My Customer Success Predictions for 2022
As we wrap 2021, I’ve been thinking about my 2022 Customer Success predictions. These predictions come from my 3-year experience in leading IBM Customer Success. I would love to hear your predictions and what you think of mine.
1.) As Cloud investment grows, CS investment will grow with it
Customer Success is continuing to mature and grow as a profession. Look no further than COVID-19 to help drive the demand for CSMs to protect and retain the customer base. Totango conducted a study which found that 91% of organizations had increased their team in size over the past 12 months. As of today (December 21), there are over 86,000 CS jobs on LinkedIn. In addition, Gartner’s prediction of end-user spending on Public Cloud to reach $482B in 2022 (21% YTY) helps the case. As companies shift to subscription and continue modernizing, moving, and building new applications on Cloud, they need experts to help them along the journey. This investment will further fuel the investment in CS.
2.) Customer Success (NRR) becomes a board metric
Those of us leading CS organizations have been asked at ad-nauseam how we are contributing to our company’s financial growth. Net Revenue Retention is the north star metric that underpins what a CSM contributes to the business. I believe most of the industry gets this now. Where we are heading is taking this mainstream into the boardroom. Kelly Capote, the CCO of Gainsight, put together a really good template for CS leaders to ground their impact to take forward to the board. Check that out here.
3.) Customer Success Managers will shift from generalists to specialists
I’ve debated this topic with many people for years because I’ve had to justify my CSM investment. Many organizations have CSMs as “generalists” on topics. I’ve been the recipient of having CSMs as a generalists. They spend a lot of time making connections and chasing follow ups. I don’t believe that’s what customers are looking for. CIOs and LOB leaders want CSMs with strong, technical POVs who are experts in their domain and in the applications/infrastructure that they support. Customers need opinionated perspectives on how to modernize, adopt, scale, and get value from the software and services that they just bought from you. Customers want best practices, references, and thoughtful perspectives on securing hybrid clouds, automating business processes, modernizing workloads, predicting insights with data and AI, and deploying sustainable and efficient IT and applications. The book that helped solidify this prediction for me was The Challenger Sale.
4.) Customer Success will rise in the ranks and grow in its own profession
I’ve hired 1,000 CSMs this year. The question of how to grow professionally comes up all the time, as it should. People want to pick a profession where they see opportunity for growth. In IBM, a CSM is a mid to senior level IT architect with a Career Path to a Senior CSM or Management (First Line Manager, Second Line Manager, CS Market Executive, CS Geo Executive, CS WW Executive). CSMs could also take the career path to a Distinguished Engineer, which is one of the top technical executive roles in IBM.
However, if a CSM wants to move off of the CS path into other roles, he/she has built essential and indispensable skills that are transferable to other roles. In IBM, this would equate to technical sales, professional services, or customer technical leaders. Customer Success Field Guide has a nice outline of career paths for consideration.
5.) CSMs will expand to cover partners, not just customers
As more organizations shift a % of their revenue through channel partners and marketplaces, CSMs will be covering partners, not just customers. ISVs and Solution/Service Providers need expert help solutioning their applications on your platform. They want to work with CSMs to drive joint growth plans to get customers adopting and using their applications. It’s likely the case where CSMs will not have end access to those customers, but don’t get hung up on that. It’s important to ensure the partner’s application is architected and deployed correctly, and they consuming your platform. If your partners are successful, you will be successful.
6.) CSMs will be the #1 influencer on product roadmap and direction
Of all roles in an organization, the CSM is the one who actually experiences how your customers use your platform or application. The CSM knows what the customer is using, what they aren’t using, what capabilities they need to get value, and where the quality issues lie in your software. A responsive, collaborative, and automated feedback loop between the lab and your CSMs are critical to ensure your software and services stay relevant. By connecting your development and product management team with your customer, your customer builds a trusted relationship with the innovators and also influences the roadmap and direction. We’ll see more of this 2 in a box relationship between the lab and CS in 2022.
Let’s see how these predictions play out. One thing is for sure — CS will continue to grow as organizations see the business impact a CSM has on end user consumption and financial growth.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Have a safe, happy, and healthy new year!
