How to Build Your Customer Success Department from the Ground Up

Building a successful Customer Success (CS) function from scratch can be both exciting and challenging. Imagine you’ve just been handed the responsibility of creating your company's Customer Success strategy and are tasked with building a department from the ground up.

You might be wondering:

Where do I even begin? How long will it take? Is there an easy recipe?

After working in Customer Success for over 10 years, I can confidently say there is no one-size-fits-all answer. However, there are general principles and steps you can take that will help you build a strong foundation and adapt to your unique situation.

I’ve built several CS strategies, programs, and departments from scratch, and now I’m sharing my process (and the steps I took) so that you can replicate it and use it in your own business.

Unfortunately, many new CS leaders are given too much responsibility without the right understanding or clarity on how to structure a Customer Success department.

This isn’t their fault—it’s a common challenge. New CS leaders often lack the proper foundations and a clear “best practice” guide.

So, let me help you avoid these pitfalls and follow a better plan. Here’s how you can do it,

step-by-step.

Step 1: Understand Your Company’s Goals and Your Customers

At a basic level, you must understand your company's goals and strategies.

Clarify what’s expected from your Customer Success department and how it aligns with your company’s overall success. Dive deep into customer profiles to understand their needs, pain points, and expectations.

Next, define what success means for your customers. This will vary from business to business. For example, if you sell a recruitment solution, you might look at the number of candidates hired or recruitment duration as key success criteria.

Step 2: Build a Strong Customer Success Vision and Strategy

Based on the insights from Step 1, develop a clear vision for your Customer Success department. Define specific goals, KPIs, and timelines. Create a strategy that focuses on customer engagement, value creation, and long-term relationships.

Consider these key metrics:

• NRR (Net Revenue Retention)

• Churn

• MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

• CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

• NPS (Net Promoter Score)

• CES (Customer Effort Score)

  
  

Segment customers with similar needs into groups.

Step 3: Design Onboarding and Customer Training Programs

A successful onboarding experience is crucial to building strong relationships with your customers from the start. Create a structured onboarding process that introduces customers to your product or service and helps them get up and running quickly.

Consider developing a customer journey map that outlines your customer’s path with your product.

Bonus Tip: You can create multiple customer journey maps for different customer segments.

In addition, develop training programs that ensure customers get the most value out of your product or service over time.

Step 4: Build Your Customer Success Team

Recruit key individuals with experience in Customer Success and a deep understanding of your industry. Your team should include a mix of commercial heads, technical resources, product specialists, and customer service professionals.

It’s important to remain open to hiring people who may not have the exact “right” experience but possess the right attitude and potential.

Research shows that the following qualities are most important for success in Customer Success:

• Empathy

• Proactivity

• Solution-oriented mindset

• Willingness to learn

• Collaboration skills

• Communication

• Organization

  
  

Remember: "Hire for attitude, train for skill." Skills can be taught, but attitude, motivation, and personality are more permanent. Look for candidates who embody these qualities.

Step 5: Establish a Proactive Customer Success Strategy

Move away from a reactive Customer Success model. Instead, implement a proactive strategy that involves regular check-ins, follow-up emails, webinars, and other “touch points.”

This shows your customers that you genuinely care about their success and are dedicated to identifying and solving problems before they escalate.

You can also set up follow-up plans based on the segmentation you’ve done. Determine what the appropriate customer experience is for each segment and create strategies that cater to those needs.

Step 6: Implement the Right Technology and Tools

Choose and implement the right tools for your Customer Success department. A customer engagement system (CRM) is essential for tracking customer interactions and managing customer information.

You might also want to consider using customer surveys, Customer Success software, and automation tools to increase efficiency.

Create playbooks that outline standard procedures for actions taken at each stage of the customer journey.

Check out these CS tools:

• CustomerCatalyst

• Gainsight

• ChurnZero

• Totango

• Vitally

  
  

Step 7: Measure, Analyze, and Continuously Improve

Once your Customer Success function is up and running, it’s crucial to continually measure performance and analyze outcomes. Use data to identify strengths and weaknesses in your processes and take necessary actions for continuous improvement.