Customer Success Management und dessen organisatorische Implementierung: eine qualitative Untersuchung

Customer Success Management (CSM) is established in practice. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies have shown that CSM can prevent customer churn and achieve cross-selling and upselling potential. The starting point was the transformation of business models from license sales to subscription models. This was accompanied by a greater focus on service and ensuring benefits for the customer. Despite its prevalence in the corporate world, CSM has only been the subject of academic research in recent years. Especially the organizational implementation into a company outside of the SaaS industry has not yet been examined. Therefore, this article is dedicated to this topic with a qualitative analysis. In this study, companies from industries other than SaaS are examined using a convenience sample. The focus is on organizations that have only recently switched to a solution or service approach and have implemented CSM accordingly. The results show that CSM can be used to improve knowledge management and as a focal point for information circulation between the customer and the supplier. Based on the evaluation of six organizational characteristics (Integration, Interdependence, Modularity, Centralization, Formalization, Specialization) among the sample companies, it could further be proven that CSM heavily relies on interaction with other functions of a company to maximize value and therefore needs to be embedded accordingly. If then, the CSM approach is advanced and supported by top management, it can also serve as a facilitator for servitization.