The top 2025 customer success trends predicted by SaaS experts

What’s the one thing that won’t change in customer success this year? The pace of change itself. So how should you position yourself for 2025’s incoming customer success trends—and should you be nervous, optimistic, or a cautious blend of both?

“Over the past two years, every less-than-best practice in CS has been scrutinized: where it should live, how it should look, who owns what,” writes ChurnZero CEO You Mon Tsang in the most recent Customer Success Leadership Study. “While it’s natural to be nervous, you shouldn’t be in the long run. It’s a bumpy road to the top.”

So what 2025 customer success trends can we anticipate? We asked ChurnZero’s network of expert partners and SaaS thought leaders to weigh in.

Trend 1: Customer teams strengthen their revenue focus.

The journey from customer champions to critical revenue drivers continues. For 2025, our experts expect to see customer teams owning more growth targets, demonstrating more impact, and adopting more sophisticated revenue workflows to drive growth—ultimately positioning themselves as a cornerstone of long-term growth.

“Revenue ownership became an operating norm in 2024,” says ESG‘s Sheik Ayube. “In 2025, owning a growth target will follow suit. To make matters even more challenging, budgets will remain relatively flat for many, even as the scope of CS expands. The silver lining: finance teams will more amenable to out-of-cycle budget requests compared to the previous two years, if requests are securely anchored to a strategic initiative that is imperative to the business and a strong business case that articulates the ROI.”

“Customer teams will need to demonstrate their revenue impact through measurable activities,” agrees Kristen Hayer of The Success League. “I don’t mean, necessarily, that CSMs will need to carry a quota, but I do mean that they will need to be responsible for driving revenue in some tangible, measurable way. It could be anything from securing renewals to handing off qualified leads to sales, but it is critical that CS leaders quantify and share the real revenue their teams are contributing to the company.”

Customer teams will need to adopt standardized, repeatable methodologies to drive predictable expansion and growth, says HelloCCO‘s Rod Cherkas. “These frameworks will empower teams to uncover growth opportunities, deepen executive relationships, and clearly articulate ROI in ways that resonate with stakeholders. “By leveraging AI-driven insights and embedding proven methodologies into their workflows and platforms like ChurnZero, CS teams will deliver measurable, repeatable contributions to top-line revenue growth. CEOs and CFOs will increasingly view these expansion frameworks as essential.”

However, the nuances of growth matter, says Robbie Kellman Baxter. “Over the past few years, the pendulum has swung from growth-at-all-costs to profitability-at-all costs. 2025 will be the year we find balance in the form of sustainable, profitable growth. Closely held businesses and organizations with long-term time horizons have always invested in healthy growth, but public and venture-backed companies often suffer whiplash due to changing KPIs. Businesses need to focus on three metrics at the same time: acquisition, retention and customer lifetime value.”

Trend 2: AI and automation become transformative.

AI and automation will reshape the way customer teams operate, say the experts. Expect new ways to streamline tasks, enhance engagement, and accelerate onboarding—as well as challenges in striking the right balance between rapid adoption and retaining the human touch.

“CS leaders ignoring AI and scalable engagement strategies in 2025 will likely face team restructuring,” warns Irit Eizips of CSM Practice. “Teams must adopt AI-driven tools, dynamic segmentation, and scalable models like pooled and portfolio management to provide value to every customer. Partial customer coverage will no longer be acceptable. Those who fail to adapt risk being left behind as full-base strategies become the norm.”

“Two-plus years into GenAI,” says Jan Young, “and I’ve already seen AI prove its value by shortening onboarding times by 40%, enabling 3x growth in expansion revenue, and streamlining processes to save time and costs by 20%. “In 2025, agentic AI will emerge as a transformative driver, enabling even more complex automations and delivering outcomes previously thought achievable only through manual effort. To seize the opportunity, CS leaders must embrace their role as business leaders, adopt a strategic mindset, and lead the charge in integrating AI into their organizations. It requires moving beyond functional expertise and deeply aligning your efforts with company and customer business objectives.”

