Misaligned organizations are drowning Customer Success Managers in busywork. The answer is to adopt CS Best Practices through a strategic framework that is customer-centric and drives real results.

The $2M Problem Hidden in Plain Sight

While one company’s Customer Success Manager spent their week chasing invoices and creating marketing materials, their competitor’s CSM was in an innovation lab with a customer and uncovered the next $2 million expansion opportunity. That second CSM was me.

A recent LinkedIn post by Arun Anderson highlighted the weekly schedule of a CSM that shows exactly what’s broken in Customer Success today. Instead of focusing on customer outcomes, this CSM was buried in administrative tasks: collecting invoices for Finance, debating contracts with Legal, fulfilling Marketing requests, and prepping decks for executives.

The impact was predictable: health scores declined, renewals slipped, churn persisted. Customers were left saying, “We never learned the product,” and “We couldn’t get maximum value.”

Another post by LeeRon Yahalomi captured the same reality: “I used to say my CS job description was 40% customer calls, 40% admin chaos…” LeeRon went on to discuss how AI agents could handle the grunt work. But here’s the real issue: that “grunt work” should never have been part of the CSM role in the first place.

This is the identity crisis facing Customer Success. Too many organizations treat CSMs as internal service desks, executive assistants, or worse, as unpaid interns, rather than the strategic partners they are meant to be. To fix it, organizations need far more than a quick checklist. But at the center of the problem are three areas to focus on:

1. building a customer-centric weekly schedule
2. creating a team structure with clear role boundaries, and
3. keeping relentless focus on customer outcomes.

Implementing these best practices can initiate the transformation from a cost center to a growth driver.

A CSM’s Weekly Distractions

Most CSMs have calendars packed with tasks that have little to do with customer success. Instead of guiding adoption or uncovering growth opportunities, their days are filled with chasing overdue invoices, sitting in contract debates, or building decks for executives. These activities may keep the organization running, but they take time away from the CSM’s interactions with customers. The problem is not a lack of effort, but a complete misallocation of priorities. A CSM’s week should reflect customer value, yet too often it mirrors an internal service desk workload designed to prop up other departments.

CS Best Practice: The Customer-Centric Weekly Schedule

The most successful Customer Success organizations follow one core principle: everything revolves around improving the customer experience. Here’s what a truly customer-focused CSM schedule looks like:

Monday: Foundation & Strategy

• Morning: Team syncs, account planning, opportunities, pipeline review, announcements, and identifying what the team needs help with
• Afternoon: Strategic planning calls with key accounts
• Focus: Understanding where customers stand and what they need to succeed

Tuesday: Growth & Alignment

• Morning: Pre-sales support or strategic planning calls
• Afternoon: Voice of customer sessions, product roadmap input, internal alignment meetings
• Focus: Building relationships and driving internal customer advocacy.

Wednesday: Value Delivery

• Morning: Pre-sales support or strategic planning calls
• Afternoon: Customer journey optimization, success story development, follow-up calls
• Focus: Listening to customers and driving measurable value

Thursday: Innovation & Expansion

• Morning: Pre-sales support or strategic planning calls
• Afternoon: Customer innovation labs, Customer Advisory Board participation, opportunity discovery calls
• Focus: Experimentation, innovation, and uncovering growth opportunities

Friday: Optimization & Preparation

• Morning: Pre-sales support or strategic planning calls
• Afternoon: Customer feedback loops, support escalation resolution, team sync for next week
• Focus: Maintaining customer-centricity and setting up future success.

Notice the pattern: every single day focuses on customer-centric activities. Even product roadmap input and marketing initiatives serve to drive customer journeys and product adoption. It’s about alignment between what customers need and what your company can deliver.

The Team Structure Problem

When team structures lack clear boundaries, the CSM role quickly becomes a dumping ground for everything that doesn’t clearly belong to Sales, Marketing, or Support. One day they’re asked to review contracts, the next to troubleshoot technical issues, and the day after to run invoices between departments. This structural gap creates a role defined more by what others don’t want to do than by what customers actually need. Without a strong framework, CSMs are stretched across competing priorities, unable to deliver tangible outcomes. The result is a role without identity, leaving customers underserved and organizations missing growth opportunities.

