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Customer success is an ever-evolving domain. Regardless of your level of expertise, staying updated on the latest concepts and ideas is very important. Whether you are a novice or a seasoned professional, delving into customer success literature can effectively achieve this goal, ensuring you access information from reputable sources and esteemed experts.
The Internet provides an abundance of resources for researching, accessing news, references, and books related to customer success. With just a simple search, type, and click, you can unlock a plethora of results ready for exploration, almost like magic. Numerous customer success books get published every year, but discerning which ones are truly worth reading can be a challenge.
In this blog, I am listing down the top 10 essential customer success books that you should consider reading. So, Let’s delve right into it!
List of the Top 10 Customer Success Books
Here is a list of the top 10 books on different customer success strategies, examples, and best practices. These books offer valuable insights and practical tips to help businesses and professionals excel in delivering exceptional customer experiences and driving long-term success.
1. Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman, and Lincoln Murphy
Ever pondered the experience of having three industry heavyweights collaborate on a book? Your search ends here. Gainsight’s executives, Nick Mehta and Dan Steinman joined in partnership with customer success evangelist, Lincoln Murphy, to create a compelling guide that unveils the mysteries of customer success.
This book explores the shift in customer-business relations before and after the advent of cloud-based software. It emphasizes the move from solely focusing on sales and marketing to prioritizing customer success. Mehta, Steinman, and Murphy provide valuable insights for Customer Success Managers and leaders to create effective strategies that prioritize customers and protect recurring revenue. The book offers you practical advice for achieving success in this specific field.
Where to Buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.6/5
2. Farm Don’t Hunt: The Definitive Guide to Customer Success by Guy Nirpaz
The CEO of Totango, Guy Nirpaz, a prominent figure in the customer success community, has written this book to share his expertise. He emphasizes the importance of nurturing customer relationships through effective customer service functions.
Nirpaz proposes a shift from a ‘hunting mindset’ to a ‘farming mindset’ for companies. Instead of focusing solely on getting new customers, organizations should prioritize nurturing and cultivating the existing ones as well to ensure long-term survival in the industry. This transformation involves integrating customer success into the core of the business, making it not just a team but something more.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.4/5
3. The Seven Pillars of Customer Success: A Proven Framework to Drive Impactful Client Outcomes for Your Company by Wayne McCulloch
Here, Wayne McCulloch presents fundamental principles of customer success, followed by a hands-on framework to establish a robust customer success organization. The book offers real-life case studies of companies that have successfully implemented this framework and achieved impressive outcomes.
With over 25 years of experience in the customer success field, Wayne McCulloch is a highly knowledgeable authority. His unique perspective will provide valuable insights, offering a clearer view of customer success, and his advice will play a pivotal role in shaping your strategy and fostering the growth of your company.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.8/5
4. The Startup’s Guide to Customer Success – How to Champion the Customer at Your Company by Jennifer Chiang
Think of SaaS products, and you’ll immediately recall big global brands like Zoom, Netflix, and Teams. These companies possess abundant resources and budgets to prioritize their customers’ success and where SaaS products succeed, customer success teams are sure to be close behind.
However, things have changed now. Jennifer Chiang in her book, reveals that customer success functions are no longer limited to NASDAQ-listed companies. She emphasizes that offering ongoing value to customers after sales should be possible for organizations of any size, including startups.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.5/5
5. What Customers Crave: How to Create Relevant and Memorable Experiences at Every Touchpoint by Nicholas J. Webb
Business strategist Nicholas Webb offers valuable insights into understanding your customers and their preferences. He presents two fundamental questions to start with: What do your customers like? What makes them dissatisfied? By providing effective tools and relevant examples, the book “What Customers Crave” transforms the way you interact with your customers.
Upon reading the book, you will be able to identify your customers’ desires and ways to fulfill them, thereby solidifying your relationships and securing them as loyal customers.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.2/5
6. The Customer Success Professional’s Handbook by Ashvin Vaidyanathan and Ruben Rabago
This book stands out as an excellent guide for customer success. It starts by introducing the concept of CSM and highlighting growth prospects in the field. The book then focuses on the key attributes that contribute to the success of customer managers. In the latter part, it offers valuable insights on integrating customer success into organizational processes, recruiting, developing, and retaining skilled CSMs.
This handbook serves as a practical playbook for implementing customer-centric principles and effectively running a company that genuinely caters to its clientele.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.7/5
7. The Customer Success Economy: Why Every Aspect of Your Business Model Needs A Paradigm Shift by Nick Mehta and Allison Pickens
This book serves as a powerful declaration advocating for the centralization of clients in every business decision. This book elaborates on how leaders can drive a comprehensive organizational transformation from the top down, focusing on enhancing customer experience and justifying the necessity of such a shift. The authors emphasize that customer success is not a passing trend but rather a fundamental change in conventional business practices.
In the latter part of the book, practical advice is provided on optimizing all aspects of an organization to meet client’s needs and expectations. To reinforce their points, the authors share anecdotes from leading companies that effectively utilized customer experience to boost revenues and reduce churn.
“The Customer Success Economy” serves as a contemporary business guide and a how-to manual for entrepreneurs who are dedicated to serving their customers and creating lasting value.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.5/5
8. Talking to Humans: Success Starts with Understanding Your Customers by Giff Constable
The most effective customer success managers possess exceptional soft skills and are adept at communicating with people, whether it’s customers or internal teams. In “Talking to Humans,” Giff Constable motivates you to maximize the value of your conversations.
What we appreciate about this concise book is its meaningful and straightforward approach. Reading this guide ensures that you will have more meaningful conversations, making it a valuable resource for improving communication skills.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.4
9. The Customer Success Pioneer: The First 12 Months of Your Journey Into Growth by Kellie Lucas
Here, Lucas provides valuable advice on establishing and managing a customer success team. The book offers informative frameworks that serve as a roadmap for building such a team from scratch.
What stands out about this book is Lucas’ inclusion of practical blueprints and real-life examples from her own experiences. Additionally, you get insights from other customer success practitioners actively engaged in the field, making it a comprehensive and insightful resource.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.3/5
10. Practical Customer Success Management: A Best Practice Framework for Rapid Generation of Customer Success by Rick Adams
Presented as ‘the ultimate guidebook for CSMs,’ this manifesto delivers a simple and practical framework that guides readers through the essential steps to excel as a successful CSM. Rick Adams meticulously explains each stage of the customer journey, equipping CSMs with the necessary toolkit to accomplish their tasks with increased productivity.
Recognizing the crucial role of customer success, this book truly grasps the importance of avoiding unnecessary fluff and pretense in portraying it as a mere ‘nice-to-have’ asset. With direct and humor-filled advice, Adams offers valuable insights for professionals at all levels in the customer success field. If you aim to advance your career in customer success management, this book is an absolute must-have resource.
Where to buy: Amazon
Rating: 4.5/5
And It’s a Wrap!
Customer success is a vital practice in the software-as-a-service world, but its benefits extend beyond this industry to others as well. Acquiring and onboarding new customers can be expensive and time-consuming, making customer retention a valuable focus for businesses. The most effective strategy for preventing customer churn is to adopt a customer-centric mindset and address any obstacles that hinder an ideal customer experience.
The books featured on this list offer valuable guidance to leaders on understanding the customer’s perspective and designing business systems that prioritize and achieve customer success.
For further reading recommendations, explore these lists of books on customer service and inspirational customer success stories.
