What makes a great customer success manager?
It isn’t just being friendly, responsive, or good at problem-solving. The best Customer Success Managers combine empathy with commercial awareness, strategic thinking, and deep understanding of how customers define success.
A great CSM sits at the intersection of customer goals and company outcomes. They advocate for the customer internally, guide clients toward measurable results, and build relationships that last beyond a single contract term. What separates good from great is the ability to do all of this proactively, not reactively.
What a customer success manager actually does
Before diving into competencies, it helps to level-set the role itself.
Customer Success Managers are responsible for helping customers realise value from a product over time. Their day-to-day work typically includes guiding onboarding and adoption, running regular check-ins or business reviews, driving renewals, and spotting opportunities for expansion. Just as importantly, they translate customer sentiment and feedback back to product, sales, and leadership teams.
CSMs are not support agents and they are not traditional salespeople. Their success is measured by customer outcomes, retention, and long-term growth.
Strategic thinking, problem-solving, and commercial acumen
Great CSMs think several steps ahead. Instead of waiting for customers to complain, they monitor usage patterns, engagement levels, and behavioural signals to spot risk early. Proactive outreach is one of the clearest indicators of a high-performing CSM.
Data plays a key role here, but the skill isn’t in collecting it. It’s in interpretation. Strong CSMs turn health scores, product usage, and feedback into clear next actions. They know when to intervene, when to escalate, and when to let customers self-serve.
Commercial awareness separates solid CSMs from exceptional ones. The best CSMs understand how customer success ties directly to revenue. They recognise upsell and expansion opportunities not by pushing features, but by understanding customer goals and recommending solutions that align with them.
They can also clearly articulate the business impact of their work using metrics like net revenue retention, customer lifetime value, and churn. These aren’t abstract numbers. They’re how customer success earns its seat at the leadership table.
Relationship building, communication, and executive presence
Customer success is fundamentally relational. Great CSMs know how to manage multiple stakeholders within a single account, from daily users to senior decision-makers. Building multi-threaded relationships reduces risk and ensures value is understood across the organisation.
Trust is built over time through consistency and follow-through. Strong CSMs do what they say they will do, communicate clearly, and don’t disappear when conversations get difficult.
Communication excellence is central to this. CSMs often act as translators, turning technical product features into clear business outcomes for non-technical audiences. They also need to deliver hard messages when necessary, whether that’s addressing underutilisation, setting boundaries on scope, or navigating pricing changes. The best do this with clarity and respect, not avoidance.
Customer advocacy, adaptability, and resilience
Great CSMs champion the voice of the customer internally. They surface recurring feedback, influence product roadmaps, and help teams understand real-world customer impact. At the same time, they balance advocacy with commercial reality. Not every request can or should be fulfilled, and strong CSMs know how to navigate that tension thoughtfully.
Adaptability is increasingly important. Products evolve, customer priorities shift, and markets change. High-performing CSMs stay flexible without losing focus on outcomes.
Resilience matters just as much. Churn, escalations, and negative feedback are part of the job. Great CSMs don’t take setbacks personally. They learn quickly, recover faster, and apply those lessons going forward.
Cross-functional collaboration and technical fluency
Customer success rarely works in isolation. CSMs partner closely with sales during handovers, with support during escalations, and with product teams to share insights. The strongest CSMs know how to influence outcomes without direct authority, using relationships and credibility rather than escalation alone.
Technical proficiency supports all of this. Fluency in CRMs and customer success platforms enables visibility, efficiency, and personalisation. More importantly, great CSMs use data to tailor outreach, recommendations, and engagement to each customer’s context, rather than treating every account the same.
How to assess customer success manager competencies when hiring
Interviewing for customer success roles requires more than reviewing CVs. The strongest signal comes from how candidates think and respond to real scenarios.
Good interview questions explore judgement and behaviour, not just experience. Asking candidates to describe how they turned around a dissatisfied customer, how they prioritise their book of business, or how they’d respond to a feature request you can’t meet reveals strategic thinking, empathy, and problem-solving ability.
There are also clear red flags. Candidates who frame the role as purely reactive support, struggle to explain how they’ve driven retention or expansion, or show little curiosity about customer business models often lack the mindset required for modern customer success.
Growing customer success skills over time
Great CSMs are made, not born. Continuous improvement is part of the role. High performers build personal development plans, invest in learning resources and certifications, and actively seek feedback. They also learn from peers, observing how top CSMs structure their days, manage difficult accounts, and communicate value to customers and leadership alike.
How to hire a great customer success manager in just a few days.
Finding strong CSM talent doesn’t have to take months. With the right hiring infrastructure, it’s possible to identify, assess, and onboard pre-vetted candidates quickly. With Huzzle, we take the hassle out of hiring and connect you directly with the right talent so you can start hiring great customer success managers faster, without compromising on quality.
