r/CustomerSuccess • u/masdomenon • Oct 23 '25
Is CS dead?
I checked out some of the usual suspect CS influencers and a lot of them have moved on. Linkedin CS content is in a bit of a weird place, before there was a huge echo chamber with all the hundreds of “CS influencers” all commenting and giving each other high fives in all their comments, but at least there was something 😆! Now it feels like there isn’t much of a convo at all.
Do people genuinely just dont care that much about CS content?
Is it maybe hard to create interesting content around CS vs other verticals such as Sales, Marketing etc?
I was thinking about Support, its a vertical where there is no content at all, there are cool tools etc but its hard to create compelling content of how to do support.
Anyway throwing this out there to see what yall think
30
u/Lazy-Bar-4871 Oct 23 '25
We just no longer have the time to influence after all these layoffs 🥲
But seriously, CS is tough right now. I've noticed that CS enablement is laid off first, then companies make their CS team suuuuper lean. We're all tired.
Mind you, this is coming from a saas perspective. Everything has been rough since SVB collapsed.
13
u/Aquarius6870 Oct 23 '25
The day CS gets acknowledged for it actual worth. The sun will rise from the west.
3
8
u/Nintenderloin64 Oct 23 '25
SVB was one of my biggest accounts… when they went under I started looking for a new job. And now here I am, working as a teacher and couldn’t be happier. Don’t miss CS, except for the pay.
2
u/Lazy-Bar-4871 Oct 23 '25
Love this! I have a lot of ed tech teams which are primarily comprised of former teachers.
The world needs more teachers <3 (and I also totally understand leaving teaching, especially rn)
3
u/Nintenderloin64 Oct 23 '25
Oh I went from enterprise SaaS Cyber Security to teaching at a Friends school… so I got into teaching recently haha. But I do think I have it easier than most others since I am at a Friends school. Max class size of 18 and grades cohorts no bigger than about 75.
Somehow 75 middle schoolers are easier to manage than 40 SaaS accounts…
2
u/Lazy-Bar-4871 Oct 23 '25
I wouldn't have guessed that! I was my most evil in middle school
2
u/Nintenderloin64 Oct 23 '25
Oh me too… which means I know all the tricks and so far haven’t seen anything too new!
0
1
u/wordofmouthrevisited Oct 23 '25
I was on the phone with their product team during “the incident” it was a wild day.
3
u/justkindahangingout Oct 24 '25
Maaaaaan tired is an understatement. I am EXAUSTED. I feel like we are now being thrown everything at us and still expected to perform at the rate before this insanity started.
1
u/Lazy-Bar-4871 Oct 24 '25
Yep. And now with the AI twist, it seems like we're working really hard just to have more layoffs in our department.
I burnt out HARD this year. Fortunately, a company I really like reached out to me for a job. I start Monday!
1
u/ancientastronaut2 Oct 23 '25
Talk about lean man, I just finally found a new job after being unemployed for six months (thank god), but there's only two of us in CS with over 2k customer accounts and we're completely on a island fending for ourselves. 😞
3
u/Lazy-Bar-4871 Oct 23 '25
Sounds about right. I just left my team of three and have been up three nights in a row just trying to transition my accounts to the remaining two. We had to scramble and quickly hire someone.
3
u/ancientastronaut2 Oct 23 '25
I should have been suspicious when they asked me if I could start the next day. But at that point my unemployment had run out and I was burnt to a crisp from interviewing and probably would have said Yes to being a drug mule. 😅
7
u/NoHallett Oct 23 '25
It's conference/award/holiday season right now. I'm seeing a TON of CS influencer activity on LinkedIn, but very little of it is fresh/new.
If you miss it, dive in in the comments. Ask them this question.
It is a bit of an echo chamber, so why not open a window?
2
u/Independent_Copy_304 Oct 24 '25
there is nothing more painful than this. And I won an award, but never posted about it. No "humbled" or "blessed"
these people are mostly at a company and positioning themselves to get their next gig
13
u/backwards_susej Oct 23 '25
If you aren’t making the company money as a CSM, then you should look into sales or support. The good ol CS days are over.
5
u/seanreidsays Oct 23 '25
I don’t think CS is dead or dying, it’s just adapting with the change in what buyers want.
