| Detail | For this role |
|---|---|
| Department | Customer Support |
| Level | Senior management |
| Reports to | Chief Revenue Officer |
| Direct reports | Customer Success Manager, Customer Success Executive |
| Experience | 10+ years in customer success or account management with leadership |
Head of Customer Success job description template
Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.
Job title: Head of Customer Success
Department: Customer Support
Reports to: Chief Revenue Officer
Location: [City], [office, branch or site]
About the role
A Head of Customer Success owns retention, adoption and growth of existing customers, usually in a subscription or SaaS business. They lead the customer success team, drive product adoption, protect renewals, and grow accounts through upsell and expansion. They turn customers into long-term, growing relationships rather than one-time sales. A good Head of Customer Success keeps renewal and retention rates high, lifts product adoption and account health, grows revenue from the existing base, and builds success managers who can save at-risk accounts and expand healthy ones.
Key responsibilities
- Own retention, renewal and expansion targets for the existing customer base.
- Lead the customer success team and manage their account portfolios and health.
- Build the onboarding and adoption playbook so customers reach value quickly.
- Track account health signals and drive action on at-risk accounts before they churn.
- Own the renewal process and forecast renewals accurately for the leadership team.
- Grow revenue from existing accounts through upsell and cross-sell with the team.
- Work with product on feedback, feature adoption and the customer roadmap.
- Set success metrics and playbooks and coach the team to follow them.
- Run quarterly business reviews with key accounts alongside success managers.
- Build and develop the success team and plan for the growing account base.
Requirements
- Graduate, an MBA an advantage
- Experience leading customer success or account management
- A customer success certification is an advantage
- 10+ years in customer success or account management with leadership
KRAs and KPIs for a Head of Customer Success
Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.
| Key result area | How to measure it |
|---|---|
| Retention | Gross and net retention held above the annual target |
| Renewals | Renewal rate maintained above the target with churn reducing |
| Expansion | Upsell and cross-sell revenue from the base meeting the target |
| Adoption | Product adoption and account health improving across the portfolio |
| At-risk saves | At-risk accounts identified early and saved at the target rate |
| Team | Success managers meeting portfolio targets with a strong bench |
Skills and tools
Tools used day to day: Customer success platform, CRM, Product analytics, BI dashboards, MS Excel.
Reporting line and career path
Next roles: Vice President Customer Success, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Revenue Officer
Interview questions for a Head of Customer Success
- How do you build a customer success function that protects renewals and grows accounts?
- How do you spot an at-risk account early and save it?
- How do you drive product adoption in the first ninety days?
- How do you forecast renewals accurately for leadership?
- How do you balance retention with upsell and expansion?
- How do you coach success managers to run strong business reviews?
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What does a Head of Customer Success do?
A Head of Customer Success owns retention, adoption and growth of existing customers, usually in a subscription business. They lead the success team, drive product adoption, protect renewals, and grow accounts through upsell. They track account health, save at-risk accounts, forecast renewals, and build success managers who keep customers as long-term, growing relationships.
What is the difference between customer success and customer support?
Customer support is reactive: it resolves issues when customers reach out. Customer success is proactive: it works to make sure customers adopt the product, get value, renew and grow. Support fixes problems; success drives outcomes and retention. In many companies the two work closely, but success owns the ongoing customer relationship and revenue.
What qualifications does a Head of Customer Success need?
A graduate degree is the usual base and an MBA is an advantage. Employers value experience leading customer success or account management, a record of protecting renewals and growing accounts, and comfort with account health data and forecasting. A customer success certification helps, but proven retention and expansion results matter most.