¿Happy Customers or Healthy Scorecards?

Note: today’s post was co-authored by 2 CSM friends (Divya Gupta and Jordan Robinson)

Readers of this newsletter know I’m a big fan of product folks as cross-functional shepherds; over the past few years, as I’ve worked in enterprise SaaS, I’ve learned that CSMs are a great spiritual partner for PMs. The reason for this is because both roles ultimately care about the same thing: customer value. And while they might utilize slightly different lenses (user engagement, account health), they have a shared belief that without customer value, there is only a fast path to churn (both user- and account- wise).

A CSM (or customer success manager) is a critical GTM role, usually rolling up to a C-level leader like a Chief Customer Officer or a Chief Revenue Officer. The roles and responsibilities of the job vary by company, but it usually centers around the successful adoption of the product, with an eye towards renewal (and ideally expansion). The largest enterprises tend to have a named CSM con…