Customer Success Manager: What It Is and How to Become One

Key takeaways

Customer success managers nurture long-term customer relationships by ensuring customers are happy with their purchases. 

• Customer success managers earn a median total pay of $141,000 [1].

• As a customer success manager, you’ll onboard new customers, check in with them throughout their journey, and monitor their usage data to identify patterns.

• You can prepare for a role as a customer success manager by earning a bachelor’s degree and working as a sales representative.

Learn more about customer success managers, including what they do, how much they earn, and how to become one. If you’re ready to build your skills, consider enrolling in the Salesforce Sales Operations Professional Certificate. You’ll have the chance to learn how to build reports, charts, and dashboards in Salesforce in as little as three months. By the end, you’ll have earned a career credential to showcase on your resume.

What is a customer success manager?

A customer service manager (CSM) plays an important role in the final stages of the sales cycle. Once a sales representative successfully closes a sale, a CSM steps in to ensure the new customer's ongoing satisfaction with the product or service they purchased from the company.

The top issues impacting the customer journey include ease of problem resolution, which was indicated by 62.3 percent of respondents, and ineffective use of customer data, reported by 47.5 percent of respondents [2]. CSMs—sometimes called "client success managers," "customer service managers,” or “managers of customer success"—build long-term relationships with customers and help resolve some of these problems by helping onboard customers and ensure proper product adoption, among other responsibilities.

What do customer success managers do?

CSMs build customer loyalty by ensuring that customers have a positive experience with the company through the product or service they've purchased. While working in this managerial position, you may be responsible for ensuring customer satisfaction, managing customer needs, and using customer service data to set and enforce customer service goals for the company.

Important tasks might include:

• Onboarding customers, including guiding them through the initial setup

• Creating onboarding plans and documents to ease the customer experience

• Establishing regular check-ins with customers and building relationships

• Monitoring customer usage data and patterns

• Promoting product features

• Identifying risk factors to avoid customer churn

• Collaborating with other members of the sales team, as well as product and support

Learn more about the everyday tasks of a CSM from industry leaders at Salesforce:

Is customer success an entry-level job?

Yes, you can find entry-level jobs in customer success. As a customer success associate, for example, you may answer customers’ questions or address their concerns to ensure their satisfaction with your product or service. Since a customer success manager position requires experience, a customer success associate role can prepare you for future leadership positions. 

Customer success manager salary

Customer success managers are critical to ensuring customers are happy and do not leave (churn). As a result, they're well-compensated for their efforts. According to Glassdoor, the median total pay customer success managers earn is $141,000 as of November 2025 [1]. This figure includes base salary and additional pay, which may represent profit-sharing, commissions, bonuses, or other compensation.

Because many customer success managers work on commission in addition to a base salary, the types of goods or services they sell can also greatly affect their income.

Learn more: 9 High-Paying Sales Jobs and 5 Growth Industries

How to become a customer success manager

Customer success managers need to have a strong understanding of a business's products and services, including technical features. They must also have excellent customer service skills. Handling such an important aspect of a business means that most employers prefer candidates with the right education, experience, and skills.

Learn more about what you can expect to do on the path to becoming a customer success manager:

1. Get your degree.

In order to qualify for most customer success manager positions, you'll need to have a bachelor's degree. According to Zippia, 78 percent of customer success managers have a bachelor's degree, 12 percent have a master's degree, and 7 percent have an associate degree [3]. Top majors include business, marketing, communication, and political science.

2. Gain relevant work experience.

In order to become a customer success manager, you'll need to gain relevant work experience in a field related to the position, such as sales or marketing. Some jobs you might consider pursuing in order to gain relevant work experience include a customer service representative or a sales associate.

3. Develop the right skills.

The most effective managers will have the right balance of technical skills and people skills, needing knowledge of certain software and tools, as well as people management and communication. Some of the skills you can expect to use as a customer success manager include: 

Supporting customers effectively relies on strong digital engagement and relationship-building skills. If you're interested in strengthening your skills in this area, consider enrolling in the Google Digital Customer Engagement Specialization. In weeks, you could learn to create customer personas, run social media and email campaigns, optimize e-commerce experiences, and develop loyalty programs. By the end, you’ll earn a shareable certificate for your resume

4. Seek advancement.

Once you have the required experience and skills, begin your job search for customer success manager positions. Explore existing positions at your current place of work as well as elsewhere, focusing on areas you may have specialized in former positions. It can often take time to land a job, but by preparing appropriately and being proactive, you can do it.

5. Consider additional career advancement. 

As a customer success manager, you may choose to move into other management roles or change departments.

Most customer success managers follow the sales or marketing pathway within a company. This means that a customer success manager may step into the role of manager of other customer success managers, account executive/account manager, product sales/marketing manager, product management, or enterprise customer success manager. 

You may find yourself on the pathway to positions like vice president of sales or chief customer officer (CCO) if you stay with a company for a while and gain success and experience in your roles. 

Explore resources to build your customer success skills

Learn more about sales and marketing trends by subscribing to Career Chat, our LinkedIn newsletter. Then, check out these free resources to broaden your knowledge: 

• Envision your career path: Career Advice: How to Become a Marketing Manager at Coursera 

• Bookmark this page: Data Analysis Terms and Definitions 

• Watch on YouTube: Career Spotlight: Sales Representative

Accelerate your career growth with a Coursera Plus subscription. When you enroll in either the monthly or annual option, you’ll get access to over 10,000 courses. 

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