20 Essential Customer Success Skills for 2024 (& How to Master Them)

In today‘s customer-centric world, the businesses that thrive are those that not only acquire new customers but also retain and grow them over time. That‘s where customer success comes in.

Customer success is the proactive practice of ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes and continually realize value from your product or service. When done well, it can have a massive impact on key business metrics like revenue, retention, and expansion.

Consider these statistics:

• According to Forrester, a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25-95% increase in profits.
• Bain & Company found that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits anywhere from 25% to 95%.
• A study by Dimension Data found that 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in revenue.

Clearly, investing in your customers‘ success pays off. But to excel in this crucial function, customer success managers (CSMs) and their teams must possess a diverse set of skills—both technical and interpersonal.

In this post, we‘ll dive deep into the 20 most important customer success skills you need to thrive in 2024 and beyond. For each skill, we‘ll explore what it is, why it matters, and how to develop it, illustrated with examples and insights from top industry experts.

By the end, you‘ll have a roadmap for leveling up your own skills and driving better outcomes for your customers and your business. Let‘s get started!

1. Strategic Customer Onboarding

Onboarding is the process of getting new customers set up and familiar with your product or service. But it‘s about more than just teaching them the basics. Effective onboarding is strategic—it‘s an opportunity to set customers up for long-term success and lay the foundation for a profitable, mutually beneficial partnership.

As Lincoln Murphy, customer success consultant and author of The Customer Success Blueprint, explains:

"Onboarding isn‘t a matter of getting the customer to a preset milestone or even to their first value… but rather getting the customer to the point where they are able to achieve success—their Desired Outcome—on their own."

To deliver a strategic onboarding experience:

• Segment customers by use case, goals, and learning preferences. One-size-fits-all doesn‘t cut it.
• Frontload value by guiding customers to their first "aha moment" or quick win as soon as possible.
• Provide multiple educational formats like in-app tutorials, live training sessions, and on-demand resources.
• Set clear expectations around timelines, milestones, and the customer‘s responsibilities.
• Check in regularly to ensure they‘re making progress and proactively address roadblocks.

For example, when project management platform Asana onboards new customers, they offer a personalized kickoff call to understand the customer‘s goals and use cases. Based on that, they recommend specific training sessions, templates, and integrations to help the customer get up to speed quickly.

They also provide an in-app onboarding checklist that guides users through key setup tasks and features, with links to relevant Help Center articles for more context. This multifaceted approach ensures customers have the knowledge and resources to start realizing value from day one.

2. Customer Health Monitoring

Keeping a pulse on customer health is critical for identifying and mitigating churn risks before it‘s too late. But how do you gauge the health of an account? Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative factors.

Quantitative health indicators include:

• Product usage: Are key features being used regularly? Look for trends like decreasing logins or dormant accounts.
• Support tickets: A sudden spike in tickets or a pattern of the same issues could signal underlying problems.
• NPS scores: Track Net Promoter Score responses over time to spot dips in satisfaction.

Qualitative health indicators include:

• Sentiment: Monitor tone and emotion in customer communications. Are they expressing frustration or dissatisfaction?
• Goal attainment: Are customers achieving their desired outcomes? Falling short could put the account at risk.
• Relationship: Do you have a strong rapport with key stakeholders? Loss of an executive sponsor is a common churn trigger.

The most effective CS teams track these factors and more in a formalized account health scoring system. By assigning point values to each criterion, you can calculate an overall health score that guides prioritization and intervention.

For instance, CS platform Gainsight recommends a simple red-yellow-green scoring rubric, as shown below:

Health Score	Point Range	Action
Green	8-10	Maintain via regular check-ins
Yellow	5-7	Investigate and remediate
Red	0-4	Escalate and take immediate action

Source: Gainsight

The key is to monitor health proactively and continuously—not just at renewal time or when fire drills arise. By staying one step ahead, you can intervene early, turn at-risk customers around, and keep more accounts on the happy, healthy path.

