What skills do customer success professionals need in 2024?

This article first appeared on ChurnZero

How will customer success jobs, and the skills they require, evolve in 2024? In the following guest post, Swati Garg founder and CEO, and Lindsay Lynch, senior recruitment consultant at Melo Associates, a customer success and professional services recruitment firm, explore the key trends shaping CS roles and specializations in 2024, and the skills and experiences that CS professionals and leaders should build to capitalize on them.

With technology advancing and customer expectations rising, customer success has become an essential force driving business growth and customer loyalty within the SaaS industry.

As the role of CS changes, so do the critical skills required for CS teams, their leaders, and CS professionals seeking new roles.

Let’s explore the essential trends, specializations, and factors driving the evolution of CS skills in 2024, and consider how you can upskill yourself and your team to stay at the cutting edge.

What skills will help CSMs and individual contributors stand out in 2024?

As companies find more ways to support their customers and build recurring revenue, “traditional” CS skillsets are no longer enough. In 2024, these three skillsets will give CS individual contributors and their teams an edge.

Skillset 1: Sales acumen

In 2024, driving revenue is a primary responsibility of CS. The pandemic forced businesses to re-evaluate their priorities, with revenue growth taking center stage and highlighting the critical role CS plays in revenue and profitability.

As the awareness of CS’s impact grows, so does its ownership of revenue. CS teams are increasingly involved in the entire customer journey, not only shaping the customer experience but directly influencing revenue outcomes through renewals, upsells, and cross-selling.

This means that sales acumen is no longer just a bonus for CS professionals—it’s a new baseline for many companies. KPIs now include not just customer satisfaction scores but also revenue-related metrics like renewal rates, upsell and cross sell targets, and customer lifetime value.

In 2024, tracking these metrics and demonstrating their impact are essential skills for CS professionals. CS professionals need to understand sales processes, have strong relationships with their sales counterparts, and identify sales opportunities themselves.

Skillset 2: Technical proficiency

The potential of AI and automation to transform CS workflows, personalize journeys, and deliver seamless experiences makes expertise in scheduling tools, CRM systems, and AI tools increasingly valuable.

The rise of AI and automation isn’t about replacing human interaction; it’s about empowering CS professionals to do what they do best: build relationships and advocate for their customers, with the power of technology at their fingertips.

According to Customer Success Collective’s State of Customer success 2023 report, over two-thirds of customer success professionals don’t use AI in their role—presenting an advantage for those already using AI, and an opportunity for those prepared to learn.

Skillset 3: Customer-centric consulting

While new technology fuels efficiency, the heart of CS remains in understanding and anticipating customer needs. This means that exceptional communication skills, active listening, creative problem-solving, and genuine empathy command a premium.

While the rise of AI in CS can be unnerving, it isn’t about replacing human interaction—rather, it’s about empowering CS professionals to do what they do best more efficiently. CSMs still need a consultative skillset for building trust, advocating for customers, and turning them into champions.

How customer success roles and skillsets are changing in 2024

From CSMs to CS operations specialists, individual contributor roles are demanding skills and specializations that go far beyond the “traditional” skills of relationship management.

Customer success manager roles

The CSM role is becoming more strategic, with increased responsibility for driving revenue. This requires strong sales skills, domain experience, a data focused mindset, and an understanding of how to use AI to make their role more efficient. CSMs who can streamline routine tasks using technology will gain valuable time back for high-impact customer interactions, driving product value realization, and fostering strategic business conversations.

Scaled customer success roles

This role is starting to carve out its own space and made a huge splash in 2023. With limited budgets for tools and talent, all companies are looking to identify how to scale their customer success teams. We don’t see that changing in 2024, even as headcount starts to normalize.

The required skills we anticipate here include strong technical acumen, experience working with a complex tech stack, strong collaborative skills, a process-focused and metrics-driven mindset, as well as experience in content creation.

Customer onboarding roles

The SaaS industry has recognized that a strong onboarding process is essential for customers to realize value early, adopt throughout their contract, and renew. We’re seeing an increase in senior-level onboarding roles, onboarding specialists being broken out into their own team, and small companies creating their first dedicated customer onboarding roles.

The skills required for onboarding specialists include strong technical acumen and project management skills, the ability to quickly gain product expertise, and the ability to jump into implementation and training projects in a collaborative way.

Customer education roles

Customer education guides customers to master the product through content, customer programs and resources, and strategic engagement. Essential skills include clear, engaging communication, an understanding of learning approaches and techniques, and content development skills.

