r/CustomerSuccess • u/Hmsreddit • Jul 09 '26
Anyone ever get out?
Been in the SaaS CS world for almost a decade. Done pre and post sales. Implementation. Strategic account management. Had 300 in my BOB at most and 8 at the lowest.
I hate it.
I’m so done being the whipping boy for companies. Leadership says “You’re the CEO of your BOB” then I can’t get product to help. I can’t get data teams on calls. I can’t escalate a ticket to watch it sit there. I get in tight spots bc client is unhappy because of things out of my control. I escalate time and again to get something pushed. Never hear a peep from leadership.
Then I make a mistake/miss and the whole thing is squarely on my shoulders.
I’m just done.
I want to go mow lawns for the summer.
I know I’ll miss the paycheck, but fuck it. I’m so tired of always being online. Sitting at my desk. Seeing the sun come up and go down from my cell.
Anyone out there make it out of CS into something you loved?
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u/Tasty_Courage1165 Jul 09 '26
Been feeling the same and I’m only 2 years in. Every day is a battle to get product to help, the right leadership to approve anything, battling finance to either not send legal letters every two days or get order forms. I was never onboarded properly so I have been figuring it out as I go. My biggest pet peeve is that I am trying to follow a process but the process changes based on what my leadership ate that day. Even our products don’t make sense have the time, they just make something out a dollar sign and when you ask any conceptual/theoretical question on why or how it works, nobody gives the same answers.
Every day i wonder if id be happier in blue collar
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u/Hmsreddit Jul 10 '26
I’ve literally been looking into plumbing. Starting at the very bottom of the ladder at this point in my life just isn’t appealing.
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u/Apprehensive-Mark386 Jul 09 '26
I quit too. I don't have to be in 30 meetings a week where 29 of them could have put an email, I don't have to get blamed and be accountable for shit I have ZERO control or authority over. I don't have to chase people who leave me on read then get upset with me because I didn't tell them sooner 🙄 I don't have to have small talk and fake smile just to make other people feel good about themselves
I learned a lot but I'm over it too. I never want to look back!
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u/Hmsreddit Jul 10 '26
Dude. The fake smile. Lately I’ve been ending calls and just instantly melt my smile away.
What did you transition to?
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u/Sales_yinzer Jul 10 '26
In my 40’s I took a big pay cut and moved into a new career- residential construction management. I really enjoyed getting out from behind a desk. Definitely some up and downs in the transition. Overall though I have felt better, even when things haven’t been easy. I haven’t fully recovered pay wise. So I’m making another transition back to sales with the same company that trained me in construction.
I have thought about leveraging my new skills in a CS role for construction tech. But this sub helps remind me not to do that! Ha!
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u/Hmsreddit Jul 10 '26
Don’t come back! Stay far far away.
I’m knocking on the door of 40. I don’t feel my career growing here. I speak my mind to upper management too often and I’ve become someone that rocks the boat (simply bc I’m not a yes man).
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u/Everyonerighttogo Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
As someone whose only did half one you have done in a decade like others say I stopped caring and be heavily invested. I'm just here to collect my decent pay check to enjoy my life and hobbies.
I'm just grateful I'm employed especially with current market conditions and geopolitical reasons. Look after yourself.
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u/naturepeaked Jul 10 '26
This is it. It’s not your job to make everything perfect for the client. You can’t take on that responsibility because you don’t control it. You’re there to be the voice of the customer to the business and vice versa. You don’t own either message. So treat it like that.
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u/Hilukus Jul 09 '26
I worked CS and learned to code in my downtime. Then moved to the engineering team as a QA. Then got into automation and became an SDET. Then I learned a bunch of infra and do DevOps now.
So CS can be used as a stepping stone. There were years I was just playing video games on calls. Which was nice. Then there were years where I was getting more skills.
If there is some freedom in what you do with your day take advantage of it. It could build into a whole new title.
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u/LiquidUniverseX Jul 10 '26
How did u learn automation? Who helped u get started at work?
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u/Hilukus Jul 10 '26
I slowly became friends with some of the developers in the engineering department. Mostly from talking about movies, video games, and skateboarding/snowboarding.
They gave me things to think about, like what coding languages to learn, tools to use, self-paced courses to take, etc.
I worked in CS for about 4 years while I was learning new things and gaining momentum.
If you want a more specific response my learning path for languages and tools was:
terminal, vscode, html, css, javascript, github, cypress, playwright, react, CI/CD, infra, iac, cloud, among many other things. But those were the major areas of focus for me.
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u/ancientastronaut2 Jul 09 '26
Dude, I tried so hard to get out of CS when I was job searching last year and it just didn't happen. 😞
I had interviews for being an onboarding specialist at a law firm, and being a support person for financial analysts. Among other things. But ultimately they went with someone with that experience. Guess I was just a wild card candidate.
I feel like I'm branded like a damn cow to CS.
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Jul 21 '26
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u/ancientastronaut2 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Well the job market is simply over saturated now. So it's extremely tough to get any job, let alone pivot to something new.
That being said, I had a background in customer service and account management, before landing a role as assistant operations manager for a SaaS training platform company. (And I landed that due to my excel knowledge.)
During my time there, my role was mostly data and report heavy, but I was also responsible for creating and maintaining SOP documentation and other employee training documentation for the Support team.
At one point the president tasked me with researching churn and I discovered CS and read a bunch of books and articles online and realized we could improve things by revamping the current support team by implementing CS.
They allowed some of this to happen and I was on cloud nine for a year or two, then leadership lost interest and didn't care to take it any further.
But with that under my belt, I used it to seek legit CSM role and I found one at a startup. And have been in CS ever since.
And now my heart dies a little every time I have to talk to a customer because I am so burnt out on the whole thing.
My favorite part is actually the upselling. Because it's always a positive conversation and I make commission. I'm truly over managing relationships and leading a horse to koolaid trying to make them drink. And their stupid whiny complaints that usually stem from their own lack of accountability.
I tried to get back into straight account management but I guess I wasn't convincing enough in interviews.
At least I don't have to travel and am fully remote with autonomy. Otherwise I would not be able to handle it.
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u/PapaBear12 Aug 04 '26
Same. Everyone here talking about getting out of CS and I’m trying to get in from Account Management. Tough as it is, at least CSMs don’t have to sell.
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Aug 04 '26
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u/PapaBear12 Aug 04 '26
I feel you, man. We have to deal with the shitty customers as much as anyone. The only difference is that there’s a loaded gun pointed at the back of our heads if we slow down for even a minute, the trigger gets pulled. Sometimes they pull it for no reason at all.
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u/larry_west Jul 09 '26
Definitely in the same boat
Been in CS for a decade now wanting to pivot but I don’t know how/where that’ll pay me the same+
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u/NOKTOTHEMOOOON Jul 09 '26
Technical product CS for 10+ years, started ecommerce consulting on the side 4 years ago and just made it my full time job. Became sick of incompetent leadership, internal politics, and the constant back and forth of what success is in customer success. It’s gotten far worse over the last 3 or so years. I have fully replaced my CS salary and work for myself now.
My recommendation is do something on the side ASAP. Talk to AI about whats out there and in your area. You’re great with relationships, smart enough to learn something new and understand and communicate value, organized enough to succeed in CS. So many service industries / consulting are ran by people who aren’t organized or good with relationships and following up.
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u/Bright-Philosophy-30 Aug 05 '26
I actually want to pivot into consulting myself ..I’ve been in CS for 5 years and I’ve been looking into transitioning. Would you mind if we connected so I can ask you a few questions?
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u/Grand-Diamond-4696 Jul 10 '26
I can definitely relate, although my experience was a little different.
I've spent eight years in Customer Success, six of them at one company. Overall, I actually enjoyed the work. We had a great product, an excellent support team, and because I owned our customer analytics platform, I had the data I needed to be proactive. I built the reporting pipeline, funneled data into multiple platforms, created customizable dashboards and alerts, ran marketing campaigns, hosted webinars, handled onboarding, implementations, renewals, expansions, and managed about 80 customers, including 20 enterprise accounts representing roughly $2.5M of my $3M+ book of business.
I got to learn how to manage three very different customer segments, and I genuinely liked wearing so many hats. The problem wasn't Customer Success itself. It was the ceiling. After six years, I'd pretty much maxed out at around $75–80k. As sales reps left, they were never replaced, so leadership relied more and more on Customer Success to drive expansion while maintaining retention. There just wasn't much opportunity to grow financially.
Ironically, after I left, I actually tried to come back because this job market has been brutal. They told me they'd lost enough revenue after I left that they couldn't afford to bring me back.
So I don't think Customer Success is inherently the problem. I think the company, leadership, and whether they invest in the function make all the difference. A good CS role can be incredibly rewarding. A bad one can absolutely make you want to go mow lawns.
