Three client success managers run 600 to 800 active clients at Acquisition Ace. Each carries 200 to 270 clients.
The point of a client success manager is to help people get further without expensive coaches doing work that does not need a coach. A coach belongs on the calls only a coach can do. Everything else is the CSM's day, and it runs in a fixed order.
What does the morning look like?
Chat first. An offer with client success managers should have chat support, on WhatsApp or Telegram. The first job is to read every chat and get back to people. Then the support inbox, which is about one email a day and needs no extra hire.
Then prep for every call that day. Then the client board in Monday.com, to pick the five clients who are the priority today: overdue, close to a milestone, or gone quiet. Five names. A CSM who starts the day with 250 open rows and no shortlist spends it reacting.
Some offers put the CSM on the live calls too, so the prep includes the agenda and the clients who said they would be there. That depends on the offer. What never moves is the order: chat, inbox, prep, board.
Who gets contacted first?
New clients. Most offers' onboarding is bad, new clients get little attention early, and that builds a rocky relationship with the program. So the CSM hand-holds early. Check-ins up to three times a week in the first 30 days, voice messages, and a log of how far each new client is.
After 30 days, less often. Then the overdue clients. Every client is either on track or overdue, based on the time set for each milestone. Overdue means a same-day check-in by DM or voice message: find out what is going on, help, and get them to the next milestone.
Note. A full-time client success manager handles up to 200 to 300 clients. At 300 they are busy. What moves the number is how many one-to-one calls and how much chat support the offer includes, and how much of the rest is automated.
How does the rest of the day run?
Chat comes in waves: morning, lunch and evening, when most clients are off work and active. Afternoon and evening are for calls. Between waves the CSM checks the Skool community and clears the tasks on their board.
Every meeting has a meeting note the CSM fills in beforehand: the client, where they are, what is blocked, the next milestone. Nobody shows up to find out what the call is about. The founder gets Loom updates and can open the live numbers in Monday.com any time, so the day is not spent reporting.
I hate random calls. Every meeting in an offer I run has a note filled in before it starts. The point of a CSM is to help people get further without an expensive coach doing work that does not need a coach. A CSM team can cost under $20K and generate far more than that, because more results means more people upgrade. No brainer.
What do client success managers do that they should not?
Three things. The first two are the two sins, and the third is a training gap.
- Send long messages. Write like a friend, professional, never send books. Everyone hates it.
- Make things complicated. Make it simple, send the link, make it as easy as possible.
- Not fully understand the offer and the client's path through it. Regular trainings fix that one.
A client who gets a wall of text at 9pm does not read it. A client who gets three steps and a link does the steps. The third failure shows up as CSMs answering questions the video training already answers, and regular training on the offer fixes it.
Result from a named client with written permission. Typical clients of this cohort saw a range of outcomes; nothing here is a guarantee. How we handle claims.
Further reading: Client success manager job description · How to train a client success manager in 30 days
