How To Hire Customer Success Managers
Your Customer Success team is going to be a major reason why your organization wins in the cloud economy. But there are still questions about how do you hire Customer Success Managers. In particular, how do you source the right people to hire for Customer Success? Let’s go over some options and what to look for.
Internal or External?
When sourcing a Customer Success Manager, you can recruit from within your organization or bring in fresh meat (external candidates). If I have the choice, I prefer poaching people from other departments, especially if I’m setting up a brand new Customer Success department. Considering the fact that you’re already going to be facing new processes and challenges, I find it easier to overcome bumps in the road when you have team members who are already up to speed on your organization’s products and culture.
If you’re bringing in external candidates, you’re going to need a great Customer Success job description. I’ve had success with LinkedIn because of their ability to hyper-target “Customer Success” backgrounds. Entelo is also a great source for finding your next Customer Success Manager. Other recruiting or job-board software can also be effective for your sourcing needs.
Remember that great leaders are always recruiting because the best talent is typically not actively looking for a job. Consistently tap into your networks and ask peers who the“A Players” are that they would recommend and start building relationships.
Experience
Obviously, you’d prefer candidates with experience in Customer Success but that may not always be available. I’ve found that great Customer Success Managers can come from a variety of backgrounds but there are a few key experiences you should be looking for.
Your ideal Customer Success Manager should have strong experience cultivating and maintaining a sustained relationship with a company. Support and Account Management backgrounds often have directly transferable skills to Customer Success. This is just my opinion but I’ve found that the hardcore Hunter/Sales types don’t tend to do well in Customer Success, even if your team owns revenue. There are, of course, exceptions but I’ve had more luck with backgrounds in other fields.
The level of technical expertise will also depend on what type of products you sell. If you offer highly complex products in a specific vertical, you’ll want to seek out domain experts. Less complex products may not require domain experts. Regardless, make sure that you’re seeking candidates who have an aptitude and zeal for learning.
Compensation
Your compensation structure is going to be highly dependent on your organization but there are three main compensation structures for Customer Success: salary only, base with commission, or base with commission and variable bonus.
The salary-only approach is very straightforward to manage and can be appealing, particularly in geographies where talent competition may not be fierce. Customer Success Managers in this structure may not see any potential for upside, though, and it may be tough to compete..
If your Customer Success organization owns revenue, a compensation structure that’s similar to Account Executives might make sense. This could include a base salary of 50-60%, with commissions for renewals, upsells and cross-sells making up the rest. However, some argue that Customer Success should not own revenue because it muddies the “trusted advisor” role.
Now that you’re clear on how to source and compensate Customer Success Managers, it’s time to start the interview process. These Customer Success Manager interview questions will help you find the best people. Happy hunting!
