The document is a report summarizing the results of a 2014 customer success salary survey. It provides details on compensation trends, average salaries by job title, participant backgrounds, goals and challenges of customer success teams, and tools used. The number of survey responses increased significantly compared to the previous year, indicating rapid growth of the customer success field.
1. PRESENTS
Formerly the State of the Profession: Customer Success report
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
1
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
SALARY SURVEY REPORT
2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
2
• Introduction 3
• Compensation Structure Trends 6
• Customer Success Annual Compensation Distribution 2014 7
• Customer Success Annual Compensation Distribution Comparison 8
• Median Compensation Range By Title 9
• Average Compensation By Title In 2014 10
• Average Compensation By Title (2013 And 2014 Comparison) 11
• Participant Breakdown (By Title And Background) 12
• Participant Breakdown (By Vertical) 13
• How Long Has Your Company Had Customer Success? 14
• Where Do The Respondents Report To? 16
• The Goals Of The Customer Success Team 17
• Where Are They Performing The Best? 18
• Where Are They Facing Challenges? 19
• What Tools Are They Using? 20
• Customer Success Successes 21
• What Is Your Customer Success Strategy? 22
3. INTRODUCTION
This installment of the Customer Success Salary Survey will bring in highlights of this year’s
findings compared to those of last year’s first ever report.
We received 206% more responses than we did last year – which could attest to the fast
growth of the Customer Success field. Our participants this year came from a very wide
variety of verticals, which will be broken down in a later slide.
Most importantly, the purpose of this report is to analyze Customer Success compensation
trends in the past year at various levels and also to take a deeper look into their goals,
challenges, and successes.
Let’s take a look!
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
3
5. COMPENSATION STRUCTURE TRENDS
54%
28%
BASE SALARY ONLY RECEIVE BONUS IN ADDITION
TO BASE SALARY
RECEIVE COMMISSION IN
ADDITION TO BASE SALARY
From the participants, 20% received only base salary without further incentives. While the
rest received a combination of base salary and further compensation.
More than half (54%) of those who got additional compensation received a bonus for
things like MBOs (e.g. training, team/company performance, quarterly objectives,
implementations, case studies conducted, etc.); while 28% of them received additional
commission on things like % of yearly renewals, % of churn goals attained, and % of upsells.
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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20%
6. 6%
13%
29%
16%
11%
8%
17%
CUSTOMER SUCCESS ANNUAL COMPENSATION
DISTRIBUTION - 2014
1. $75K-$100K (29%) 5. $125K-$150K (11%)
2. $175K+ (17%) 6. $150K-$175K (8%)
3. $100K-$125K (16%) 7. $0-$50K (6%)
4. $50K-$75K (13%)
Here is this year’s annual compensation distribution for Customer Success professionals:
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
6
2014
$150K
-175K
$175K+
$125K
-150K
$100K
-125K
$75K
-100K
$50K
-75K
IN ORDER
OF PREVALENCE
$0-50K
7. 6%
13%
29%
16%
11%
8%
17% 10%
14%
22%
24%
17%
4%
9%
CUSTOMER SUCCESS ANNUAL COMPENSATION
DISTRIBUTION COMPARISON
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
7
In general, there is an increase in compensation in the higher ranges.
2014
$150K
-175K
$150K
-175K
$175K+
$0-50K
$125K
-150K
$100K
-125K
$75K
-100K
$50K
-75K
2013
$175K+ $0-50K
$50K
-75K
$75K
-100K
$100K
-125K
$125K
-150K
12. 2%11%
29%
50%
8%
BYTITLE
C-LEVEL
VP
DIRECTOR
MANAGER
OTHER
*Includes
Customer
Success,
Customer
Rela@ons
**Includes
Nonprofit,
Engineering,
Consul@ng,
Project
Management
On average they had about 3 years and 9
months experience in the burgeoning field of
Customer Success.
Some were even certified in areas such as
Google Analytics, Salesforce, project
management, 6 Sigma, marketing
automation, and other technical aspects.
PARTICIPANT BREAKDOWN
19%
19%
17%
5%
4%
1%
35%
BY BACKGROUND
Account Management (19%)
Support/Services (19%)
Sales (17%)
Customer Facing* (5%)
Marketing (4%)
Finance (1%)
Other** (35%)
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Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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13. COLLABORATION/MANAGMENT
26%
18%
11%
6%
6%
33%
COLLABORATION/MANAGMENT (26%)
CUSTOMER/CRM (18%)
MARKETING (11%)
ANALYTICS (6%)
ACCOUNTING/FINANCE (6%)
OTHER (33%)
CUSTOMER/CRM MARKETING
OTHERACCOUNTING/FINANCEANALYTICS
• IT/Application Management
• Human Resource Management
• Content Management
• Project Management
• Business Process Management
• Call Center
• Community Site Services
• Salesforce Automation
• Help Desk Management
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Business Intelligence
• Web Analytics
• Accounting/Financial
• Expense Management
• Portfolio Management
• Compliance and Risk
Management
• Product Lifecycle Management
• Marketing
• eCommerce
• Web Development
• Productivity
• Manufacturing Solutions
• Procurement
• Other
PARTICIPANT BREAKDOWN BY VERTICAL
2014
Customer Success
Salary
Survey
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14. HOW LONG HAS YOUR COMPANY HAD CUSTOMER SUCCESS?