3. Storytelling with Data

In customer success, data is your best friend. It allows you to track customer health, measure the impact of your efforts, and make informed decisions. But data alone isn‘t enough—you need to be able to interpret and communicate it effectively to drive action and alignment.

That‘s where data storytelling comes in. As defined by strategic analytics firm Juicebox, data storytelling is:

"A structured approach for communicating data insights using narratives and visualizations to inform, engage, and inspire audiences toward a desired action or outcome."

Good data storytelling has three key components:

1. Data: The raw facts and figures that support your message
2. Narrative: The contextualized, relatable story you tell around the data
3. Visuals: Charts, graphs, and other visual aids that make the data easy to understand at a glance

For example, let‘s say you‘re preparing a quarterly business review (QBR) for a customer. You could simply present them with a spreadsheet of usage metrics and survey scores. But that‘s not very compelling.

Instead, craft a story around the data. Maybe usage took a dip in month two because a key admin was out on leave, but after some additional training, they hit a new high in month three and saved 10 hours per week.

Highlight that story arc visually with an annotated line graph, as shown below:

[Insert line graph showing the dip and rebound in usage, with callouts explaining the story]

Source: Fictitious data for illustrative purposes only

See how much more engaging that is than a raw data dump? By packaging key insights as a clear, coherent, human-centered story, you‘ll get your message across more effectively and inspire the right actions.

Some best practices:

• Choose the right visualizations. Different chart types serve different purposes. Refer to a resource like the Chart Suggestions diagram to pick the most appropriate one.
• Emphasize insights over data. Don‘t overwhelm your audience with too many numbers. Focus on the key takeaways and what they mean for the customer or the business.
• Keep it simple. Use plain language, avoid jargon, and don‘t try to cram too much into one story. Better to tell a few focused stories well than jumble them all together.
• Make it memorable. Incorporating analogies, emotional appeals, and storytelling techniques like the classic hero‘s journey structure will make your insights stick.
• Have a clear CTA. Every data story should end with a specific call-to-action, whether it‘s investing in more licenses, adopting a new feature, or something else.

With practice and intention, data storytelling is a skill anyone can develop. And it‘s an increasingly important one as businesses become more data-driven. In fact, LinkedIn listed it as one of the top 10 in-demand skills for 2020.

So start flexing that data storytelling muscle—your customers, colleagues, and career will thank you.

4. Proactive Problem Solving

In customer success, the best defense is a good offense. That means not waiting for customers to come to you with issues, but proactively identifying and resolving them before they escalate.

One powerful tool for proactive problem solving is root cause analysis (RCA). RCA is a systematic approach for getting to the bottom of recurring issues and preventing them from happening again.

There are many different RCA frameworks out there, but one of the simplest is the "5 Whys" technique. Developed by Toyota in the 1950s, it involves repeatedly asking "Why?" to drill down to the core issue.

For example, imagine several customers complain that a new feature is buggy and crashing their accounts. A reactive approach would be to troubleshoot each issue as it comes in. But with the 5 Whys, you might uncover a deeper problem:

1. Why did the customer‘s account crash? Because they tried to use the new feature and encountered a bug.
2. Why was there a bug in the new feature? Because it wasn‘t thoroughly tested before release.
3. Why wasn‘t it thoroughly tested? Because the development team was rushed to meet the launch deadline.
4. Why were they rushed? Because the scope of the project kept expanding without extending the timeline.
5. Why did the scope keep expanding? Because there wasn‘t a clear, agreed-upon set of requirements from the start.

Aha! So the root cause wasn‘t just a one-off bug, but a flaw in the product development process itself. By addressing that core issue—in this case, by implementing clearer scoping and more rigorous QA—you can prevent similar problems from cropping up again and again.

Other best practices for proactive problem solving include:

• Analyze customer feedback: Look for patterns in support tickets, survey responses, and other customer communications to spot emerging issues.
• Monitor system data: Keep tabs on key metrics like uptime, error rates, and response times to identify potential problems proactively.
• Conduct regular account reviews: Dig into each customer‘s health metrics, support history, and feedback to head off risks before they materialize.
• Run post-mortems: After major incidents, bring together stakeholders to dissect what happened, identify lessons learned, and make process improvements.
• Communicate proactively: Don‘t wait for customers to ask about known issues. Share status updates and workarounds early and often.

