2014 Customer Success Salary Survey Report By Totango

2014 CUSTOMER SUCCESS SALARY SURVEY REPORT

PRESENTS

Formerly the State of the Profession: Customer Success report

2014 Customer Success Salary Survey 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS


•  Introduction 3 •  Compensation Structure Trends 6 •  Customer Success Annual Compensation Distribution 2014 7 •  Customer Success Annual Compensation Distribution Comparison 8 •  Median Compensation Range By Title 9 •  Average Compensation By Title In 2014 10 •  Average Compensation By Title (2013 And 2014 Comparison) 11 •  Participant Breakdown (By Title And Background) 12 •  Participant Breakdown (By Vertical) 13 •  How Long Has Your Company Had Customer Success? 14 •  Which Division Do These Respondents Report To? 16 •  The Goals Of The Customer Success Team 17 •  Where Are They Performing The Best? 18 •  Where Are They Facing Challenges? 19 •  What Tools Are They Using? 20 •  Customer Success Successes 21 •  What Is Your Customer Success Strategy? 22

INTRODUCTION

This installment of the Customer Success Salary Survey will bring in highlights of this year’s findings compared to those of last year’s first ever report. We received 206% more responses than we did last year – which could attest to the fast growth of the Customer Success field. Our participants this year came from a very wide variety of verticals, which will be broken down in a later slide. Most importantly, the purpose of this report is to analyze Customer Success compensation trends in the past year at various levels and also to take a deeper look into their goals, challenges, and successes. Let’s take a look!


CUSTOMER SUCCESS SALARY SURVEY RESULTS 3


COMPENSATION STRUCTURE TRENDS

54%

28%

Base Salary Only Receive bonus in addition to base salary

Receive commission in addition to base salary

From the participants, 20% received only base salary without further incentives. While the rest received a combination of base salary and further compensation. More than half (54%) of those who got additional compensation received a bonus for things like MBOs (e.g. training, team/company performance, quarterly objectives, implementations, case studies conducted, etc.); while 28% of them received additional commission on things like % of yearly renewals, % of churn goals attained, and % of upsells.


20%

$0-50K 6% $50K-75K

13%

$75K-100K 29%

$100K-125K 16%

$125K-150K 11%

$150K-175K 8%

$175K+ 17%

CUSTOMER SUCCESS ANNUAL COMPENSATION DISTRIBUTION - 2014

In order of prevalence:

1. $75K-$100K (29%) 5. $125K-$150K (11%) 2. $175K+ (17%) 6. $150K-$175K (8%) 3. $100K-$125K (16%) 7. $0-$50K (6%) 4. $50K-$75K (13%)

Here is this year’s annual compensation distribution for Customer Success professionals:


$0-50K 6%

$50K-75K 13%

$75K-100K 29%

$100K-125K 16%

$125K-150K 11%

$150K-175K 8%

$175K+ 17%

2014

$0-50K 10%

$50K-75K 14%

$75K-100K 22%

$100K-125K 24%

$125K-150K 17%

$150K-175K 4%

$175K+ 9%

2013

CUSTOMER SUCCESS ANNUAL COMPENSATION DISTRIBUTION COMPARISON


In general, there is an increase in compensation in the higher ranges.

MEDIAN COMPENSATION RANGE BY TITLE

C-Level and VP $175,000+

Director $125,001-150,000

Manager* $75,001-100,000 *Includes Customer Success Managers


$94,864

$135,062

$159,168

Customer Success Manager

Director of Customer Success

VP of Customer Success

AVERAGE COMPENSATION BY TITLE IN 2014


AVERAGE COMPENSATION BY TITLE (2013 AND 2014 COMPARISON)

$94,864

$135,062

$159,168

$90,750

$130,769

$181,250

Customer Success Manager

Director of Customer Success

VP of Customer Success

2013

2014


MEET OUR SURVEY PARTICIPANTS


C-Level 2%

VP 11%

Director 29% Manager

50%

Other 8%

By Title

*Includes Customer Success, Customer RelaGons **Includes Nonprofit, Engineering, ConsulGng, Project Management

On average they had about 3 years and 9 months experience in the burgeoning field of Customer Success. Some were even certified in areas such as Google Analytics, Salesforce, project management, 6 Sigma, marketing automation, and other technical aspects.

