A Day in the Life of Head of Customer Success

We recently caught up with Bright Network member Thamasha to chat about how her career is going. Thamasha has been working as head of customer success and told her about her personal experience of what a day in the life of head of customer success is really like. Read on to learn what head of customer success does and whether it’s the career path for you.

What does head of customer success do?

Head of customer success is the team member dedicated to helping clients to achieve the best with the products or services that a company provides. The specific role that head of customer success has will depend on the type of product or service they’re working with, but generally requires a good understanding of what the product or service is, how it works and how to make this work in the best way possible for a client. Often, head of customer success will be a managerial role with some responsibility for your colleagues working in the customer success team. It’s Thamasha’s job to make sure her clients are getting the most out of the product and her colleagues are working their hardest to make this happen.

We started by asking Thamasha to reflect on working as head of customer success.

What is the most important thing you’ve learned since starting?

Confidence. It’s a skill I’m still working on. Over the last few years, I’ve worked with so many people who are so much more experienced than me, but if you’re confident enough to believe yourself and know that no one knows everything, it will carry you so far. This is especially when you’re managing people. I had to go from just about being responsible for myself to being responsible for other people and that’s been a big learning curve. I have to be confident in myself or I can’t lead my team.

Has there been a task or project that has stood out to you?

Before I was promoted, I was working on one of our accounts and they really pushed me to accelerate my learning. I had to step up to their level! I had to keep track of around 50 people in their company and it really pushed me to my limits. It was a lot of responsibility.

The working conditions of head of customer success

Being head of customer success typically means working for a specific company rather than being an outside contractor so you can fully understand the product your team is selling. Most of the job is office based, but there may be some customer-facing opportunities where you can meet with customers either virtually or in person.

We asked Thamasha about what it’s like working as head of customer success.

What’s the culture like?

Work hard, play hard! Everyone works really hard, particularly over COVID and sometimes I’ve had to relearn how not to work too hard. Everyone’s really supportive and you can never make a bad mistake because we’re always encouraged because we move fast and break things so we can learn and develop.

What has been the highlight of working for the company?

I’ve been in this company for three years and it feels like thirty in the best way! I wear multiple hats, and everything moves at 100 times the normal speed, but I’ve been exposed to so much more and I’ve learned a lot because of this. I’ve met so many cool people!

In a small start-up there are fewer people around and you have to be flexible, wear multiple hats and help out in more projects. As the companies get bigger, you can be more specialised.

A typical day in the life of head of customer success

As Thamasha says, being head of customer success is typically a role that requires hard work and long working weeks. This could mean working 40 hours a week as standard to make sure you’re present for your colleagues and also your customers. We asked Thamasha what a typical day in the life of head of customer success is like.

What is the first thing you do when you start working?

If I’m in the office, then I make myself a cup of coffee! Then I’ll check through my calendar to see what’s on that day.

What do you do throughout the day?

It varies day to day. The bulk of my meetings are in the morning, and I prefer to have the afternoon to get on with tasks. Lots of my work is people management, so that’s helping people out by answering questions and dealing with issues. Much of it is operational, so I’m trying to make processes more efficient, for example looking into different systems.

How you could become head of customer success

To become head of customer success, you need experience in working in customer success. Previously, you could work as an account manager or customer or client success manager. This gives you the basic understanding of what the role involves which you can use when managing your colleagues. Having a degree isn’t a requirement for these positions but can help you appear competitive. You should be able to speak confidently and have good customer facing skills.

We asked Thamasha for her advice on how you can break into being head of customer success.

What top three tips would you give Bright Network members looking to follow in your footsteps?

It’s okay not to know what you want to do. I stressed so much about this and put off doing things because I thought you had to know 100% what you want to do. But I’ve learned that you have to throw yourself in the deep end because it’s so unlikely that you’ll find the role that you want to do immediately, and you won’t know what it is until you try things.

Have faith in yourself. It helps no one if you have no faith in yourself. You have to believe you can take on new challenges and see the positivity in taking on new challenges.

Network! Don’t be afraid to meet new people even if they’re different from you. Share experiences with them.

Have you been inspired by Thamasha? Are you considering working life as head of customer success? Explore the current jobs in communications available now.