The State of Customer Success 2023

Want to know the latest developments in customer success? Perhaps the key responsibilities of a customer success team? Or maybe you’re just curious about how CSMs really feel about their roles. We’ve got the goods you need right here, right now. ⚡️

There’s a lot of noise about “what customer success is,” but no centralized literature that documents its annual evolution. What is happening? What does the customer success landscape actually look like in 2023?

You can find out all of this, and more, across the pages of the State of Customer Success 2023, our third installment of this research paper. Find out how your customer success function marries up to the global average. 👇

Why every CSM needs this report

Reason #1

It’s tough keeping up with the developments in customer success. Tons can change year on year. 

Reason #2

Not only is customer success a rapidly evolving business function, but it operates across different industries, products, KPIs, and – perhaps most critically – across different customer needs.

Reason #3

Because of this variety of interpretations, we surveyed customer success professionals from across the globe, to get a better understanding of the essential values, responsibilities, and strategies employed by customer success teams.

You’ll discover hot off-the-press facts like:

1️⃣ The #1 responsibility of customer success is to engage its customers (Page 38).

🤖 Over two-thirds (66.3%) of customer success professionals don’t use AI in their current role (Page 65).

🖥 Despite customer success becoming a more prevalent function, it’s still primarily adopted by SaaS companies (Page 16).

⛔️ Most customer success teams don’t have dedicated operations or enablement functions (Pages 39-40).

🎓 95.5% of customer success professionals surveyed are educated to college level (Page 14).

💼 55.4% of customer success teams surveyed report directly to their CEO or CCO (Page 25). 

🖱 On average, only 38% of customer success processes are automated (Page 41).

🧠 Strategic thinking is the most important trait to succeed in a customer success role (Page 59).

We called out to you, the customer success community, and boy, did you deliver. 

From the most popular KPIs and strategies to cross-departmental collaboration with other teams. We wanted to know what type of companies tend to invest in customer success. What impact is AI having on customer success teams in 2023?

Created in partnership with GUIDEcx, you can now enjoy the fruits of your labor and digest all of the changes and nuances of this vital business function.