PARTICIPANT BREAKDOWN

19%

19%

17% 5%

4%

1%

35%

By Background Account Management (19%)

Support/Services (19%)

Sales (17%)

Customer Facing* (5%)

Marketing (4%)

Finance (1%)

Other** (35%)


26%

18%

11% 6% 6%

33%

Collaboration/Management (26%)

Customer/CRM (18%)

Marketing (11%)

Analytics (6%)

Accounting/Finance (6%)

Other (33%)

Collaboration/Management Customer/CRM Marketing

Other Accounting/Finance Analytics

•  IT/Application Management •  Human Resource

Management •  Content Management •  Project Management •  Business Process

Management

•  Call Center •  Community Site Services •  Salesforce Automation •  Help Desk Management •  Customer Relationship

Management (CRM)

•  Business Intelligence •  Web Analytics

•  Accounting/Financial •  Expense Management •  Portfolio Management •  Compliance and Risk

Management

•  Product Lifecycle Management

•  Marketing

•  eCommerce •  Web Development •  Productivity •  Manufacturing Solutions •  Procurement •  Other

PARTICIPANT BREAKDOWN BY VERTICAL


HOW LONG HAS YOUR COMPANY HAD CUSTOMER SUCCESS?

2%

22%

37%

38%

1%

0 months, getting started

< 1 year

1 to 3 years

3 or more years

Not sure

Although the percentages haven’t changed much compared to last year, there has still been a slight increase in the categories that show more than one year of having had Customer Success. On average there are about 25 people on these Customer Success teams based on data from our participants. In the mix are larger and smaller companies which typically do range in size. The largest team size reported has more than 500 members and the smallest with just one.

Hey, what’s up?


STATE OF THE PROFESSION: CUSTOMER SUCCESS 3


WHICH DIVISION DO THESE RESPONDENTS REPORT TO?

Customer Success

CEO Sales

Other COO/Operations

Chief Customer Officer e.g. Marketing, Revenue,

Product, Professional Services


The survey participants were asked to identify what the goals of their Customer Success team were from, and top results were as follows :

Churn Reduction – 79% Renewals – 76% Upsells – 64% Impact Product Development – 56% Other – 33%

THE GOALS OF THE CUSTOMER SUCCESS TEAM

Goals that showed up In the “Other” category included: •  Customer Service/Support •  Team Training •  Onboarding/Customer Activation •  Adoption •  Customer Advocacy/Loyalty Growth


WHERE ARE THEY PERFORMING THE BEST? Over half (56%) of all participants felt they were excelling at churn reduction, and 50% felt they were doing a good job at renewals. With their job revolving around the needs and uses of their customers, 40% felt they were successful at impacting product development, and 31% found they were performing well with upsells. Of course, Customer Success professionals focus on a lot more than these four overarching goals. 20% of the participants felt they were achieving other goals optimally as well. Such things included getting references, increasing product adoption, providing support, and improving customer satisfaction.

Top Performers 1. Churn Reduction – 56% 2. Renewals – 50% 3. Impacting Product Development – 40% 4. Upsells – 31% 5. Other – 20%


Of course there is always a learning curve as a company builds out their Customer Success team and processes. Not surprisingly, 56% felt scaling or transitioning the team/processes was the biggest challenge they faced. Other areas where Customer Success professionals are facing challenges are: Defining the Customer Journey – 40% Defining the goals and/or Customer Success role – 37% Onboarding processes – 35% Customer Visibility – 27% Other –17% With “Other” consisting of challenges like: -  product issues -  integration with other teams -  buy-in from upper management -  measuring the impact of their work on the company’s revenue -  customer-requested features not on product roadmap

WHERE ARE THEY FACING CHALLENGES?


16%

32%

43%

45%

73%

84%

Other

Customer Engagement Management

Email Automation

Helpdesk

Web Meeting

CRM

WHAT TOOLS ARE THEY USING?

Here are some of the “Other” top tools they’re using daily in Customer Success: analytics, customer communities, spreadsheets, and in-house project management tools.


CUSTOMER SUCCESS SUCCESSES

Achievements and proud moments from our participants: ²  A successful first user’s group conference where clients were blown away by the

personalized service their Customer Success team provided

²  Starting the Customer Success team from scratch, making it operational and scalable

²  Turning an unhappy/lost customer into a renewal

²  Transforming an Account Management team into a Customer Success team

²  Being able to develop product lineup with customer needs

²  Recognition by executive staff of the critical role of Customer Success

²  Attaining Trusted Advisor status ²  Finding a work-around for a customer that the technical team hadn’t thought of

²  Customers complimenting CEO on their Customer Success team


Despite the challenges, our participants have won many victories, both internally and externally.

Totango is the leader in customer success management for SaaS and online subscription businesses. We help companies take a data-driven approach to reducing churn and driving customer acquisition, onboarding, renewals and upsells. Totango monitors customer behavior in applications, along with data from CRM, billing and other systems, to generate insights on customer health and engagement. The solution combines big-data analytics with powerful segmentation and predictive tools to understand which customer needs attention and why. Find more Customer Success resources at www.totango.com/resources.


WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER SUCCESS STRATEGY?

2014 Customer Success Salary Survey Report By Totango

Leadership & Management

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