Chief Revenue Officers (CROs) who fail to leverage Customer Success (CS) as a revenue engine are potentially leaving millions on the table. In 2025 (and beyond), growth will come from existing customers—not endless new acquisitions. In the midst of economic uncertainty, purchase decisions move slower. Resources are reserved for tools and tactics proven to move the needle. The growth-at-all-costs mindset only serves to scatter a company’s focus away from their most important opportunities. Revenue growth requires sustainable strategies centered around existing customers.
And no organization has a stronger connection to existing customers than Customer Success. With proven expertise and new, AI-powered solutions for CS, Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are in a unique position to take charge of Revenue teams and drive customer-led growth.
Yet, some Revenue teams are still unclear about how CS teams fit into their strategies. They may even think of CS as a cost center, rather than a way to reach their goals.
For CROs newly in charge of CS teams, or ones who want to evolve how CS drives revenue in their organization, we’ve put together strategies to make 2025 your most successful year. Here’s everything you need to know.
1. Prioritize Expansion
The conversation about cost doesn’t begin and end at the amount customers pay to adopt a solution. They have to think about the hours invested for change management. Switching solutions comes with risks for their customers, such as disruption to workflows and potential setbacks. That’s why acquiring new customers is typically more challenging than retaining and expanding existing ones.
Existing customers don’t have those barriers. They can make expansion decisions much faster and more fluidly. In fact, according to a study by Zuora’s ® Subscribed Institute, a think tank that serves business leaders, existing customers drive 76% of Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) on average.
CSMs are the strongest connection between the customer’s needs and your company’s product suite. The most effective ways to leverage CS teams to drive expansion are:
- Land-and-expand: Create small teams of Sales reps and CSMs and assign them the goal of landing smaller contracts, with the intent to expand their product use. Both teams working together can create a roadmap for how a small customer can grow over 6, 12, and 18 months. That’s a much better strategy than being terrified to lose your biggest customer every day.
- Segment and personalize customer journeys: Use data-driven automation to track customer behaviors and surface upsell, cross-sell, and adoption opportunities at the right time.
- Empower CSMs: CSMs know how to grow relationships, educate customers on your product, and clearly explain the immediate value. Equip CSMs with the ability to identify and facilitate smaller expansions independently, while collaborating with Sales on larger, more strategic deals.
2. Redirect Your Team to High-Impact Activities Using DCS and AI
Another secret weapon CS teams have for driving growth is the treasure trove of customer data that their work creates every day. The more Revenue teams know about where customers are in their journey, the more effective they can be at driving retention and expansion.
Particularly in times of tough economic conditions, sustainable growth strategies should revolve around more efficient workflows. The more time and resources companies can save on expansion and retention opportunities, the better.
Digital Customer Success (DCS) and AI-powered solutions are the most accurate way to identify expansion opportunities, churn risks, and customer engagement to increase revenue. A few strategies to implement right away include:
- Daily visibility into customer health: Avoid surprises and work proactively to grow accounts with a daily view into each of your customers.
- Prioritize meaningful tasks: There are only so many hours in a day. Your CSMs need to build their workday around real customer needs, not routines or scheduled maintenance. AI tools can notify CSMs about customers that need attention based on their actions and engagements—whether it’s an upsell opportunity, a drop in engagement, or a renewal risk.
- Complete work without adding headcount: Whether you add new customers or expand existing ones, you likely won’t be able to add new CSMs to your team. Leveraging DCS through automation, AI-driven insights, or self-service allows your team to provide the same level of support, while reserving time for the strategic, high-value interactions that drive more business.
3. Encourage Collaboration Between All Revenue Teams
Customers expect a comprehensive and cohesive experience. They assume that different teams within an organization share information about their goals and obstacles—because your team should be sharing that data automatically. Unfortunately, customer teams often operate in siloes, leading to missed expansion opportunities and inconsistent messaging.
But more than simply sharing information, CS and Sales need to work together on all accounts to ensure your company is capitalizing on every opportunity. Get the best results from collaboration with strategies like:
- Pipeline planning: Bring CSMs into pipeline conversations to identify expansion opportunities and strategize about how to close those deals. Additionally, CSMs can identify customers at risk of churn to make forecasting more accurate.
- Automate quick wins: No one wants more meetings. If a customer wants access to a new feature or a new product, and the CSM can make it happen for them quickly, there’s no reason to pull Sales away from their tasks to facilitate the conversation. Arm CSMs with the tools to convert on quick wins to keep customers growing.
- Automate repeatable playbooks: Leverage AI and automation to standardize upsell and cross-sell motions so that every CSM can move quickly.
4. Churn Prevention Is a Revenue Strategy
Finally, expansion opportunities won’t matter if other customers are churning. Preventing churn is the foundation of all growth strategies for Revenue teams. CSMs can leverage AI, community, and in-app engagements to ensure that customers of all sizes won’t churn.
As a CRO, these strategies will likely be the least familiar of all the strategies you’re used to, but trust that your CS team knows exactly what to do. All they need to do is:
- Build automated customer journeys: Customers want self-serve options. When they hit a simple obstacle, they want to be able to find the answers themselves. CS teams that create self-guided training often see higher customer health, engagement, and retention.
- Track early warning signs with AI: There are some red flags that CSMs can see that other, more removed teams, may not notice. With AI transcriptions made (and saved) from every customer meeting, CSMs can have a comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of customer health and any proactive steps that must be taken to avoid churn.
- Make churn prevention a company-wide priority: Even the most detailed-oriented CSM might miss a sign of churn risk. AI tools that are trained on your customer base won’t. Arm CS teams with predictive AI tools that can notify the entire organization when a problem is on the horizon. Working proactively means less waste and more efficiency.
Learn More
Ready to leverage the power of Customer Sucess to grow your revenue? Check out our blog, Customer Success: Welcome to the Revenue Team!