By shifting from a reactive, firefighting mentality to a proactive, preventative one, you can significantly reduce customer-facing issues and the strain they put on your CS team. That frees up more time to focus on high-value activities like strategic planning and relationship building.

5. Continuous Learning & Skill Development

In a field as dynamic as customer success, continuous learning is non-negotiable. New technologies, strategies, and customer expectations are always emerging, so what worked yesterday may not work today.

As Aristotle famously said, "Excellence is not an act, but a habit." Truly excellent CSMs weave learning and development into their regular routines, rather than treating it as a one-and-done exercise.

Some ways to make learning a habit:

• Set aside dedicated time: Block off an hour or two each week for learning activities like reading industry blogs, watching webinars, or taking an online course.
• Participate in communities: Join customer success meetups, online forums, or Slack groups to connect with and learn from your peers.
• Seek out stretch projects: Raise your hand for opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone and allow you to develop new skills on the job.
• Find a mentor: Build a relationship with a more experienced CSM or leader who can guide your growth and offer advice when you‘re stuck.
• Teach others: Share your own knowledge and lessons learned through blog posts, presentations, or mentoring. Teaching is one of the best ways to solidify your understanding.

What skills should you focus on developing? While the specifics will depend on your role and career goals, some foundational areas for all CSMs include:

• Product knowledge: Continuously deepen your understanding of your product‘s features, use cases, and competitive landscape.
• Industry expertise: Stay on top of trends, disruptors, and best practices in your customers‘ industries to position yourself as a trusted advisor.
• Technical skills: Depending on your product, you may need to know SQL, APIs, data analysis, or other technical concepts to better serve your customers.
• Business acumen: Develop a keen understanding of how businesses operate, make decisions, and measure success to more effectively partner with your customers.
• Soft skills: Practice the interpersonal skills covered elsewhere in this post, like communication, empathy, and relationship building.

The most successful CSMs take a proactive, intentional approach to their own development. They‘re always looking for ways to learn and level up so they can deliver more value to their customers and company.

Embracing continuous learning can even accelerate your career trajectory. As Andrew Marks, author of The Customer Success Economy, explains:

"In a fast-changing business world, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists."

So make learning a lifelong habit. Your future self—and your customers—will thank you.

We‘ve covered a lot of ground in this post, from strategic onboarding to data storytelling to proactive problem solving. While mastering these skills takes time and practice, they‘re well worth the investment. By developing yourself in these areas, you‘ll be better equipped to:

• Drive customer success by ensuring they achieve their goals
• Boost retention and expansion by proactively managing customer health and risks
• Improve internal alignment by communicating data insights effectively
• Resolve issues faster and more completely by getting to the root cause
• Elevate your own performance and career by making continuous learning a habit

But knowing isn‘t the same as doing. To put these skills into practice, start by assessing your own strengths and growth areas. Consider taking a skill assessment like the CESM Customer Success Skills Quiz to get a baseline.

Then, choose one skill to focus on at a time. Set a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) for how you‘ll develop that skill over the next month or quarter. Break it down into smaller action items and block off time on your calendar to work on them.

For example, if you want to get better at data storytelling, your development plan might look like:

• Goal: Deliver one data-driven presentation to my team or a customer each month for the next quarter.
• Action items:
  • Research data storytelling best practices and frameworks
  • Inventory key metrics and data sources available
  • Draft a story outline and mock up visualizations
  • Practice delivery and incorporate feedback
• Schedule: Block off two hours every Friday afternoon to work on this

Remember, developing new skills is an iterative process. You might not nail it right away, and that‘s okay. The key is to start where you are, keep practicing, and seek out feedback and mentorship along the way.

As you start to see results—like better customer outcomes, more productive conversations, or even a promotion—let that momentum propel you forward. Keep honing your skills and exploring new areas for growth. Because in the fast-moving world of customer success, it‘s the lifelong learners who will thrive.