While it’s difficult to quantify a precise increase in 2023 alone, the evidence suggests a promising future for customer education professionals. Businesses are realizing the strategic value of customer education in driving product adoption, improving customer success KPIs, and reducing churn. Complex software solutions, hybrid work models, and new workplace technologies all necessitate effective customer education programs.

Customer operations roles

According to the 2023 Customer Success Leadership Study, 61% of CS teams now have a dedicated CS operations role. In 2024, we expect to see the role and function grow further as CS teams look to become more effective and efficient with customers, optimize their processes, and integrate their technology, data management, metrics and reporting. Customer operations roles require strong analytical skills, process improvement expertise, and data management proficiency to optimize workflows and enhance effectiveness.

How are customer success leadership roles and skillsets evolving in 2024?

Customer success leadership roles are changing, shaped by 2023’s reductions in force, consolidation and restructuring, and the evolution of digital CS and arrival of AI. This year, we see three major skillsets for CS leaders bubbling to the top.

1: Budget management

Even if this responsibility isn’t “official”, an understanding of business changes, churn, and the impact of new sales are critical for adding value and understanding why execs need to “push the accelerator” or “hit on the brakes” during economic uncertainty and beyond.

2: Change management

Alongside their client responsibility, CS leaders need to manage the internal changes that their teams face, in order to put their best foot forward externally with customers. When so much is changing, leaders need to be adept at discussing and managing change to ensure that everyone is together on the journey.

3: Advocacy building and influence

As well as building relationships with customers, leaders need to build internal advocates across departments to ensure that everyone understands the goals and responsibilities of the customer success team. When things are changing so quickly, the ability to advocate for your department and its work are critical.

To ensure the success of your team in developing the skills for 2024, we recommend:

Role-playing with your team. There’s no better way to prepare them to handle questions about new processes and support when working with customers.
Being as transparent as possible. A lot is changing, very quickly. Your team needs to understand what is happening, why it is happening, and what the timeline is for continued change.
Delicately balancing the workload of the team. It is important to have the team rise to the occasion, but ensure to balance between their bandwidth and shared team responsibilities.

What wider trends are shaping customer success hiring in 2024?

As we continue to navigate the post-pandemic landscape and the economic downturn into 2024, we see three emerging hiring trends that CS professionals, leaders, and hiring managers should consider.

Trend 1: The rise of the hybrid model

COVID-19 prompted many companies to embrace remote work models and adapt their CS strategies accordingly. Today, hybrid models are becoming more common. We see a widespread swing towards hybrid work, with a recent Mercer survey indicating that 70% of companies in the United States are utilizing or plan to implement this approach.

For leaders, this requires revisiting and adapting communication and collaboration strategies to ensure engagement and effectiveness in a distributed workforce.

Trend 2: Redefining the role of location

With the increase in hybrid models, proximity to a headquarters or office carries more weight, and considering roles in close proximity can offer advantages for those seeking their next role in CS.

Unlike before, however, proximity is no longer the sole determining factor. For example, some companies are prioritizing time zone alignment for remote interactions, balanced with immediate proximity for team meetings and client visits

Trend 3: Prioritizing expertise

Companies are looking for candidates who can hit the ground running. Deep industry knowledge, customer understanding, or experience with similar products or customers gives candidates a competitive edge. If you are a job seeker, consider prioritizing roles that leverage your expertise to stand out and secure your perfect fit.

Building your customer success skills for 2024

Whether you are a senior leader or an individual contributor, an established team member or seeking your next role, continuous learning and upskilling yourself is essential in the evolving world of customer success.

Here are some ways to continue to upskill yourself with a low budget:

Play around in AI chatbots. Not only can chatbots help you in your day-to-day work, there is also so much they can help you learn by asking questions about your space, staying on top of technology, and learning new ways to do things.
Research the latest AI tools – new ones are being added every day We can’t keep up with how many tools are being added daily. Set a Google Alert, follow all the CS platforms, tools, and leaders on LinkedIn to keep your newsfeed up to date!
Read books, blogs, articles, listen to audiobooks, podcasts, watch customer success webinars to learn about the latest topics and trends and keep up to date with the space.

As you plan your goals for 2024, we hope you’ll keep these trends and tips in mind—and know that we at Melo Associates are happy to chat about hiring, team structures, and the market. Let’s have a great year together.