Customer Success Manager

The Customer Success Leader will lead and develop a team of Customer Success Managers responsible for the success of strategic customers across software, break-fix services, managed services, and support. This role is accountable for defining and executing the customer success strategy, operating model, portfolio governance, and performance standards that drive onboarding, adoption, service outcomes, value realization, retention, and expansion. The leader will coach the team, allocate portfolios and resources, serve as the executive escalation point, and partner across Sales, Delivery, Technical Support, Technical Client Management, Product Management, Engineering, Operations, and Finance to deliver a consistent and scalable customer experience.

You will work out of our Charlotte, NC location on a hybrid work schedule.

In this role, you will impact Brady Corp by enhancing customer loyalty and driving revenue growth through proactive engagement and support. Your efforts will position Brady Corp as a trusted partner and help maintain strong, lasting customer relationships in a competitive market.

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without current or future employer-sponsored work authorization.

1. Customer Success Strategy and Organizational Leadership:
   - Define and execute the customer success strategy, operating model, annual priorities, and roadmap across software and services.
   - Translate business objectives into team goals, portfolio plans, success standards, and measurable outcomes.
   - Establish clear role definitions, decision rights, escalation paths, and accountabilities across Customer Success and partner functions.
   
   2. People Leadership and Team Development:
   - Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing team of Customer Success Managers, setting clear expectations and creating a culture of customer advocacy, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
   - Manage performance, objectives, development plans, succession readiness, recognition, and corrective action as needed.
   - Assess capacity and skills, assign customer portfolios, balance workload, support hiring and onboarding, and build capabilities across software adoption, services governance, analytics, commercial awareness, and executive communication.
   
   3. Portfolio Governance and Customer Outcomes:
   - Maintain executive oversight of the customer portfolio across onboarding, adoption, utilization, service performance, stakeholder engagement, satisfaction, value realization, renewal readiness, and expansion potential.
   - Ensure every strategic account has an accountable CSM, documented success plan, stakeholder map, health score, governance cadence, measurable outcomes, and risk mitigation plan.
   - Lead portfolio reviews, prioritize interventions, and hold CSMs and cross-functional owners accountable for customer outcomes and committed actions.
   
   4. Software Adoption and Services Excellence:
   - Set standards and playbooks that drive software activation, embedded usage, feature adoption, training, and measurable business value.
   - Ensure break-fix, managed-service, and support outcomes align with contract coverage, entitlements, service-level agreements, and customer expectations.
   - Direct coordinated recovery plans when delivery gaps, adoption barriers, or performance risks threaten customer value.
   
   5. Customer Success Operating System and Standardization:
   - Design and govern the customer success management operating system, including sales-to-delivery handoffs, onboarding, 30/60/90-day adoption plans, health scoring, risk management, operational reviews, QBRs, executive reviews, renewals, and offboarding.
   - Standardize templates, reporting, training, playbooks, workflows, and self-service resources to provide a consistent and scalable customer experience.
   - Drive disciplined CRM and customer success platform usage, data quality, action tracking, and portfolio forecasting across the team.
   
   6. Executive Customer Engagement and Escalation Leadership:
   - Build trusted relationships with executive sponsors for strategic accounts and support CSMs in high-value or high-risk engagements.
   - Serve as the executive escalation point for critical customer issues, mobilizing cross-functional leaders, establishing recovery governance, and ensuring clear communication through resolution.
   - Review root causes, corrective actions, and recurring patterns to reduce repeat incidents and improve customer confidence.
   
   7. Customer Insights, Reporting, and Value Realization:
   - Own portfolio reporting and executive communications that translate software usage, service performance, operational data, risk, and financial indicators into clear insights and decisions.
   - Ensure the team establishes customer baselines, tracks agreed business outcomes, and communicates realized value such as uptime improvement, downtime avoidance, productivity, risk reduction, and operational efficiency.
   - Analyze trends across accounts to identify systemic risks, process gaps, product opportunities, and priorities for investment.
   
   8. Retention, Renewal, and Expansion Leadership:
   - Partner with Sales and commercial leaders to establish renewal governance, forecast risk, document realized value, and execute retention plans well ahead of contract expiration.
   - Hold the team accountable for identifying qualified expansion opportunities, additional use cases, software capabilities, and services based on demonstrated customer need and value.
   - Provide leadership with accurate portfolio health, renewal, retention, and growth insights for business planning.
   
