The Customer Asset Manager
The Customer Asset Manager
The Customer Asset Manager
Assuming the role of Customer Asset—rather than Success—Managers, we allocate time as capital and protect customers like positions. And if we do it well, our results accrue like the compounded returns of a careful investment.
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We avoid the title Customer Asset Manager for a reason. It's distant and calculated. An asset is a financial investment. Customers are people, alive with contradictions, ambitions, mysteries. They are sometimes friends. As Customer Success Managers, some of our most difficult and rewarding work is reshaping loose vendor relationships into lasting business partnerships. We are People Managers.
Still, we manage portfolios.
“While urgency is important, it’s easy to forget that our jobs aren’t to do things for the sake of being active, but to deliver outcomes, which—let’s be honest—means revenue.”
We avoid the title Customer Asset Manager for a reason. It's distant and calculated. An asset is a financial investment. Customers are people, alive with contradictions, ambitions, mysteries. They are sometimes friends. As Customer Success Managers, some of our most difficult and rewarding work is reshaping loose vendor relationships into lasting business partnerships. We are People Managers.
Still, we manage portfolios.
“While urgency is important, it’s easy to forget that our jobs aren’t to do things for the sake of being active, but to deliver outcomes, which—let’s be honest—means revenue.”
A CSM may hold ten accounts or five hundred, depending on segment. We are rarely short on guidance for handling individual customers. We have methodologies and frameworks that guide us. As the owners of customer portfolios, we can improve growth by methodically placing our individual attention across our broader base. Ultimately, if our book of business doesn't grow like a top performing index fund, all of our relationship skills, our day-to-day activities, or our cross-country flights to turn around a single customer mean very little.
Every CSM has been impacted by customer bankruptcies, acquisitions, reorganizations. These are often the same events that crash an asset manager's position. Because we're People people, we often treat these shocks as isolated losses, and some of us take them personally. The asset manager may vent a few ripe expletives, but is prepared for market volatility and will adjust positions and diversify exposure.
This is a difficult discipline for CSMs. We are occupied with account-level activity: customer personas, meetings, ‘doing-the-right-thing’, next steps. We are often busy solving small things for big customers. While urgency is important, it’s easy to forget that our jobs aren’t to do things for the sake of being active, but to deliver outcomes, which—let’s be honest—means revenue. For our employers, that means gross and net retention. For our customers, it means realized value, particularly as it advances their business objectives.
“ The asset manager may vent a few ripe expletives, but is prepared for market volatility and will adjust positions and diversify exposure.”
A CSM may hold ten accounts or five hundred, depending on segment. We are rarely short on guidance for handling individual customers. We have methodologies and frameworks that guide us. As the owners of customer portfolios, we can improve growth by methodically placing our individual attention across our broader base. Ultimately, if our book of business doesn't grow like a top performing index fund, all of our relationship skills, our day-to-day activities, or our cross-country flights to turn around a single customer mean very little.
Every CSM has been impacted by customer bankruptcies, acquisitions, reorganizations. These are often the same events that crash an asset manager's position. Because we're People people, we often treat these shocks as isolated losses, and some of us take them personally. The asset manager may vent a few ripe expletives, but is prepared for market volatility and will adjust positions and diversify exposure.
This is a difficult discipline for CSMs. We are occupied with account-level activity: customer personas, meetings, ‘doing-the-right-thing’, next steps. We are often busy solving small things for big customers. While urgency is important, it’s easy to forget that our jobs aren’t to do things for the sake of being active, but to deliver outcomes, which—let’s be honest—means revenue. For our employers, that means gross and net retention. For our customers, it means realized value, particularly as it advances their business objectives.
“ The asset manager may vent a few ripe expletives, but is prepared for market volatility and will adjust positions and diversify exposure.”
When we consider our customers as elements of an asset portfolio, we become smarter about where we invest our time. Fires still need attention. But conscious portfolio management prevents unstable customers from consuming the strong ones that support our base when the unpredictable hits. We are less impressed by a product administrator’s enthusiasm and more attentive to fundamentals: who actually uses the product, who owns the budget, who are the detractors, who is already halfway out the door. We ask harder questions to evaluate our customers with the same discipline we'd use with our own personal investments. In the Asset Manager's world, this might be called “Fundamental Analysis.”
The concept does not change the CSM’s role so much as the weight we assign to activities. Investing in the right customers at key moments uncovers who are receptive to growth and who are more like fixed-income bonds—they might not grow with us, but they’ll provide stability if we don’t ignore them. Metrics matter. Adoption depth, feature behavior, use-case expansion, and hundreds of your-company-specific indicators tell stories, especially when considered alongside the fundamentals. The Asset Manager uses predictive metrics to time the market (or buy the dip) and calls this “Technical Analysis.” In the longer tail, these indicators are sometimes all we have to personalize customer engagement.
Our investments (our customers) need honesty to grow. Protecting them by hiding fragile adoption or disguising product gaps can dehumanize a partnership long-term. They may not always share our level of commitment, but when we bring them behind the scenes, we provide an opening to shared business objectives. Exclusivity can be as complex as early beta programs, customer advisory boards, onsite executive briefings, or as simple as removing our virtual backgrounds to welcome them into our homes. Today’s stable customer is tomorrow’s crisis, and so when the unexpected happens, the trust built ahead of time insures our investment.
“At customer-forward companies, patterns CSMs identify across accounts drive strategy at the executive level.”
