Design a customer success or account growth role by naming the customer outcome and the commercial responsibility separately. If a person owns both, define how they should handle conflicts between helping a customer succeed and pursuing additional revenue.
Job titles alone do not tell candidates whether the work is onboarding, support coordination, renewal, expansion, or a combination.
Map the account lifecycle
List the work after a customer agrees to use the product. Include implementation, adoption, issue resolution, value reviews, renewal discussions, and expansion opportunities.
| Responsibility | Decision to make |
|---|---|
| Onboarding | Who defines and tracks a successful start? |
| Product adoption | Who identifies obstacles and coordinates help? |
| Support | Who responds, and who resolves technical problems? |
| Renewal | Who owns the commercial conversation and approvals? |
| Expansion | Who identifies fit, qualifies need, and closes additional scope? |
A person can coordinate a technical issue without being the engineer who fixes it. Make that boundary visible.
Choose the primary outcome
A service and adoption mandate should describe the customer's use of the product and the work needed to support it.
A commercial account mandate should describe renewal or expansion ownership, including how the person works with the delivery team. Do not present a quota-bearing sales job as purely relationship management.
Illustrative conflict: A fictional customer is struggling with an unfinished rollout while an expansion opportunity appears. Ask who decides whether the team should stabilize the current deployment before discussing additional scope.
The role brief should provide a principle and an escalation owner for that decision.
Assess the work in separate sections
For customer success, explore how the candidate diagnoses adoption problems, sets expectations, and coordinates across teams.
For account growth, explore how they identify a genuine additional need, navigate stakeholders, and manage a commercial process.
For a combined role, ask about a case where those objectives pulled in different directions. Let candidates use a non-confidential example and distinguish their own decisions from team actions.
Define a workable calendar
Estimate the recurring work the role will carry: customer meetings, preparation, internal coordination, commercial work, and unexpected issues.
If the expected workload leaves no time for a core responsibility, resolve that before hiring. A broad title will not create capacity.
Keep incentives and expectations aligned
Explain what the person will be measured on and which outcomes depend on other teams. If variable compensation applies, document how it relates to the actual mandate.
Use the role overlap worksheet to decide whether the work belongs together, and the OTE role-fit guide to clarify commercial expectations.