To cultivate long-term customers who are both satisfied with your product or service and also understand how to get the most value from it, a freelance customer success manager (CSM) can be a linchpin.
Customer success falls under the umbrella of customer service, and takes a proactive approach to outreach. A customer success manager is a mentor and relationship builder; their goal is to nurture happy and loyal customers. In contrast, a customer service professional is a reactive problem solver—an essential point of contact for incoming questions, resolving issues as effectively and efficiently as possible when they come up.
Learn more about the impact a freelance CSM can have on your business and how to find one who can help boost your customer relationships.
Writing a freelance customer success manager job post
Let’s explore how to post a job on Upwork in order to find the freelance customer success manager who meets your needs. First, create a job post that describes what you want to accomplish and why, and also sets expectations for your project.
If you aren’t sure about the details, don’t hesitate to turn to a professional—after all, that’s often why businesses turn to freelance experts in the first place.
Job post title
The goal of a job post title is to grab the attention of CSM professionals who can help you reach your goals. Highlight details such as relevant keywords, important deliverables, or other distinguishing pieces of information.
Job post title examples:
- Customer success consultant to develop retention and loyalty programs
- Freelance customer success manager for SaaS onboarding project
- Customer success strategist to support market expansion—6-month project
- CRM optimization expert for customer success project
Project description
In the job description for your project, clarity and detail can help potential freelance professionals better understand what you’re looking for and decide whether they might be a good fit. Explain the scope of work by including:
- Overall objectives. What does success look like? For example, your project may aim to improve customer satisfaction scores or reduce churn.
- Required deliverables. Specify any deliverables you expect to be developed as part of the project, such as a new onboarding program or a series of customer workshops.
- Project specifications. Explain the project duration or timeline, critical milestones, essential skills or experience you’re looking for, as well as other requirements that will shape your project.
Provide clear directions for proposals you receive, such as requests to answer screening questions or to link to portfolio examples that can help facilitate the selection process.
Common CSM responsibilities
A CSM is a proactive and customer-centric role. While project requirements will vary, there are a number of overarching responsibilities that can inform your search for a customer success professional. For example, a CSM should:
- Be proactive. CSMs actively work with customers to create tailored success plans and provide solutions before challenges arise.
- Build relationships. Becoming a strategic partner means understanding your customer’s business goals and how your product or service can contribute to their success—both in the moment and as their business continues to evolve.
- Encourage growth. A CSM’s role isn’t just to understand how your product or service works. They should also look for opportunities to upsell or cross-sell to customers in a way that encourages them to expand their use to get even more value.
- Serve as the voice of the customer. As a direct connection between the customer and the company, customer success professionals are important customer advocates. They should be able to collaborate with various internal teams and help represent the customer’s needs and interests.
CSM skills and qualifications
A freelance customer success manager contributes a blend of qualifications and skills to help your business effectively manage client relationships, customer satisfaction, and retention. These may include:
- Effective communication skills. Being a good communicator means being able to tailor tactics to connect with each distinct group of customers or stakeholders.
- Previous industry experience. Industry-specific knowledge can be a shortcut to understanding both customer needs and how your solution fits.
- Active listening skills. Being a strategic partner for clients and advocating on their behalf require deep knowledge of a customer’s goals, challenges, and interests.
- Technical proficiency. A degree of technical expertise can help a CSM get up-to-speed on both your product or service and the customer relationship management (CRM) tools you already have.
- Data analysis. The ability to gather and interpret customer data can provide meaningful insights to inform business strategies and decisions.
What you should know before you hire a customer success manager
Staying on top of trends in the field of customer success can help you adjust your talent strategy and build a bench of talent with skills that can help your business stay resilient and competitive.
The role of a customer success manager
Customer success managers have a multifaceted role that combines interpersonal, technical, and strategic skills to keep customers satisfied while also growing your business. While achieving these objectives can take a wide range of activities, CSMs take a proactive approach to:
- Get customers up and running. Customer success professionals provide hands-on assistance to onboard new users and support them through a successful implementation.