CS Best Practice: The Partnership Model

To resolve the identity crisis caused by poorly defined roles, it is essential to establish clear team structures and align responsibilities within a shared partnership framework. Teamwork is crucial for Customer Success, but without boundaries, partnership collapses into chaos. The most effective organizations operate with a three-legged partnership model:

Account Executive (AE)

• Owns: Sales, finance, legal, contracts
• Focus: The business mechanics of the relationship

Sales Engineer (SE)

• Owns: Technical implementation, demos, architecture, development
• Focus: Technical delivery and product functionality

Customer Success Manager (CSM)

• Owns: Strategy, art of the possible, voice of customer, time to value, strategic alignment
• Focus: The strategic orchestration of customer outcomes

This structure prevents overlap, builds accountability, and allows each role to operate at its highest value. When CSMs are forced to take on everything, they become generalists who never deliver excellence. With the partnership model, they are free to focus on what matters most.

Business-Centric Focus

At its core, Customer Success should revolve around customer outcomes. Yet in many organizations, CSMs spend more time in internal meetings than in customer conversations. They are pulled into report-building, status updates, and escalation calls that keep the company busy but leave customers waiting. Frustration builds as customers lack guidance, face delays, and struggle to achieve value. This business-centric mindset suggests that internal processes take precedence over customer outcomes. Over time, trust erodes, health scores decline, and renewals slip away.

Red Flags to Watch For

• CSMs are regularly chasing invoices for Finance.
• Weekly legal consultations assigned to CSMs
• Quarterly Business Reviews or looking backwards
• CSMs are spending more time on internal projects than on customer conversations.
• Completing decks for leadership

CS Best Practices: The Customer-First Mindset

The strongest Customer Success teams operate with a relentless focus on customer outcomes. Their calendars, priorities, and metrics all align with helping customers realize value and outcomes. They create space for innovation, advocacy, and partnership, and ensure customers remain the center of every decision. Organizations that embody this mindset transform CS from a reactive support function into a proactive growth engine.

Green Flags of a Customer-First Mindset

• Customer Advisory Boards and innovation labs are standard practice.
• CSMs dedicate time each week to strategic planning calls with key accounts.
• Partnership models define clear role boundaries across Sales, SEs, and CS.
• Voice of the customer feedback directly informs the product roadmap.
• Customer teams own growth targets and show measurable impact.

The Implementation Roadmap

Customer Success Leaders

• Audit current activities: Have CSMs track their time for two weeks. What percentage is customer-facing vs. internal busywork?
• Establish role boundaries: Define clear partnership agreements with Sales, Product, and Marketing teams.
• Implement the customer-centric framework: Restructure weekly schedules to focus on a five-day customer-centric model.
• Measure what matters: Focus on metrics that prove customer impact such as retention cost, innovation realization, and effort score.

Individual CSMs

• Ask the audit question: “Would a customer directly benefit from what I’m doing right now?”
• Redirect non-customer activities: When asked to handle Finance, Legal, or Marketing tasks, propose alternatives that keep you focused on customer outcomes.
• Become a strategic partner: Position yourself as the voice of the customer in internal discussions.

Organizations

• Build the three-legged partnership model: Ensure AE, SE, and CSM roles have clear boundaries with shared accountability.
• Create customer feedback loops: Gather timely insights that influence business decisions.
• Invest in customer-centric tools and processes: Support strategic customer management and value realization.

The Bottom Line

The identity crisis in Customer Success is clear. Poorly structured schedules, unclear team roles, and a business-first mindset can drain CSMs of their ability to deliver customer outcomes. The fix is straightforward but requires a firm commitment to CS Best Practices: customer-centric schedules, partnership-driven team structures, and a relentless focus on outcomes.

Organizations that embrace this shift transform Customer Success from a cost center into a growth engine. They retain more customers, uncover expansion opportunities, and build advocacy at scale. Those that don’t will keep wondering why churn persists, despite having “talented CSMs.”

True Customer Success is about building partnerships, driving outcomes, and keeping customers at the center of everything. Companies that embrace this distinction will lead their markets. Those who ignore it will be left behind.

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Chris Hood is an AI strategist and author of the #1 Amazon Best Seller “Infailible” and “Customer Transformation,” and has been recognized as one of the Top 40 Global Gurus for Customer Experience.