Home / Guides / Leading a CS team

Customer success manager job description template

By Draft First. Updated October 2026

Most CSM job descriptions read the same: "be the voice of the customer," "drive adoption," "build relationships." Strong candidates skim past them. A good one says what the job actually is, what kind of accounts they'll own, and how you'll judge their work. Copy the template below and fill in the brackets.

The template

Customer Success Manager, [segment, e.g. Mid-market]

About the role
You'll own a book of about [N] accounts worth around [ARR range] in
total. Your job is to make sure each one gets the result it bought us
for, renews, and grows where it makes sense. You'll report to [title].

What you'll do
- Run onboarding with [team] until each account reaches first value
- Check account health every week and act on risk early
- Lead [quarterly/half-yearly] business reviews with customer leaders
- [Own / support] renewals, starting 90 days out
- Spot expansion and hand it to [sales/account management] with context
- Pull support, product and engineering in when a customer needs it
- Feed customer themes back to product

What you'll need
- [N]+ years in customer success, account management or technical support
- Experience with [type of customers or product]
- Clear writing; you'll write to executives and engineers in the same day
- Comfort with [CRM, ticketing tool] and with AI assistants for drafting

How we'll measure success
- Gross revenue retention in your book
- Time to first value for new accounts
- Health score coverage and how early risks are flagged

What we offer
[Salary range], [benefits], [remote/hybrid/location]

Tips that attract better candidates

• Post the salary range. Many candidates skip listings without one, and some places require it by law.
• Say the book size and segment. 15 enterprise accounts and 200 small ones are different jobs.
• Say who owns renewals. It changes who applies.
• Cut the wish list. Long requirement lists put off good people who meet most of them.

Next steps

Use the CSM interview questions to run the interview, and give your new hire a 30-60-90 day plan. To check the book you're hiring for is a fair size, try the CSM capacity calculator.

Questions

What does a customer success manager do?

A CSM owns a group of customer accounts and makes sure they reach the results they bought for, renew and grow, pulling in other teams when needed.

What should a CSM job description include?

The book size and segment, real responsibilities, requirements, how success is measured and the salary range.

How is a CSM measured?

Common measures are gross revenue retention, time to first value and how early account risks are flagged.