Client Success: A Commitment, not a Department
One of the most formative leadership seasons of my career was when I ran a Customer Success department.
It wasn’t such a powerful time in my professional career because of metrics or systems.
But rather because it forced me to confront a core business truth:
Customer Success only works when the entire company is committed to it.
You cannot pin customer success on merely one team and expect it to thrive.
A Lesson from the Front Lines
When I led Customer Success, I had a vision for my team.
I wanted us to be the most popular department in the company.
Not because I wanted us to stand out as cool or flashy. But because when we showed up, everyone else saw it as an opportunity to help clients win.
If the Sales, Product, Operations, and Finance teams were excited to see us walking their way, we knew we were doing something right.
Because when the whole company was invested in helping our clients succeed, we all won.
What I’ve Learned from Chad Horenfeldt
In his book, The Strategic Customer Success Manager, author Chad Horenfeldt makes this point clear: customer success is not a role; it is a mindset.
For a Customer Success team to deliver its highest value, three things must be true.
1. The leader must understand customer success.
If the leader sees the function of customer success as merely support or damage control, the entire company will treat it that way. But if the leader understands that customer success exists to help customers achieve the outcome they envisioned when they originally purchased the product or service, everything changes.
2. The company must create clear standards around customer success.
What does success look like for the customer?
How do we measure it?
Who owns what?
How do teams support one another when customers are stuck?
The enemy of customer success is ambiguity.
Clarity creates alignment.
3. The overall company culture must support it.
Customer success must be part of the company’s vision, not an afterthought.
It should show up in how teams talk, how decisions are made, and how tradeoffs are evaluated.
If your culture celebrates closing the deal but ignores what happens after, customer success will always struggle.
A Leadership Issue
Here is the uncomfortable truth: if customer success is not working in your organization at a high level, it is not a customer success problem. It is a leadership problem.
Leaders set priorities.
Leaders shape culture.
Leaders decide what the company actually values, not just what it says it values.
If you want customers to thrive, you must build a company that is designed to help them thrive.
That takes humility.
It takes ownership.
And it takes alignment.
A Simple Leadership Challenge
This week, I challenge you to ask yourself:
Does my leadership team truly understand customer success?
Have we made it part of our vision or just part of our org chart?
Are other departments excited to help our Customer Success team succeed?
When the whole company commits to pursuing the standard of customer success, customers do not just stay…they grow. They advocate. They trust.
And trust, built over time, is one of the most God-honoring ways to lead a business.
If this encouraged you, please forward it to a leader building a team right now.
The world needs more companies that help people truly succeed.
Stay steady.
Want more like this every week?
Order The Steady Leader Book: Order Book
God Bless!
~ Schuyler Williamson