How do people talk about the profession? Do more people refer to it as client success or customer success? What is the correct post-sales nomenclature?
When talking about this post-sales business function, I’ve always referred to it as customer success. When I think about onboarding, quarterly business reviews, and handling renewals — those are all functions I associate with customer success.
That’s not the case for everyone though. We recently published our 2016 Customer Success Industry Report. The report shows our findings from more than 270 professionals working in the industry. Of those professionals 77 percent had titles including “Customer Success,” while 6 percent included “Client Success.”
Looking at Responses
Customer Success Manager, Director of Customer Success and VP of Customer Success were the three most common job titles according to our survey. Combined they made up almost three-quarters of all responses.
The most common Client Success job title was Client Success Manager, which 1.8 percent of professionals held.
Client Success vs. Customer Success vs. Account Manager, etc…
Out of all our responses, 77 percent of professionals held some title that included Customer Success. Titles such as Senior Customer Success Manager and Customer Success Operations Manager were included in this graph.
Client Success was included in 6 percent of all job titles. While Client Success Manager was the most common, titles such as Client Success Partner and Client Success Specialist were included.
The final bucket includes all other job titles that professionals held. This made up about 17 percent of those who responded. Titles such as Account Manager, Client Advocate, Customer Happiness Manager and Hugger (We see you FullStory) were included.
Comparing with the Trustfuel Job Board
The numbers in this report fall closely inline with the listings we’ve seen on the Trustfuel Job Board. The vast majority of job titles include “Customer Success,” while the other titles vary.
Interested in more stats about the customer success industry? Download the full 22-page Customer Success Report.
Client Success vs. Customer Success first appeared on the Trustfuel blog on December 9, 2016.