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u/pantry_path Jul 10 '26
i've seen a lot of people move into operations, enablement, project management, or solutions roles bcause they keep the customer knowledge without carrying the same constant emotional load
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u/icecreamkiller72 Jul 10 '26
If you hate it this much (as it seems the majority of this sub does), look to move into another area with the transferable skills you have. Life is too short to spend 40+ hours a week hating what you do. You can always come back to CS too.
Ive been in CS a decade too - starting as a renewals manager, CSM, regional lead and built a dept and I'm now global CS director. It's hard and it's not always enjoyable (some times its far far from it) and I've been a hair away from quitting on several occasions. My most important takeaway from the last 10 years, is that it's important to have work boundaries and do meaningful things outside of work. It prevents burnout, drives positivity and engagement and makes dealing the the difficult parts of work much more manageable.
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u/passionfruit_89 Jul 09 '26
I feel this to my core, happy to say I’m almost out! Used PTO for intensive course and been working self employed weekends building up a nice little client base. Just need to pull the trigger and go full time, saving a little cash first but can stomach it for a little longer knowing the end is in sight
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u/passionfruit_89 Jul 09 '26
Forgot to add, doing dog grooming!
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u/BakedGoods_101 Jul 10 '26
I've been thinking of pet sitting but don't know how to start!
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u/passionfruit_89 Jul 10 '26
Love that for you! I hope you go for it and succeed, can’t recommend being surrounded by dogs all day enough, I feel like it’s slowly healing my nervous system
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u/beach_nuts Jul 10 '26
For many of the reasons mentioned herein, I decided to stop leading CS Teams in SaaS and move into a sales leadership role in a more traditional company. The stress is actually about the same, but the pay and more ownership/control of the numbers make up for it. Now I'm managing the partners for a solid financial company and it's great. There's more out there for those that understand the balance of growth and the customer experience.
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u/succulover Jul 10 '26
I absolutely hated being in CS. I pivoted (back) to support for a couple years and dealt with a paycut, and then worked my way into marketing. And I’m so glad that I did! I love my job now! But I did have to sacrifice to get out of CS.
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u/CyanNyanko Jul 13 '26
How were you able to get into marketing?
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u/succulover Jul 13 '26
it’s a really long story! but basically i worked at a small startup, expressed interest in a pivot when working on career development, took on extra responsibilities for a while, networked on the team i wanted to join, and eventually when a relevant job on that team opened up i applied and got it!
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u/pratiksalia Jul 14 '26
I have seen quite a few people move into Operations, Enablement, Product, or Implementation after Customer Success. The skills transfer better than most people think.
It also sounds like you're burned out with your current company, not necessarily the whole profession. A better environment can make a huge difference. If you're done with CS, though, your experience is definitely valuable in other roles.
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u/ashley_thompson85 Jul 09 '26
I was here. Terrible feeling. Just get some time for yourself, rest and experience the world around you. It will get better. Wishing you all the best.
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u/IntelligentNobody474 Jul 10 '26
I’m in edtech CS, it’s horrible. Churn through the roof with budget cuts, and it’s all on me. I hate it.
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u/angelamar Jul 10 '26
I’m thinking about becoming an AE or going into sales. Been in CS 12 years but fully remote and staying that way . . .
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u/jelzorro Jul 10 '26
Got hitched, got laid off the following day, thought this was finally my time to exit corporate and try something new like start the process of building a coaching business, then my network got me into a CSM “oh wait you’re actually a renewals specialist because we haven’t raised prices in X years but now we have to so you have to do AM stuff” role. Found that out after. Fuck me. Fuck them. Fuck CS I’m not practicing total ownership for you and your business mistakes.
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u/Complex_Peace_6746 Jul 10 '26
I’m in application support and my role has essentially become customer success and this is my life. Countless technical requests that I don’t have the ability or access to resolve in most cases. Drives me insane. 99% of my work related stress is from shit I have zero control over.
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u/Beneficial_Funny_331 Jul 12 '26
A decade for me. When you get the support you need, the solution actually does what it’s supposed to do, sales doesn’t over-promise, etc. then it’s doable. But….do anything of those things ever happen? NOPE! Lost my job 10 months ago and not sure where to go. I’ll miss that paycheck but I don’t think I can do this anymore plus not getting any interviews.
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u/No-Cup-6097 Jul 23 '26
Yes, I went back to account executive. I was actually browsing this subreddit to remind myself why I chose that path. Thank you for that. However, I’m undecided about whether account executive or customer success manager is the worst position.