When we consider our customers as elements of an asset portfolio, we become smarter about where we invest our time. Fires still need attention. But conscious portfolio management prevents unstable customers from consuming the strong ones that support our base when the unpredictable hits. We are less impressed by a product administrator’s enthusiasm and more attentive to fundamentals: who actually uses the product, who owns the budget, who are the detractors, who is already halfway out the door. We ask harder questions to evaluate our customers with the same discipline we'd use with our own personal investments. In the Asset Manager's world, this might be called “Fundamental Analysis.”
The concept does not change the CSM’s role so much as the weight we assign to activities. Investing in the right customers at key moments uncovers who are receptive to growth and who are more like fixed-income bonds—they might not grow with us, but they’ll provide stability if we don’t ignore them. Metrics matter. Adoption depth, feature behavior, use-case expansion, and hundreds of your-company-specific indicators tell stories, especially when considered alongside the fundamentals. The Asset Manager uses predictive metrics to time the market (or buy the dip) and calls this “Technical Analysis.” In the longer tail, these indicators are sometimes all we have to personalize customer engagement.
Our investments (our customers) need honesty to grow. Protecting them by hiding fragile adoption or disguising product gaps can dehumanize a partnership long-term. They may not always share our level of commitment, but when we bring them behind the scenes, we provide an opening to shared business objectives. Exclusivity can be as complex as early beta programs, customer advisory boards, onsite executive briefings, or as simple as removing our virtual backgrounds to welcome them into our homes. Today’s stable customer is tomorrow’s crisis, and so when the unexpected happens, the trust built ahead of time insures our investment.
“At customer-forward companies, patterns CSMs identify across accounts drive strategy at the executive level.”
Asset Managers will tell you that hedging strategies are central to their success. A CSM will hedge at scale, primarily through programs. Several years ago I saved a major California university from canceling—even though they'd already purchased a competing solution—by presenting the in-product feedback of their super-users. One of those users turned out to be a famed Nobel Prize-winning professor who credited our service to supporting his work. End-user feedback programs, now easier to execute through LLMs and CSPs, can completely change the minds of unaware buyers. There is nothing better than having your customer's customers tell your story.
Many Asset Managers are required by law to publish results. Their performances are public, and when strong, their results become the best kind of marketing. A CSM can run the most disciplined portfolio and still be invisible to their executives, who need their insight the most. For many of us, talking about performance inside our own company feels self-promotional. So often we prefer to let the numbers speak for themselves. They rarely do. Every result needs a narrative to be memorable. When we share what’s working or what’s not—backed with metrics—we give the business invaluable field-level intelligence. At customer-forward companies, patterns CSMs identify across accounts drive strategy at the executive level.
“As portfolio owners with a vested interest in supporting our customers, we need to surface quantifiable wins with the same urgency as the risks.”
Asset Managers will tell you that hedging strategies are central to their success. A CSM will hedge at scale, primarily through programs. Several years ago I saved a major California university from canceling—even though they'd already purchased a competing solution—by presenting the in-product feedback of their super-users. One of those users turned out to be a famed Nobel Prize-winning professor who credited our service to supporting his work. End-user feedback programs, now easier to execute through LLMs and CSPs, can completely change the minds of unaware buyers. There is nothing better than having your customer's customers tell your story.
Many Asset Managers are required by law to publish results. Their performances are public, and when strong, their results become the best kind of marketing. A CSM can run the most disciplined portfolio and still be invisible to their executives, who need their insight the most. For many of us, talking about performance inside our own company feels self-promotional. So often we prefer to let the numbers speak for themselves. They rarely do. Every result needs a narrative to be memorable. When we share what’s working or what’s not—backed with metrics—we give the business invaluable field-level intelligence. At customer-forward companies, patterns CSMs identify across accounts drive strategy at the executive level.
“As portfolio owners with a vested interest in supporting our customers, we need to surface quantifiable wins with the same urgency as the risks.”
The Chief Customer Officer needs these stories to champion the value of their team. The head of product uses them to improve the platform. CEOs carry them into interviews, panels, and earnings calls. Customer stories that illustrate results can translate into funding for CS organizations, leading to headcount expansion or promotions. Too often, as CSMs, we escalate only problems upward. As portfolio owners with a vested interest in supporting our customers, we need to surface quantifiable wins with the same urgency as the risks.
We might not call ourselves Customer Asset Managers, but when we take ownership of our portfolio’s results, we become one. We allocate time as capital and protect customers like positions. And if we do it well, our results accrue like the compounded returns of a careful investment, one thankful and realized customer outcome at a time.
The Chief Customer Officer needs these stories to champion the value of their team. The head of product uses them to improve the platform. CEOs carry them into interviews, panels, and earnings calls. Customer stories that illustrate results can translate into funding for CS organizations, leading to headcount expansion or promotions. Too often, as CSMs, we escalate only problems upward. As portfolio owners with a vested interest in supporting our customers, we need to surface quantifiable wins with the same urgency as the risks.
We might not call ourselves Customer Asset Managers, but when we take ownership of our portfolio’s results, we become one. We allocate time as capital and protect customers like positions. And if we do it well, our results accrue like the compounded returns of a careful investment, one thankful and realized customer outcome at a time.
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Recognized as a world-leader by
Planhat is built to keep your data safe. We put privacy and security front and centre, so you don’t have to.
Customers
Recognized as a world-leader by
Planhat is built to keep your data safe. We put privacy and security front and centre, so you don’t have to.