act on. Think of this role as the in-house ethnographer who keeps every other customer success team role honest about what users actually feel.

Holistic customer-journey focus

• Tracks emotions and effort across onboarding, adoption, support, and renewal touchpoints
• Prioritizes fixes that reduce friction and unlock “aha” moments faster
• Aligns insights with Product, Marketing, and CS Ops so roadmaps mirror real-world pain

Responsibilities

• Design and run NPS, CSAT, CES, and PMF surveys
• Conduct user interviews, diary studies, and win/loss calls
• Build journey maps that highlight drop-offs and bright spots
• Present quarterly VoC reports with clear, data-backed recommendations

Skills and tools

• Qualitative research methods, statistical survey design
• Journey-mapping software (Miro, UXPressia), SQL or BI basics
• Storytelling and workshop facilitation to drive cross-functional alignment

Metrics to watch

Metric	Why It Matters
NPS trend	Macro signal of loyalty
Customer Effort Score (CES)	Pinpoints friction areas
Adoption–cross-sell correlation	Links UX improvements to revenue

Bringing It All Together

Customer Success isn’t a single job—it’s a portfolio. Executive leaders set the vision, managers translate that vision into repeatable processes, and specialists tackle the nuanced work of onboarding, education, analytics, and advocacy. When those 15 customer success team roles fire in sync, the organization stops reacting to churn and starts engineering loyalty and expansion on purpose.

Before you spin up a new requisition, step back and grade your current coverage:

• Do you have strategic ownership of Net Revenue Retention at the C-suite or VP level?
• Are frontline CSMs supported by ops, data, and enablement pros who remove busywork?
• Can every customer segment—from enterprise whales to long-tail self-serve—access the right blend of human and digital touch?

Answering “no” more than once signals a hiring or upskilling gap. Prioritize roles that unblock revenue first (e.g., Onboarding, Renewals), then add scale enablers like Digital CS or Community Management. Revisit the matrix quarterly; the ideal mix evolves as product complexity, ARR, and customer expectations grow.

Finally, remember that every role thrives on accurate, actionable user feedback. If capturing, tagging, and prioritizing that feedback still feels manual, explore how Koala Feedback can become the single source of truth that powers your entire Customer Success engine.