The Customer Success Economy

3The Customer Success Job Market Is Taking Off

Why is the Customer Success job market growing so rapidly?

Let's turn to Ruben Rabago, who leads Gainsight's CSM education and certification efforts, Pulse+, for answers. Rabago is responsible for creating programs to educate all these newcomers to the CS field—so he's got his finger on the pulse of the job market.

As we discussed in the previous chapter, Rabago observes that “CSM is infiltrating every industry, not just high-tech. In general, companies are realizing, ‘Holy smokes, if I can implement a Customer Success practice, I will totally transform my business.’ That opens up a huge job market.”

How huge is it? As of November 2019, close to 70,000 Customer Success Manager jobs were listed on careers site LinkedIn. Since 2015, CSM positions at a global scale have grown at a rate of 176% year over year (see Figure 3.1). And although CSM positions are most abundant in the United States, jobs are trending upward worldwide, with Europe leading the way in increased CSM roles (nearly 235% year over year, 2015–18). Tech companies might have the largest number of people employed in Customer Success positions, but the industries adding CSM jobs at the fastest rate are agriculture, real estate, and media and communications—none of which are traditional Silicon Valley industries.

Figure 3.1

Another sign of the field's rapid rise is ...