How to drive bigger outcomes with a smaller customer success team

What do you do when the expectation to drive bigger customer outcomes has never been higher, but hiring freezes and layoffs mean you’re left with a smaller team to achieve these tasks?

It’s a question that’s testing the resilience of every CSM and CS leader, but the good news is that it’s possible to tackle these outcomes efficiently. It may not be easy… but it’s definitely possible. 

It’s important to remember that customer success isn’t a one-size-fits-all role. It requires a nuanced understanding of a company’s product, customer base, and unique challenges. What works for one company, even if they have a similar product and customer base, may not work for yours. 

With this in mind, where do you start in finding the right blend for your small customer success team tactics?  The simple answer is this: Start with your team. Focus on their strengths, then fortify each team member with technology, empower them to succeed, and revisit how you measure their success. 

Let’s walk through those four areas and what they mean.

1: Leverage and build your team’s strengths.

Each of your CSMs brings unique abilities, expertise, and value to your team and customers–so start by taking a deep look at them to understand what they are.

Perhaps one CSM has a knack for understanding complex integrations. At the same time, another is exceptional at managing executive stakeholders. This exercise will enable you to allocate resources effectively and match individual strengths to customer requirements.

Build your team’s skills with a continuous learning culture. 

Encouraging your CSMs to continuously learn and refine their skills in particular domains will not only make them more adept at handling customer issues. It also makes them more satisfied in their roles. With a smaller team, specialization is critical, so an ongoing commitment to learning ensures that CSMs remain at the top of their game.

Leveraging your team’s unique expertise will help you know what your team is capable of and where you, as the leader, can train and develop them to take on your evolving customer base. Tools like Trainual make the continuous development of your employees seamless and enjoyable. 

2: Equip your team with AI superpowers.

It should be clear by now that AI isn’t here to replace CS teams; it’s here to assist and complement their capabilities. Used strategically, it can alleviate multiple administrative tasks, allowing CSMs to focus on more impactful aspects of their role, like building long-lasting customer relationships and handling strategic customer initiatives. Here are two of the main ways AI can help your CSM better manage their customers today: 

Automate follow-ups and reporting.  

AI is ideal for helping small CS teams manage the mundane. Two such tasks that AI is already automating are check-ins and reporting. This frees CSMs to concentrate on deeper customer engagement. By setting up AI-driven systems to handle routine tasks, your CSMs can spend more time on personalized strategies that drive better customer loyalty and value.

One tool that can help with this: UpdateAI. This tool not only records your customer calls but gives a very detailed recap on what was talked about and what issues were brought up, and provides a recap email with all the necessary information that the client will find value in that you can send over immediately. 

Having a tool like this in your tech stack will help you better manage your customers and free up time for your CSMs. 

2: Personalize at scale. 

AI can analyze customer data and provide CSMs with personalized insights and recommendations. This proactive approach ensures that even with a smaller team, no customer issue goes unnoticed, and every interaction is tailored to meet the customer’s specific needs.

ChurnZero helps with this through automation and integration features that improve customer engagement and management. Leveraging real-time data and analytics enables even smaller CS teams to tailor customer interactions based on specific needs and behaviors.

3: Empower your team for resilience.

Your smaller team will struggle take on bigger client projects if your CSMs feel burned out. Burnout is a significant risk for smaller CS teams who have big expectations. Empower your CSMs with the right approaches, tools, and support to mitigate this risk and maintain a high level of performance.

Prioritize your team’s workloads.

Create a scalable and structured approach to managing customer accounts. By setting clear priorities and being strategic about workloads, CSMs can focus their energy on the most impactful activities, reducing stress and enhancing their ability to deliver results.

If you haven’t reviewed your account segmentation in a while, now is a good time to do so. Consider whether some accounts could be moved to a more scaled form for service so your CSMs can focus on your larger clients. Another way to look at this is through the lens of behavioral segmentation. This approach involves dividing customers based on their behavior patterns as they interact with your service or product. Key behavioral metrics can include:

• Usage Frequency – Segmenting customers based on how often they use your product (high vs. low usage).
• Customer Lifecycle Stage – Differentiating customers based on their stage in the lifecycle (new, active, at-risk, churned).
• Value-Based Segmentation – Grouping customers according to their revenue contribution (high-value vs. low-value customers).

This segmentation allows CS teams to tailor their outreach and support efforts more effectively, focusing on the specific needs and behaviors of different customer groups.

Encourage self-care.

While the drive to meet ambitious goals can be exciting yet time-consuming, it’s essential to encourage CSMs to prioritize their well-being. Establishing practices that promote self-care, being aware of the factors that lead to stress in your team, and leading by example will help maintain a positive and productive team.

4: Measure Success Differently

Success may not look the same with a smaller team. It’s time to redefine what success means for your organization and ensure that your team is aligned with these new benchmarks.

Instead of just looking at the number of customers onboarded, focus on customer retention and expansion. These metrics more accurately reflect the long-term value your CSMs bring to your organization and its customers.

Also, make sure your team’s goals are aligned with the desired outcomes for the customer. For instance, if the goal is to increase product usage, ensure that your team is equipped and motivated to support this growth effectively. The best way to do this is to ensure every CSM has a joint success plan for their assigned accounts. It’s a simple. powerful tool for outcome based CS management, that keeps CSMs aligned with their customers’ objectives. See how to create a joint success plan here. 

PS: keep making the case for more budget. 

Even before the current downturn, CS teams were underinvested both in terms of people, and the non-headcount budget that’s essential to equipping CSMs with the tools to scale. For tips on how to build a stronger case for a bigger budget, watch ChurnZero’s webinar with Jeff Heckler here.