“AI-powered chatbots and more sophisticated digital and automated CS motions will handle round-the-clock customer inquiries, and proactive provisioning of service based on the anticipation of need.” predicts Peter Armaly of Valuize. “That will open the way for CSMs to focus, increasingly, on handling complex issues and developing strategic solutions for the largest clients.”

Trend 3: Customer teams double down on outcomes and value.

A shift toward outcome-oriented partnerships will redefine customer relationships, experts predict, putting more emphasis on partnership and trust, personalized engagement, and outcomes-based customer success.

“In enterprise software, customer teams will work closely with customers to define shared goals, aligning their efforts with tangible business results,” predicts Growth Molecules founder Emilia D’Anzica. “This shift from a feature-focused mindset to delivering measurable value will strengthen relationships, foster trust, and create a foundation for long-term success. AI will streamline routine tasks and allow for more personalized, value-driven interactions, while new models focus on the outcomes that truly matter to customers rather than traditional metrics.”

“Customers will demand that CS teams not only provide support but actively contribute to achieving measurable business outcomes,” agrees Peter Armaly. “This could lead to more ‘success architect’ roles that focus on mapping customer goals to solutions.”

“2025 will usher in a new era of customer success, where value realization takes center stage,” says Naomi Aiken of Techtonic Lift. “CSMs will pivot from tracking mere product adoption to actively guiding customers toward achieving specific goals. By measuring outcomes, proactively addressing challenges, and demonstrating tangible benefits, CSMs will solidify customer relationships, prove value, and ultimately drive higher renewal rates.”

Trend 4: Digitally enhanced human relationships continue to evolve.

As digital experiences become standard expectations, technology offers opportunities to build deeper connections with customers at scale. Rather than replacing human relationship-building, digital tools will augment it, enabling more precise engagement with a continued focus on connection, value, and trust.

“I believe 2025 will be the year of digital,” predicts fractional CCO Marley Wagner. ”A digital customer experience will be table stakes for any B2B purchase, and the best of them will be measured not just on increasing team efficiency, but on the efficacy of increasing engagement, usage, retention, and growth through digital connection. We’ll also see a lot more digital CS in the enterprise space, with engagement models based on how the customer wants to interact with you, rather than just on company size or annual spend.

“CS will play a bigger role in nurturing and sourcing customer advocacy,” says Captivate Collective‘s Liz Richardson. “As organizations find more ways to measure the holistic value of a single customer (contract value + acts of advocacy that impact business growth), CS will blur the lines even further with customer marketing. CS ops and CSMs will be more active in designing, executing and measuring customer activation and collaboration plays that impact brand awareness, lead generation, account expansion and the success of other customers.”

“The biggest trend I see for 2025 is more focus more on customer messaging,” says Rachel Provan of Provan Success. “If we want to retain customers and increase wallet share and lifetime value, we have to keep subtly reminding why they bought the product/service in the first place, and help them appreciate the ways in which it has made their lives easier. Even the most loyal customer will start taking your product for granted after a certain amount of time. And while it’s tempting to just keep releasing new features to maintain their interest, we can keep them engaged far more easily through influence and messaging, and understanding our customers psychology and what they value.”

“The best CS leaders… will double down on building intentional, human connections with their most valuable customers,” says customer growth consultant and author Noah Fleming. “AI is great at handling repetitive tasks and surface-level engagement. But here’s the rub: AI will never deliver trust, empathy, or foresight—the critical ingredients that turn satisfied customers into loyal advocates. If your team relies too heavily on AI, you’re not scaling relationships; you’re commoditizing them. You’re treating customers like line items instead of partners. Let’s be clear: the heart of success still lies in creating meaningful relationships.”

Want to stay ahead of 2025’s customer success trends? We’re here to help.

From in-person events to on-demand online masterclasses, we’re dedicated to helping you and your customer team succeed this year and beyond. Try these resources to stay one step ahead: