Torchora
Back to Home

Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Lead Client Experience Manager

💰 $100,000 - $160,000

Client ExperienceCustomer SuccessManagementLeadershipOperations

🎯 Role Definition

The Lead Client Experience Manager is a senior, hands-on leader who defines and delivers the end-to-end client experience for key segments or strategic accounts. This role combines strategy, operations, people leadership, and analytics to reduce churn, increase lifetime value, and create consistent predictable experiences across onboarding, adoption, support, renewals, and advocacy. The Lead Client Experience Manager partners with Sales, Product, Marketing, Support, and Analytics to translate voice-of-customer into prioritized roadmaps, scalable programs, and measurable KPIs such as NPS, CSAT, retention and expansion.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Client Experience Specialist / Senior Client Success Manager
  • Account Manager / Strategic Account Manager
  • Customer Success Manager

Advancement To:

  • Director of Client Experience / Director of Customer Success
  • Head of Customer Experience / Head of Client Services
  • VP of Client Services / VP of Customer Success

Lateral Moves:

  • Product Manager (Customer-facing product teams)
  • Sales Operations or Revenue Operations Manager
  • Customer Insights / UX Research Lead

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Develop and own the holistic client experience strategy for assigned segments or portfolios, creating a 12–24 month roadmap that aligns to retention, NPS, CSAT, and revenue expansion goals; present strategy and progress to executive leadership.
  • Lead a cross-functional team (onboarding, support, success managers, product liaisons) to execute client experience programs that improve time-to-value, increase product adoption, and reduce churn by defined percentages.
  • Design, implement and continuously optimize standardized onboarding, implementation and adoption playbooks that scale across small, mid-market, and enterprise clients while preserving a high-touch experience where required.
  • Establish and track core CX KPIs (NPS, CSAT, CES, renewal rate, churn rate, expansion ARR, time-to-first-value) and build dashboards and cadence for weekly/monthly executive reporting and decision-making.
  • Drive client segmentation and risk models to prioritize high-value accounts, tailor outreach, and allocate resources for proactive retention and expansion motions.
  • Own escalation management for high-impact or at-risk clients; coordinate cross-functional war-rooms, define remediation plans, and ensure timely resolution while keeping executives and clients informed.
  • Partner with Sales and RevOps to design renewal and expansion playbooks, including pricing guidance, negotiation strategies, and contract transition processes to reduce leakage at renewal.
  • Lead Voice-of-Customer (VoC) programs — NPS surveys, win/loss analysis, customer interviews and advisory boards — synthesize insights into tactical product and process improvements.
  • Collaborate with Product and UX to prioritize and validate product roadmap items that directly address friction points and measurable client outcomes; run discovery workshops and pilot programs.
  • Drive continuous process improvements across support, implementation, and account management to reduce friction, automate repetitive tasks, and improve SLA adherence.
  • Recruit, hire, coach and develop a high-performing client experience team; set clear goals, run performance reviews, and build career paths for direct reports.
  • Build and manage operating budgets for client experience initiatives; measure and report ROI on programs such as training, digital enablement, and customer community investments.
  • Create and deliver enablement programs and materials for internal teams (CS, Support, Sales) to ensure consistent client communications and handoffs across the lifecycle.
  • Architect and rollout scalable self-service resources (knowledge bases, tutorials, playbooks, in-app guides) in partnership with Content and Product teams to increase self-resolution rates.
  • Own post-sale communication strategy and cadence (welcome programs, success plans, business reviews) ensuring a consistent, value-driven client experience and predictable renewal outcomes.
  • Implement and maintain CRM and CX tooling best practices (Salesforce, Gainsight, Zendesk, Intercom, HubSpot) to ensure reliable client data, triggers, and workflow automation.
  • Lead regular client business reviews and executive briefings for strategic accounts; tailor insights and growth recommendations that drive upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
  • Define SLAs and operating expectations across client-facing functions; create escalation matrices, RACI documentation, and runbooks for critical processes.
  • Partner with Marketing to design customer advocacy, reference, case study and community programs that amplify client success and drive referral pipeline.
  • Manage change adoption for new CX initiatives through communication plans, training, stakeholder alignment, and success metrics to ensure sustained behavior change.
  • Leverage qualitative and quantitative analysis (cohort analysis, funnel conversion, customer health scores) to recommend operational changes and prioritize investments.
  • Lead post-mortem and root-cause analysis for major client issues and systemic friction; convert findings into process or product changes and verify implemented fixes.
  • Ensure compliance with contractual obligations, SLAs, and regulatory requirements in client interactions; partner with Legal and Security for risk management of strategic accounts.
  • Act as the internal client advocate across the organization — elevating client priorities, mediating tradeoffs, and ensuring that client outcomes are central to product and company strategy.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc client requests and exploratory analysis to assess program impact or address specific client escalations.
  • Contribute to the organization's client experience strategy and roadmap by sharing operational learnings and customer feedback.
  • Collaborate with Product, Engineering and Marketing to translate client needs into feature requirements, campaign briefs, and prioritized product changes.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies to advocate for client-facing features, bug fixes, and experience improvements.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Advanced experience with CRM and CX platforms (Salesforce, Gainsight, Zendesk, Intercom, HubSpot) including workflow automation and reporting.
  • Data literacy: ability to analyze quantitative metrics (cohort analysis, retention curves, funnel conversion) using SQL, Excel, Looker, Tableau or similar BI tools.
  • Familiarity with VoC and survey platforms (NPS, Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey) and the ability to translate feedback into prioritized product and process changes.
  • Experience designing and scaling onboarding/customer success playbooks, customer journeys, and SLA-driven support models.
  • Strong project and program management skills; comfortable running cross-functional initiatives, roadmaps, timelines and resource allocation.
  • Knowledge of contract renewals and expansion processes; ability to coordinate commercial negotiations and upsell motions.
  • Basic understanding of product development processes and agile methodologies to better partner with product and engineering.
  • Proficiency with performance and health-score modeling to predict churn and identify expansion opportunities.
  • Ability to build and maintain executive-level dashboards and reports, and present insights for strategic decision-making.
  • Experience managing budgets and calculating ROI for CX initiatives.

Soft Skills

  • Strategic thinker with strong business acumen and the ability to translate customer insights into growth strategy and operational plans.
  • Exceptional communication skills (written and verbal) with the ability to present to executives and lead cross-functional meetings.
  • Strong leadership and people development skills: coaching, mentoring, performance management and hiring.
  • Customer-obsessed mindset with empathy, patience, and a solutions-first approach.
  • Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills; can align diverse teams around client priorities.
  • Problem-solver who is comfortable with ambiguity and can navigate complex organizational dynamics.
  • Data-informed decision maker who balances quantitative insight with qualitative customer feedback.
  • High attention to detail and strong organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities and competing deadlines.
  • Resilient and adaptable, able to lead change and advocate for long-term improvements over quick fixes.
  • Collaborative team player who fosters a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous improvement.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Marketing, Communications, Hospitality, Information Systems, or related field.

Preferred Education:

  • MBA or Master’s degree in a related discipline or equivalent experience.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Business Administration
  • Marketing or Communications
  • Hospitality/Service Management
  • Information Systems / Data Analytics
  • Organizational Leadership

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 5–10 years in client-facing roles (Customer Success, Account Management, Client Experience), with at least 2–4 years managing teams or cross-functional programs.

Preferred:

  • 7+ years of experience leading client experience, customer success, or account management functions in SaaS, professional services, or B2B environments with demonstrable results in retention, NPS, and revenue growth.
  • Track record of building scalable processes, driving cross-functional initiatives, and influencing product direction based on customer insights.
Explore More Careers