   9. Cross-Functional Leadership and Customer Advocacy:
   - Align Sales, Delivery, Technical Support, Technical Client Management, Product Management, Engineering, Operations, and Finance around customer priorities, ownership, dependencies, and commitments.
   - Represent the voice of the customer in roadmap, service, process, and investment decisions using structured feedback, usage patterns, incident trends, and business impact.
   - Resolve ownership gaps and competing priorities while protecting customer outcomes, contractual commitments, and business value.
   
   10. Continuous Improvement and Scalability:
   - Benchmark team performance, identify gaps, and lead initiatives that improve time to value, adoption, service quality, retention, team productivity, and customer satisfaction.
   - Establish repeatable coverage models, segmentation, capacity planning, and automation to scale the customer success function efficiently.
   - Sponsor change-management initiatives and ensure new processes, tools, and standards are adopted consistently by the team.

Measurable Key Performance Indicators:

Performance targets will be confirmed annually based on portfolio maturity, contractual commitments, team capacity, and available reporting baselines. Initial team and portfolio measures include:

1. Team Leadership and Performance:
- 100% of CSMs have documented annual objectives, quarterly development conversations, and current development plans.
- At least 90% of individual and team performance commitments are completed on time.
- Maintain agreed CSM portfolio capacity and ensure 100% of strategic accounts have active primary and backup coverage.

2. Customer Success Operating Discipline:
- 95% of new customers have an approved success plan, stakeholder map, accountable CSM, and governance cadence within 15 business days of handoff.
- Maintain current success plans, health scores, risk status, and next actions for 100% of strategic accounts, reviewed at least monthly.
- Achieve at least 95% team compliance with required CRM, reporting, governance, and action-tracking standards.

3. Onboarding and Time to Value:
- 90% of customers achieve contracted onboarding milestones and first measurable value within the agreed timeline, with a target of 90 days where applicable.
- At least 90% of onboarding plans are completed on time, with documented recovery plans for exceptions.

4. Software Adoption and Utilization:
- At least 85% of contracted users, sites, or devices are activated within the agreed deployment period across the portfolio.
- Achieve at least 75% monthly active use among eligible users or devices, or the product-specific adoption target defined in each success plan.
- Improve adoption of priority features or agreed use cases by at least 15 percentage points within 12 months.

5. Services Performance and Contract Assurance:
- Maintain at least 95% portfolio compliance with applicable service-level commitments.
- Complete quarterly entitlement and contract-alignment reviews for 100% of strategic accounts, with owners and corrective plans documented for identified gaps.

6. Customer Health and Risk Management:
- Keep at least 85% of the portfolio in healthy or improving status.
- Ensure 100% of red accounts have an executive-approved recovery plan within 10 business days and are reviewed at least biweekly until stabilized.
- Reduce repeat high-impact escalations and recurring root causes year over year.

7. Escalation Leadership:
- Ensure critical escalations are acknowledged within one business hour and have an owner, action plan, and communication cadence within four business hours.
- Achieve at least 90% on-time completion of committed escalation actions and documented closure with root cause and preventive action for high-impact issues.

8. Governance and Executive Engagement:
- Deliver at least 95% of scheduled operational reviews and quarterly business reviews on time across the team.
- Maintain at least 90% on-time closure of customer and internal actions from governance reviews.
- Establish active executive sponsorship and at least two documented executive engagements per year for each strategic account.

9. Customer Satisfaction and Value Realization:
- Maintain an average customer satisfaction score of at least 4.5 out of 5 where surveys are available and improve or maintain relationship sentiment year over year.
- Document baseline measures and agreed business outcomes for 100% of strategic accounts within 60 days of onboarding or assignment.
- Quantify and communicate realized value at least quarterly for 90% of strategic accounts.

10. Renewal, Retention, and Expansion:
- Complete renewal-risk assessments and value summaries for 100% of accounts at least 120 days before contract expiration.
- Support a gross renewal rate of at least 95% for the portfolio, excluding approved strategic exits.
- Ensure the team identifies at least one validated expansion or additional-use-case opportunity annually for 75% of eligible strategic accounts.

11. Training, Standardization, and Improvement:
- Achieve at least 90% completion of required CSM and customer training within agreed timeframes.
- Maintain at least 85% learner satisfaction and documented follow-up for accounts or team members below target.
- Deliver at least two measurable process, tooling, or reporting improvements annually that increase scalability, quality, or productivity.