Customer Success Management:

An ITIL®-Aligned Practice Guide

The first ITIL®-aligned practice guide to structure Customer Success as a complete organisational capability.

It brings comprehensive IT service management thinking into Customer Success, integrating governance, processes, people, information, technology, partners, and continual improvement into a coherent operating model, with practical methods and tools to design, govern, assess, and improve it.

Digital Edition · 268 pages · Delivered as a professionally formatted PDF via Leanpub.
Paperback · 289 pages · Available on Amazon.

Both editions include access to downloadable companion tools in Excel, Word, and PDF formats.

Why This Guide?

Your CS organization is growing, but your operating model is not keeping up. Roles overlap, responsibilities remain unclear, customer signals are interpreted inconsistently, and teams rely on individual experience rather than a shared management system. Operational issues pile up, and you do not know where to start to bring the situation under control.

This Guide provides a structured way to bring these elements together into a coherent management practice. It uses ITIL®’s widely recognized approach to describing management practices to organize accumulated Customer Success good practices into a comprehensive operating model that can be adapted to an organization’s services, customers, commercial context, and stage of development.

Who Is It For?

The Guide is written for professionals responsible for building, governing, assessing, or improving Customer Success as an organizational capability.

CS and Post-Sales Leaders

For leaders who need to establish clear direction, governance, accountability, and consistent ways of working across the Customer Success organization.

CS Operations and Revenue Operations Professionals

For those translating strategy into processes, lifecycle activities, data requirements, health models, technology, and management controls.

ITSM Practitioners and Consultants

For professionals seeking to connect service management disciplines with customer value realization, retention, and sustainable growth.

Senior Customer Success Managers

For experienced practitioners contributing to the design and continual improvement of Customer Success processes, methods, and cross-functional ways of working.

What the Guide Covers

The Guide applies the structure of an ITIL management practice to Customer Success, progressing from foundational concepts and practice design through the four dimensions to capability assessment and improvement.

Foundations

ITIL Foundations for Customer Success

Understand value, services, service quality, the ITIL Value System, the four dimensions, guiding principles, continual improvement, and how the Guide applies ITIL logic to Customer Success.

Customer Success Practice Foundations

Define the purpose and scope of the practice, its place in the service journey, the factors required for practice success, and the metrics used to evaluate outcomes and effectiveness.

The Four Dimensions of the Practice

Value Streams and Processes

Design four core processes covering practice governance, lifecycle management, customer health and renewal risk, and Voice of the Customer, and understand their contribution to service value streams.

Organizations and People

Clarify Customer Success roles, competencies, responsibilities, organizational models, team interfaces, funding considerations, and enablement requirements.

Information, Technology, and AI in CS

Address information exchange, data protection, Customer Success technology architecture, automation, and the responsible use of AI at different capability levels.

Partners and Suppliers

Identify third-party dependencies and understand how partners and suppliers affect the performance and governance of the Customer Success practice.

Assessment and Application

Capability Assessment and Development

Assess the current capability level of the practice, identify evidence and gaps, establish improvement priorities, and plan systematic capability development.

Recommendations for Practice Success

Bring the different elements together into an integrated view of what matters most, what should be addressed first, and how the practice can be strengthened over time.

Companion Tools Included

The Guide is accompanied by a practical set of downloadable tools designed to support assessment, decision-making, and implementation.

Assess the practice

Evaluate the current capability level and identify the most important development priorities.

Design and govern

Use practice maps, RACI matrices, and implementation aids to clarify activities, roles, interfaces, and accountability.

Make evidence-based decisions

Apply structured tools for Customer Health Score design, calibration, and customer-retention investment decisions.

Available in editable Excel and Word formats, with reference versions in PDF.
Access instructions are provided inside the Guide.

What This Guide Is and Is Not

This is not a collection of CSM scripts, email templates, or generic meeting tips. It does not prescribe one universal Customer Success model.

It provides the structure, management logic, and practical methods needed to design Customer Success as a coherent practice suited to your organization. The aim is not simply to improve individual activities, but to establish an operating model that can be governed, assessed, scaled, and continually improved.

Build Customer Success as a Managed Practice

Move from fragmented activities and reactive problem-solving to a coherent Customer Success operating model built around customer value and organizational outcomes.