Pivoting into Customer Success from Non-Tech Careers
Customer success is a rapidly growing industry that offers a wide range of opportunities for people from diverse backgrounds to pivot into this exciting and rewarding career path. Below we explore some common career paths of people who pivot into customer success, and the most transferrable skills that you’ll need.
Sales: Sales professionals bring valuable skills to the table, such as the ability to build and maintain relationships with clients, understand client needs, and present solutions to meet those needs. These skills are critical in customer success as building strong relationships with customers and ensuring their satisfaction with the company's products or services is a top priority.
Marketing: Individuals from the marketing industry also make great candidates for customer success roles. Marketing professionals have a keen understanding of branding, messaging, and customer engagement, which are all important components of customer success. They can use their skills to help position the company's products or services to meet the needs of the target market and engage with clients to ensure their success.
Customer service: Customer service professionals have experience in managing customer relationships, resolving customer issues, and providing support to customers. These skills can be leveraged in customer success to ensure that clients receive a high level of support and that their needs are met.
Creatives: Individuals from creative fields such as music, graphic design, film, and theater can bring valuable skills to customer success. For example, a musician can leverage their experience in building and maintaining relationships, communication skills, and the ability to understand and meet the needs of their audience to excel in a customer success role.
Top tip: You might want to also consider your experiences in the B2B (enterprise or SMB) and/or B2C spaces when thinking about your next customer success role. Understanding the nuances of sales cycles and customer needs in any of these can be a unique selling point to your experience. You may find it easier pivoting into an area that you are familiar with, especially if you will need to up-skill yourself within the CS role itself.
In conclusion, customer success offers opportunities for individuals from a wide range of careers to pivot into this exciting field. Whether you have experience in sales, marketing, customer service, or a creative field, your unique skills and experiences can be leveraged to build a successful career.
