How much of a customer's success can a vendor truly own?

How much of a customer’s success can a vendor truly own? Modern Customer Success features data-driven health scores, adoption scores, risk scores, etc. We have sophisticated platforms that monitor a multitude of signals and automatically trigger actions when something moves in the wrong direction. But many companies still utilize playbooks that are almost entirely centered around actions the CSM should take. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬, 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵.

We’ve built playbooks that are operationally excellent at telling our teams what to do but are almost silent on what the customer needs to do. ChurnZero’s 2025 Customer Success Leadership Study found that companies who incorporate customer enablement into their CS workflows report an average NRR of 99% compared to 94% for those that don’t. Said differently, companies that focus on prescriptive actions customers can take to improve their platform performance see measurable improvements in retention and expansion.

The key is not to simply “do enablement”, but rather to focus the enablement on customer behaviors that accelerate the attainment of value. It’s one thing to show customers the correct sequence of buttons they need to click. You’ve leveled up when you’re able to show the customer 2 - 3 specific actions they can take or behaviors they should change that will directly improve the specific outcomes they are trying to achieve with your platform.

When all the action items in a playbook belong to the CSM, we’re implicitly taking on accountability for outcomes we can only influence. And we’re leaving our customers without the structured guidance, ownership, and accountability that actually drives improved outcomes on their side. The CS teams pulling ahead right now are running playbooks where the customer has an active role and is not just in the audience.

Incorporating joint success accountability isn’t complicated. It starts with auditing your playbooks and asking a simple question: ”𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘵?”