It’s Time to End the Confusion: Split Customer Success into Product Success and Account Management

Omid Razavi

March 9, 2025

Introduction: A Call for Change

For too long, Customer Success has been a broad function, encompassing everything from onboarding (or pre-boarding in product-led growth models) to managing renewals and expansions (as in Customer for Life). This broad scope has led to confusion for customers and inefficiencies within organizations.

Customers often do not know whether their Customer Success Manager (CSM) is there to help them adopt the product or manage their commercial relationship. Internally, teams are stretched thin—when CSMs are responsible for renewals and driving adoption and engagement, they struggle to fully focus on either, leaving revenue on the table and failing to maximize customer value.

It is time to recognize that Customer Success should no longer be treated as a single function. Instead, it must be split into two distinct yet complementary roles:

Product Success—focused on customer adoption, feature engagement, and ensuring customers realize value from the product.

Account Management—responsible for renewals, expansions, and revenue growth.

Clearly defining these roles eliminates ambiguity, improves customer outcomes, and establishes accountability where it matters most. This is a call to action for companies still operating under a one-size-fits-all Customer Success model: split the function and allow each team to specialize.

In this article, I focus specifically on proactive customer engagement and do not cover Customer Support or Professional Services, as these functions have distinct roles and are not traditionally part of Customer Success.

The Problem: Conflating Two Very Different Responsibilities

The modern post-sale customer journey is too complex for a single function to manage effectively.

Product Success ensures customers adopt and succeed with the product. This requires expertise in onboarding, feature adoption, user engagement, and product-led growth strategies.

Account Management is responsible for managing revenue through renewals and expansions. This demands a relationship-driven, strategic, and commercially focused approach.

Many organizations bundle these responsibilities under the "Customer Success" umbrella, expecting CSMs to simultaneously act as product experts, business strategists, and revenue managers.

This approach is ineffective. It creates confusion for customers, who do not know whether their CSM is focused on helping them use the product or selling them more. It also leads to internal inefficiencies, as CSMs struggle to balance competing priorities.

The Solution: Defining Product Success and Account Management

By formally distinguishing Product Success and Account Management, companies can create specialized roles that:

Improve adoption

Strengthen retention

Scale expansion opportunities

1. Product Success: Driving Adoption, Engagement, and Value

Definition & Role

Product Success ensures customers realize the full value of the product by focusing on adoption, engagement, and customer enablement. This function operates within the Product Organization or the Customer Organization and serves as a bridge between customers and product teams.

Key Responsibilities

Onboarding & Activation – Help customers reach their "aha" moments quickly.

Feature Adoption – Drive engagement with core features through education and in-app guidance.

Customer Feedback & Product Iteration – Gather insights to influence product improvements.

Self-Service & Automation – Scale adoption through tech-touch strategies and AI-driven recommendations.

Where Product Success Fits in the Organization

Reports to the Head of Product or Chief Customer Officer (CCO).

Works alongside Product Managers, Designers, Services, and Support Engineers.

Measures success by adoption rates, feature usage, time-to-value, and retention.

2. Account Management: Owning Renewals, Expansions, and Commercial Growth

Definition & Role

Account Management ensures customers stay, grow, and expand their investment by focusing on renewals, expansion, and strategic account growth. Unlike Product Success, this function belongs to the Revenue Organization and aligns closely with Sales and Finance.

Key Responsibilities

Renewals & Churn Prevention – Ensure customers renew their subscriptions.

Expansion & Upsells – Identify and drive opportunities for account growth.

Executive Business Reviews (EBRs) – Build relationships and showcase business impact.

Commercial Strategy & Negotiation – Manage pricing discussions and contract renewals and terms.

Where Account Management Fits in the Organization

Reports to the Head of Revenue or Chief Customer Officer (CCO).

Works alongside Sales, Customer Growth, and Revenue Operations.

Measures success by Net Revenue Retention (NRR), expansion revenue, and renewal rates.

Real-World Example: Product Success at ServiceNow

Problem Statement

When I joined ServiceNow in 2017 to lead Product Success for Customer Service Management (also known as Customer Workflows), the company lacked a dedicated Customer Success function. Account teams handled commercial responsibilities, but product success remained a gap—especially for emerging products outside of IT buyers. Without a structured approach to driving adoption, gathering user feedback, and refining product iterations, customers struggled to realize the product’s full value, impacting retention and growth.

Solution

To address these challenges, I was tasked with building a dedicated Product Success team to work alongside Product Managers, Engineering, and Design teams. Our approach included:

Analyzing user behavior to identify adoption trends and pain points.

Gathering customer feedback through direct engagement, surveys, and support interactions.

Running the Product Advisory Council and focus groups to inform product development and ensure alignment with customer needs.

Partnering with Product Managers and Engineering leaders to refine features and accelerate adoption.

Results

The Customer Workflows product grew from $20M to $250M in under three years, driven by strong collaboration between Product Success, Product Management, and Engineering. By proactively engaging customers and aligning product releases with their needs, we accelerated time-to-value, improved adoption, and positioned the product for long-term success.

Why Make This Change Now

Separating Product Success and Account Management functions within an organization offers several compelling benefits:

1. Specialization Drives Better Results

Focused Expertise: Product Success teams can concentrate on customer adoption and product utilization without pressure to meet sales targets. This allows them to proactively address potential issues, ensuring customers derive maximum value from the product.

Targeted Revenue Strategies: Account Management teams, free from the responsibility of the ongoing customer engagements, can dedicate their efforts to renewals, upsells, and cross-sells. This clear delineation enables them to develop structured playbooks and execute strategic plans tailored to revenue growth.

2. Improved Customer Experience

Clear Points of Contact: Customers benefit from having designated contacts for specific needs—Product Success Managers for product-related guidance and Account Managers for commercial discussions. This clarity fosters trust and reduces frustration.

Authentic Interactions: With separate roles, customers can engage in discussions about product usage without the underlying tension of sales pitches, leading to more genuine and productive conversations. No More Sales Pitches Disguised as Success Check-Ins!

3. Internal Efficiency and Clearer Career Paths

Balanced Workload Distribution: By dividing responsibilities, both teams can operate without the burden of conflicting priorities, leading to increased efficiency and job satisfaction.

Defined Career Progression: Employees can pursue career advancement within their chosen specialty, whether it be in product expertise or account management, without needing to juggle disparate skill sets.

Final Thoughts: Why This Change Is Urgent

The era of lumping all post-sale activities under "Customer Success" is over. Companies should consider splitting their CS function today to improve adoption, retention, and expansion.

Product Success should sit with the Product or Customer team (if led by a CCO) to ensure better adoption, usability, and value realization.

Account Management should align with the Revenue or Customer team (if led by a CCO) to own renewals, expansion, and commercial growth.

Organizations must stop forcing Customer Success teams to be everything to everyone—a jack of all trades. Instead, they must create clearly defined roles that better serve the company and the customer.

The time to act is now.

Is your company ready to separate Product Success and Account Management? Let’s start the conversation.

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