CSM customer allocation strategy


One of our podcast listeners asked, "As a new head of CS, what should I consider when allocating customers to my CSMs?"

There is A LOT to unpack in that very simple question.

So in this week's episode of Impact Weekly, Johan and I dive deep into customer allocation, specifically talking about:

  • The need for CSMs to feel ownership of their customers
  • The role of capacity planning in preventing CSM burnout
  • The importance of segmenting customers based on their Appropriate Experience (AX)
  • And much more (seriously)

Listen to the podcast episode here.

I also just published a post called AX-Based Coverage Segments: Customer Success Evolved that goes into even more detail on the ideas presented in this episode.

~Lincoln

BTW: Our Annual Customer Success survey is still open and I really need your expertise and experience to answer questions like:

  • How fulfilled do you feel in your role in Customer Success?
  • Do you think the leadership of your company practices what they preach when it comes to Customer Success?
  • Do you/your team have the necessary capacity to make your customers successful?
  • How much do you use GenAI (like ChatGPT) in your day-to-day job in Customer Success today?

So we put together this survey on Typeform to help fill in those - and other - gaps in the collective understanding of the CS community.

While the information we're collecting is super-important - and of course we'll share it with you and the community when we're done collecting it - the survey itself will only take a few minutes to complete.

Please share your experience with the community here.

Thanks in advance!


...

Lincoln Murphy

I help SaaS companies Maximize LTV through Customer-centric Upselling

Read more from Lincoln Murphy

Our next Customer Onboarding training starts tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Learn more about the program and sign-up here. Onboarding is arguably the most important customer lifecycle stage. In this program you'll learn how to get your new customers to do the things they need to do to get this still-fragile relationship off to a strong start, setting everyone up for long-term success (the customer... and your CS team). Specifically, we'll cover: Lifecycle stage metrics Handover management...

Our next Customer Onboarding training starts on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. Learn more about the program and sign-up here. Onboarding is arguably the most important customer lifecycle stage. In this program you'll learn how to get your new customers to do the things they need to do to get this still-fragile relationship off to a strong start, setting everyone up for long-term success (the customer... and your CS team). Specifically, we'll cover: Lifecycle stage metrics Handover management Time...

TL;DR: We're running "Save Customers Now!" workshops again—PLG on April 15 and Enterprise on April 17. Stop churn immediately in Q2. I just got this email from a CS leader: "Lincoln, I'm freaking out. With everything going on—economic uncertainty, customers tightening budgets, chaos everywhere—churn is gonna hit us HARD in Q2. Are you doing another 'Save Customers' workshop soon? Fingers crossed." Bad news: I've heard similar messages from several CS leaders already. Good news: "Save...