Startup CXO

Chapter 94CEO‐to‐CEO Advice About the Customer Success Role

Matt Blumberg

What comes before a full‐fledged CCO? In most startups, you'll start with a “jack of all trades” account manager position where people handle all customer issues from basic support all the way through to true customer success … and often some of these functions will be handled by the product team. Specialized roles and multiple teams (e.g., support vs. professional services) with their own managers will usually come before a full CCO, unless one of the company's founders happens to be playing that role.

Signs It's Time to Hire Your First CCO

You know it's time to hire a CCO when:

• You wake up in the middle of the night and realize you've never measured customer satisfaction—no Net Promoter Score, no basic customer satisfaction survey, no product engagement levels, nothing.
• You are spending too much of your own time putting out customer fires rather than thinking about how to make customers more successful by using your product.
• Your Board asks you which of your customer segments is the highest margin, or has the most opportunity, and you don't have a great answer and aren't sure how to get to one.

When a Fractional CCO Might Be Enough

A fractional CCO may be the way to go if you have a relatively contained/small customer success/account management organization, but it is already very diverse in its sub‐functions (support, account management, success, professional services) and none of the team leaders ...