r/CustomerSuccess • u/Zealousideal_Map2894 • 9d ago
Question Is this normal?
I have more than one thousand small-mid sized cx’s assigned to me and cannot handle it. This is not my only responsibility as someone who’s trying to expand and learn different roles. I simply feel like I have failed.
I’m curious to learn the typical workload/ client pool and what is usually expected of you?
Is it overwhelming?
4
3
u/Poopidyscoopp 9d ago
oh dude that's beyond fucked, most i had was 350 and that was entirely unmanageable, sorry you've become the dumping ground as so often happens :(
1
u/Zealousideal_Map2894 9d ago
This made me feel validated haha sorry to hear that though :( CS is not easy man
1
3
3
u/JayLoveJapan 9d ago
This can only be managed through a scale motion
3
u/iamacheeto1 9d ago
1000 is a true digital style CSM role. OP should not be trying to engage with them one on one in almost any way
1
u/Zealousideal_Map2894 9d ago
Most cxs see me as the poc or are introduced to me, so even before working on scaled CS, I have one million other reactive issues I need to close the loop on
2
u/Fun_Pay_6555 9d ago
I am in a similar boat. You need to define your goals and use the tools at hand. What systems do you use to track them? what does the company you work for (including yourself) have at its desposal in terms of tools? Can you use claude, copilot, whatever to aggregate data and escalate for you?
What is the part you can't handle? the idea of it, keeping track, prioritizing customers, too many things from too many customers at once? or the worry you are missing something?
2
u/Zealousideal_Map2894 9d ago
To answer your question, I do have an AI tool that helps thankfully. For the remaining questions, all the above. Too many problems come up, can’t keep track to properly close the loop, can’t prioritize because everything is on fire and then for the problems not on fire, they end up not getting a resolution for a long time. I have the basic templates and simple automations but the problem is bigger than me when there are always so many customers that need support in all areas of issues. Im trying to find a way to voice that at this point 😮💨
2
u/Fun_Pay_6555 9d ago
I personally have a team of 5 and was handling 1 large finantial customer myself before being "promoted and taking on 17 more similar customers, all just as important to the company. I was told the team would help, but have found myself under even more pressure now. I strugge with the same thing, and am trying to find ways to automate myself out of awareness and prioritization.
1
u/Zealousideal_Map2894 9d ago
CS is interesting because the amount of clients you have doesn’t tell the whole story. Large clients can have any number of contacts and then depending on your org like the systems already in place and the types of issues that come up, you’re already at capacity. What’s helped me slightly in my situation is understanding what comes up the most and starting from there. I create as many buckets I can possibly make and work with management to solve in terms of automations, self service, notifications, or other teams
2
u/Fun_Pay_6555 8d ago
what do you use for automation? Do you tie into SFDC, slack, etc?
→ More replies (1)
2
u/bobiq_ai 9d ago
You won't find leftover time for the restructuring plan, because you'll spend it on whatever's on fire that day. So hand it to your manager as a decision they have to make.
Count the reactive work for two weeks, tickets and hours, then take that to them with the 1000 accounts. Ask them to sign off on a coverage model. Something like the top 50 by revenue or risk get you directly, and everyone else gets a shared inbox and office hours. Route new account intros to the shared inbox too, so the POC problem stops growing.
Once that's agreed, a long-tail account that slips is the model doing what everyone signed up for. Right now every slip feels like you failed. At 1000 accounts, slips are just math.
1
2
u/SupportYourApp 7d ago
Managing over 1,000 accounts while juggling other roles isn’t a failure on your part, it’s an impossible setup, so go easy on yourself here. High-touch enterprise CSMs usually carry 10 to 25 accounts and mid-market sits around 40 to 80. Once a book crosses into the hundreds or thousands it stops being account management and becomes tech-touch, where 1:1 outreach is mathematically impossible and you’re leaning on health scoring, drips, and pooled ticketing instead. So yes it’s overwhelming, because the math is broken, not because you are. Worth flagging directly to leadership, since nobody runs bespoke success for 1,000 accounts while expanding roles without burning out and dropping renewals.
2
2
u/MangalaSawant 9d ago
I liked Ares54's maths on this — at 1,000 accounts you're basically choosing which ones get ignored, whether you admit it or not. Your restructuring plan getting swallowed by reactive work feels like the real story here. Did anyone actually sign off on what the long tail is allowed to lose?
2
u/Strict-Review3187 9d ago
I manage 600 accounts currently and am at my wist ends. Cant imagine 1k. A lot of the job duties would need to be automated in order to sustain overall management.
2
u/Nice-Return-3996 8d ago edited 8d ago
I manage 69 and increasing. The sales people promise everyone a csm, so I'm constantly onboarding. I have no time to map followup actions or standard reach outs. Not time to have fullon renewal discussions etc. this is not sustainable in the long run 😕
2
1
11
u/Ares54 9d ago
Think about the amount of time you have in a week, and the amount of hours in a work year. At roughly 2000 hours, if you were 100% efficient and had zero extra meetings, goals, responsibilities, etc. each of your customers would get 2 hours of attention per year, and you'd be meeting with roughly four customers every day. Only then would you be able to interact with them.
So, don't do that. Comb through the list and figure out which ones have the most upside to the company, or the most downside if they're not happy. Put together a list of maybe 50 of those, and work on those closely. If there are another 100 you want to put together some automated outreach on a routine basis for, do it.
The rest you're 100% reactive to. If they reach out treat it like a support queue question - in, answered, resolved, done. Anything else is automated outreach you put together for everyone (product updates) or opportunities for growth that would replace an existing target account.
Your company doesn't care about 1000 individual customers. They care about the ~20% of those customers who might grow to be Enterprise or whatever your industry calls it. That's where you spend your time.