Must Read Customer Success Books: Oct 2021
If you’ve landed on this page, you’re taking a step towards refining your library of knowledge on the history and development of the Customer Success Practice.
“Practice” because, like yoga, Customer Success is a nascent and ever evolving part of subscription businesses. New books, blogs, and podcasts are published on the topic every day. As such, every quarter this page will be updated to include the latest and greatest in Customer Success reading. The too good to miss titles in SaaS, the subscription economy, and what it takes to be an excellent CSM.
Each title has a direct tie into making your CS team more effective and the lessons in these pages will help you cultivate a customer-centric approach within your software business.
Send us an email if you have a book you think should be on this list!
The Seven Pillars of Customer Success: A Proven Framework to Drive Impactful Client Outcomes for Your Company
Why’s this in the library:
Author Wayne McCulloch has spent the last 20 years leading education, post-sales, and customer success at companies including Salesforce, Looker, Walkme, Google, and Kony. He summarizes his experience into a proven CS framework that can be adapted to your organization’s stage and maturity.
What’s the takeaway:
Leveraging a set of CS Tools and 7 common pillars, this book is a must-read for every CS leader (or aspiring leader). Wayne’s practical CS toolbox and set of pillars provides an actionable roadmap for every CS leader to execute. The book brings in industry leaders to provide their perspective on elements such as QBRs/EBRs, Digital Success, NPS/sentiment and more. The 50+ 5 star reviews on Amazon suggest this book should have a place in your CS library.
The Startup’s Guide to Customer Success
Why’s this in the library: Customer success is no longer just for companies with large teams and resources. It's a company mindset that can unlock the biggest opportunities in business. Customer success can help streamline experiences, grow product engagement and loyalty, and more importantly — retain business.
What’s the takeaway:
Filled with practical insights, this book sheds much-needed light on the world of customer success. At a time when companies sink or swim based on their ability to meet customers' needs, Chiang's elegant frameworks have focused our team to deliver when it matters most.
Why’s this in the library:
The Customer Success Economy offers examples of how companies can transform. It addresses the pains of transforming organizational charts, leadership roles, responsibilities, and strategies so the whole company works together in total service to the customer.
What’s the takeaway:
As a follow-up to the originally published book by team Gainsight, The Customer Success Economy looks beyond the founding story of Customer Success and explains the paradigm shift happening in the industry to put the customer at the center of budget, org charts, and outcomes.
What’s the takeaway:
Based on the idea that farming is easier than hunting, Nirpaz, and co-author Fernando Pizarro, explain how the sale is no longer the moment in a business relationship, from the customer’s view, but instead the relationship built afterwards.
Why’s this in the library:
Customer Success is the book on Customer Success. It was written by legends in the Customer Success community. CEO of Gainsight, Nick Mehta, is the primary author. Nick has helped define the category of Customer Success. He tells his own stories of defining a category in the space, appealing to a new breed of professionals, and helping mature not only the CS model, but how to establish a customer success strategy. Through many guest writers, you’ll hear expert advice on how the Customer Success movement began and how to implement an action plan for structuring Customer Success in your organization.
What’s the takeaway:
No book comprehensively covers the topic of Customer Success from more perspectives than the title above. Nick does a tremendous job pulling in influential personas in the CS community to share their stories on forming, developing, and scaling Customer Success teams. This must-read blends the history of Customer Success with scaling stories from industry veterans.
Why’s this in the library:
This practical, no frills guide is written for the Customer Success Manager. It’s the only book on the market that targets CSM individual contributors as the primary audience. This book appeals to managers and directors of CS as well, as some of the topics spill over into structuring of CSM incentives / portfolios.
What’s the takeaway:
Expect to hear what it’s like to be a CSM. What the day-to-day involves, what work you can expect, and why CSMs even exist. This book is meant for every aspirational CSM, the manager of Customer Success, and even senior CS leaders. Taking lessons from the Chief Customer Officer from Gainsight himself, he articulates the ins and outs of a CSMs day-to-day.
Why’s this in the library:
Reductionist hierarchical management techniques no longer work because organizations are too large for any one person to make all the decisions. The military uses a new management style where your team operates as a network with a shared consciousness and every member is empowered to execute.
What’s the takeaway:
Data and collaboration are everything in the information economy and SaaS businesses. Team of teams uses military examples of the most artful ways to collaborate with a new superpower (always-on data).
Why’s this in the Customer Success library:
Brené Brown walks us through twelve years of research on vulnerability, leading us to the principles of wholehearted living and the power to dare greatly in our lives and work – the secret is in our vulnerability. Dr. Brown outlines the common masks that we use to hide our vulnerabilities and provides practical tools for removing the barriers and engaging with others to live wholehearted, connected lives.
What’s the takeaway:
Building trust is a key emphasis of Customer Success. Building trust means showing up with vulnerability when working with your internal business partners, and even more importantly, your customers. This book is sure to spark ideas of how you can bring more of your vulnerable-self to work everyday to build trust with those around you.
Why’s this in the Customer Success library:
Questions are an important discovery tool. In our dynamic world, the ability to ask the right questions has become increasingly important. This book explains why it’s crucial to question all aspects of our work and personal lives, and how to use inquiry to uncover creative solutions and breakthroughs. Asking more questions of your business partners internally, and your customers externally, can show how you truly listen.
What’s the takeaway:
In Customer Success the power of inquiry can build trust with customers, showing how you’ve actively listened to their situation, hardships, complications, and priorities. Building the muscle of asking more questions demonstrates your insatiable ability to truly care about a persons situation. It’s a precursor to developing empathy.
Why’s this in the Customer Success library:
Marc Benioff is often regarded as the father of software as a service (SaaS) and cloud computing. His company, Salesforce, is simply the biggest success case of setting up a company that has made $ 1 billion in revenue in just 10 years. Behind the Cloud reveals how Benioff took a new idea, a powerful concept from paper, and differentiated himself from his competitors by creating a whole new movement where users no longer need to install software, and where the user maintained control of the vendor relationship — thus sparking the concept of Customer Succes.
What’s the takeaway:
Marc’s book describes the history of Salesforce, SaaS, and Customer Success. If you’re in the CS profession, it’s thanks to Marc and his shift in thinking about the user more than the perpetual contract. This book captures the start of the customer success industry at a pivotal Bay Area meeting dating back to the early 2000s. It’s a must read on the history of CS.