Although the percentages haven’t
changed much compared to last year,
there has still been a slight increase in the
categories that show more than one year
of having had Customer Success.
On average there are about 25 people on
these Customer Success teams based on
data from our participants. In the mix are
larger and smaller companies which
typically do range in size. The largest team
size reported has more than 500
members and the smallest with just one.
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
14
2%
22%
37%
38%
1%
O MONTHS (GETTING STARTED) <1 YEAR
1 TO 3 YEARS 3 OR MORE YEARS
NOT SURE
TEAM SIZE:
AVERAGE: 25 PEOPLE
LARGEST: 500+ SMALLEST: 1
15. STATE OF THE PROFESSION:
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
3
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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16. WHERE DO THE RESPONDENTS REPORTTO?
CUSTOMER SUCCESS
e.g. Marketing, Revenue,
Product, Professional Services
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Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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CEO SALES
CHIEF CUSTOMER
OFFICER
COO/ OPERATIONSOTHER
17. The survey participants were asked to identify what the goals of their Customer Success team
were from, and top results were as follows :
THE GOALS OF THE CUSTOMER SUCCESS TEAM
GOALSthat showed up
In the “Other” category included:
• Customer Service/Support
• Team Training
• Onboarding/Customer Activation
• Adoption
• Customer Advocacy/Loyalty Growth
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
17
CHURN REDUCTION –
RENEWALS –
UPSELLS –
IMPACT
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT–
OTHER –
79%
76%
64%
56%
33%
18. WHERE ARE THEY PERFORMING THE BEST?
Over half (56%) of all participants felt they were excelling at churn reduction, and 50%
felt they were doing a good job at renewals.
With their job revolving around the needs and uses of their customers, 40% felt they were
successful at impacting product development, and 31% found they were performing
well with upsells.
Of course, Customer Success professionals focus on a lot more than these four
overarching goals. 20% of the participants felt they were achieving other goals optimally
as well. Such things included getting references, increasing product adoption,
providing support, and improving customer satisfaction.
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
18
CHURN REDUCTION
(56%)
1
TOP PERFORMERS
RENEWALS
(50%)
2
IMPACTING PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT
(40%)
3
UPSELLS
(31%)
4
OTHER
(20%)
5
19. Of course there is always a learning curve as a company builds out their Customer Success
team and processes. Not surprisingly, 56% felt scaling or transitioning the team/processes
was the biggest challenge they faced.
Other areas where Customer Success professionals are facing challenges are:
With “Other” consisting of challenges like:
• product issues
• integration with other teams
• buy-in from upper management
• measuring the impact of their work on the company’s revenue
• customer-requested features not on product roadmap
WHERE ARE THEY FACING CHALLENGES?
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
19
Defining the Customer Journey – 40%
Defining the goals and/or
Customer Success role – 37%
Onboarding processes – 35%
Customer Visibility – 27%
Other –17%
20. 16%
32%
43%
45%
73%
84%
OTHER
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT
EMAIL AUTOMATION
HELP DESK
WEB MEETING
CRM
WHATTOOLS ARE THEY USING?
Here are some of the “Other” top tools they’re using daily in Customer Success:
analytics, customer communities, spreadsheets, and in-house project
management tools.
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Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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21. CUSTOMER SUCCESS SUCCESSES
ACHIEVEMENTS & PROUD MOMENTS FROM OUR PARTICIPANTS:
² A successful first user’s group conference where clients were blown away by the
personalized service their Customer Success team provided
² Starting the Customer Success team from scratch, making it operational and scalable
² Turning an unhappy/lost customer into a renewal
² Transforming an Account Management team into a Customer Success team
² Being able to develop product lineup with customer needs
² Recognition by executive staff of the critical role of Customer Success
² Attaining Trusted Advisor status
² Finding a work-around for a customer that the technical team hadn’t thought of
² Customers complimenting CEO on their Customer Success team
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Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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Despite the challenges, our participants have won many victories, both internally and externally.
22. Totango is the leader in customer success management for SaaS and online subscription
businesses. We help companies take a data-driven approach to reducing churn and
driving customer acquisition, onboarding, renewals and upsells.
Totango monitors customer behavior in applications, along with data from CRM, billing
and other systems, to generate insights on customer health and engagement. The
solution combines big-data analytics with powerful segmentation and predictive tools to
understand which customer needs attention and why.
Find more Customer Success resources at www.totango.com/resources.
2014
Customer
Success
Salary
Survey
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WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER SUCCESS STRATEGY?