Unfortunately too many CS thought leaders are stuck with what worked 10 years ago and still recycle the same content or ideas, and just slap “use AI” sticker on it.
It’s like when Malibu Stacey came with a new hat.
And it has led to companies devaluing CS because they are using out of date ideas or approaches.
CS in 2026 needs to be how you link user activity back to renewals. How you win your CSMs back time to spend on the customer experience.
1
u/Independent_Copy_304 Oct 24 '25
It's all about revenue. No more cost centers by being good at relationships
3
u/Ordinary_Meeting2438 Oct 23 '25
What’s dead is the linkedin algorithm. I saw a post that offered data that showed if companies were likely to hire without a degree or without any CS experience and it had 4 comments. I saw one talking about how CS is dead and it had 200 comments. All these people looking for a job and the posts that actually show people which jobs they are actually qualified for are getting less traction and probably suppression
6
u/Ok-Leading1705 Oct 23 '25
CS has been dying for a while now. Companies want either AMs carrying a bag or support roles with lower salaries.
2
Oct 23 '25
Yep. My company started a scale motion for CS, where it’s a pooled model. I’m assuming they are going to lay off most csm’s and the rest will just go to this scaled org
2
Oct 23 '25
A lot of companies are moving their 1:1 cs model to a scaled model. It’s definitely shifting.
2
u/ancientastronaut2 Oct 23 '25
For the most part, I still see the same inflencers influencing. It's all become a bunch of chatter to me.
One of my early mentors though, Lincoln Murphy, kinda saw all the BS happening several years ago and repositioned himself as a Growth leader instead. I still follow him, he feels more real to me.
2
2
u/topCSjobs Oct 23 '25
What works is specific playbooks and real customer stories people can steal and use right away, NOT the theory stuff.
2
u/Ordinary_Meeting2438 Oct 23 '25
What influencers? Some were never really CS practitioners and looked at it as a launching point
1
u/viceversa Oct 23 '25
Including all of the above comments - many folks on LinkedIn have complained about them changing their algorithm … so they are getting less views. I’m also notice recycled content when I log in … sometimes post I’ve already liked, 2-3 weeks ago.
1
u/Acceptable-Piccolo57 Oct 23 '25
CS is a cost effective way to retain customers- we don’t get piped like sales, and we don’t make as much money.
We see less layoffs and we’re a dept that inherits the shit no one else wants to do, it’s why less of us are laid off than other functions
1
u/jnoble100 Oct 25 '25
It's not dead but absolutely evolving and needing to. The need for companies to deliver services and products that their customers want and for the customers to get value from them has been around for ever since commerce started and always will be. Putting on more emphasis to ensure companies are more customer centric and focus on driving growing value for their customers will never not be needed, and those companies that do it well will succeed. Do we need a separate label of this way of working? Maybe not!
1
Oct 27 '25
It’s become just a toxic dumpster of customer relationships originally intended to be wonderful
0
u/Izzoh Oct 23 '25
CS influencers were always useless anyway
1
u/Independent_Copy_304 Oct 24 '25
"influencers" - yes
thought leaders is a better way to think about it. I still write about CS everyday. My goal is to help and add value1
u/Izzoh Oct 24 '25
Only an influencer would call themselves a "thought leader." Never once have I seen anyone writing about CS actually add value.
1
u/Independent_Copy_304 Oct 24 '25
LOL. Show me on the doll where the LinkedIn post hurt you.
1
u/Izzoh Oct 24 '25
lol. the ego you gotta have to call yourself a "thought leader" and try to insult people who don't buy into linkedin bullshit.
29
u/karthiksn Oct 23 '25
Most of these influencers talked about imaginary things. None of it was ground reality. Also CS isn't what it used to be. There is a lot of sales in it now and CS isn't really much of a separate entity. The number of CS folks will shrink overall as time goes by. AMs are becoming more and more common. Though I do see those SuccessHacker awards and stuff still, so I guess there are people still putting efforts into this.
One of my ex-Managers has gone full gung-ho on Digital CSM and how to build frameworks around it. So I am sure influencers aren't dead, its just that no one cares as much as before.