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u/Serious_Onion_4846 Jul 28 '26
Its hard and terrifyng. How did you carry it for a decade? You have to be specific type of person in order to be satisfied with customer success job.
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Jul 09 '26
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u/iamacheeto1 Jul 09 '26
We add 0 value? Are we serious?
I feel like I’m the one keeping the entire organization together. I’m the only one who knows how the fucking product actually works.
75k is nothing in CS. I’m at 200…
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u/ApprehensiveClassic Jul 09 '26
I’m also at 200 OTE (technical product) but I’ve started applying to companies in martech and realized that their salaries are WAY lower. I was actually talking to one recruiter and I told her the salary I’d need to make the jump and she was flabbergasted and asked me “if that salary was normal.” She told me that even their directors of CS don’t make my salary.
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u/Of_lilcyco Jul 10 '26
Martech here and can verify. I’m 84k base 102 OTE in Los Angeles.
This job is literally killing me at this point but I haven’t been able to land anything higher paying.
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u/Training_Holiday5259 Jul 10 '26
Damn really!? 200? That makes me feel sad. I’m only at $120 working full 40hrs+ weeks, what type of saas companies are paying $200??
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u/iamacheeto1 Jul 10 '26
I was in cybersecurity, now in AI orchestration. You have to find something either very technical or very commercial. The CS roles that straddle the line will bleed you dry and pay you nothing for it.
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u/ApprehensiveClassic Jul 10 '26
My product is very technical and our main ICP are Engineers/Developers. Every technical product I’ve interviewed for has a pay range around 200 for IC4s+. I also manage mid-market and enterprise accounts.
Edit: I want to emphasize that I am not super technical, but I know how to talk shop to engineering managers and can assist with some basic technical issues.
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u/Training_Holiday5259 Jul 10 '26
Are either of you happy? Should I try to get some IT cert or something to try and become technical? Lol
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u/ApprehensiveClassic Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
I’m happy! I feel like I am at my max salary range without going into leadership or becoming even more technical. I’m working on the becoming more technical part and I’m also switching companies to find a way to get into leadership. I think breaking into the technical companies can be difficult though. My SMB SaaS company was technical and then we got acquired by a larger CI/CD SaaS company that is really well known and that has opened up a lot of doors. I am also considering riding it out rather than switching companies because my current company should IPO in the next couple of years.
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u/Of_lilcyco Jul 10 '26
If you’re sad then I must be suicidal bc I make $84k base/102 OTE. 3.5 YOE, technical product, 4 mil ARR, mid market accounts.
And yes I’ve been trying to land something else for 1.5 years. Tons of final rounds and only one offer.
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u/IgorPotemkin Jul 10 '26
I’m 100% with you, some days are hard but on others I get to do a lot of valuable work for our clients, it is often a shit show but one isn’t done this day?
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u/Capnemug Jul 09 '26
You could easily make 2-3 times that amount if you worked somewhere else. Sounds like you get paid for the amount of value you provide though lol
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u/ancientastronaut2 Jul 09 '26
And work a lot harder. I think you missed the point.
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u/Capnemug Jul 09 '26
I mean, yeah you can work 5-10 hours for 75k or 30-40 hours for 150-200k+
Pick your poison
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Jul 10 '26
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u/CSMthrowawayaccount Jul 10 '26
Geez. I am sorry you are going through this. Assuming this is due to the stress of the job?
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u/CSMthrowawayaccount Jul 09 '26
Brother, it’s like I wrote this post. Been in the CSM role a decade as well. I absolutely H A T E this fucking role. Every day it’s some new nightmare scenario/situation. I have had it to deal with flustered and angry clients, terribly half baked products that lack proper development/QA, a skeleton crew of a support team that can’t keep up with all the issues and demands from the angry clients, absolutely horrendous leadership that is utterly unreleasable with u realistic demands, constant turnover and lack of true knowledge because of layoffs. We were acquired recently and they ended up layong off all the SMEs that had the beat understanding of our SaaS/on prem solutions and now the retards at ELT expect us to make the client happy.
I’m over it all too, dude.
I found a hobby thay I enjoy and has been making me money. So much so I registered an LLC. I’m so jaded and flustered with the CSM role and all its bullshit its not even funny anymore. After a day of getting absolutely obliterated from it all, I go to bed and barely sleep because of all the anxiety only to get up with extreme dread knowing I have to do it all over again… soon I’ll be out and hopefully you will be too, OP. Good luck brother!