- Be a strategic partner. By tapping into their own insights and experience, CSMs help customers become avid users of your product or service and maximize their return on investment (ROI).
- Build a link between customers and the company. As someone hyper focused on customer experience, a customer success professional can provide valuable perspective to sales, marketing, product, and other internal teams.
Hiring demand for customer success managers
According to the TSIA (Technology & Services Industry Association), 76% of all tech companies have a dedicated customer success function—but other sectors are also learning to leverage their expertise. Customer success is rooted in customer frustration and the inevitable churn it can cause. By helping customers extract the value they expect from the tools they invest in, companies can use customer success programs to hold onto customers for the long term.
CSM intersects as much with customer support as with the sales organization. So it isn’t too surprising that McKinsey&Company described customer success as “the new growth engine,” citing the tremendous opportunity to increase revenue: “Existing customers account for between a third to half of total revenue growth, even at start-ups. Costs for revenue expansion from existing customers are also a fraction of those for acquiring new business.”
Common projects for freelance customer success professionals
As independent contractors, freelance CSMs work autonomously on projects that can deliver a meaningful impact for their clients. Here are a few examples:
- Customer onboarding. Engage a CSM to develop an onboarding program for new users of a particular product or service. This might include the creation of onboarding materials, hosting initial training sessions, or establishing feedback mechanisms to help measure impact after the onboarding process.
- Customer retention strategy. A CSM can analyze your current engagement and retention metrics, then use that information to develop a comprehensive retention strategy that’s tailored to a specific buyer persona. This might include a detailed retention plan, targeted communication templates, loyalty programs, personalized offers, or even a pilot project.
- Customer feedback and resolution. With help from a CSM, you can establish a structured system to collect, analyze, and respond to customer feedback and overall sentiment. This project might include choosing and setting up feedback collection tools, automating a monthly report of data trends, or making recommendations for improvement.
- CRM system. Bring in a CSM to audit and optimize your existing CRM system so you can more effectively track and manage customer interactions. This might include analyzing your current system, recommending alternate tools, implementing new features, or internal training on optimized processes.
Industries look for freelance customer success professionals
A customer success manager is a newer customer service role that’s particularly popular among technology and subscription-based companies. Customer success expertise is vital in industries that are moving away from one-time transactions toward more relationship-focused models that depend on customer satisfaction, usage, and loyalty.
Industries where CSM’s are most in demand include:
- Technology and software. Companies that offer complex products use customer success management to help drive adoption and customer lifetime value (CLV). This can be a particularly effective approach for Software as a Service (SaaS), cloud services, and scalable enterprise solutions.
- Education and e-learning. With the rise of online learning among consumer and business groups, companies such as education platforms and corporate training providers work with customer success professionals to help their users navigate platforms, maximize learning outcomes, and create engagement within online communities.
- Real estate. For companies that provide services such as property management software and real estate investment platforms, customer success is key to helping users understand how to use the tools effectively.
- Financial services. Financial products from banks, insurance companies, investment firms and fintech companies can be intricate and highly personalized. Customer success can play a critical role in educating customers on product benefits and ensuring compliance with relevant regulations.
The average cost of hiring a freelance customer success manager
Rates for freelance customer success managers can vary depending on a number of factors including their location, years of experience, level of expertise, a project’s scope of work, and the project timeline.
Here’s a look at typical hourly rates:
- Entry-level: $6-10
- Intermediate: $7-15
- Expert: $13-25
Find your ideal customer success manager now
Customer success is an important part of a company’s growth strategy. Understanding what a freelance CSM can contribute can help you identify the types of projects that will have the greatest impact on your company.
Whether you’re starting a new customer success program or are committed to improving retention rates, the world-class professionals on Upwork can ensure you get high-quality, personalized work. Grow your business with a top-rated customer success manager today.