What Customer Success Can Teach the World About Bridging Divides
By Kristen Hayer
If you spend time watching the news or scrolling through social media, it is easy to believe the world is coming apart. People are divided along political, cultural, and ideological lines. Common ground is hard to find, and even harder to hold.
In this environment, it may seem like customer success lives in a separate, more neutral space. But I would argue the opposite. At its best, CS is a practice in navigating tension, building trust and bringing people with different perspectives into alignment. And in a moment when division seems to be the default, those skills have never been more important.
Customer success professionals are not just delivering value to customers. In many ways, they are modeling the kind of leadership and communication the broader world needs more of right now.
The Work of a CSM Is Inherently Unifying
CSMs manage complexity every day. They balance the needs of customers with the priorities of product, sales and support. They interpret different perspectives, resolve misalignment and guide stakeholders toward shared outcomes. Often, they are the connective tissue between functions and the emotional center of the customer relationship.
This is not easy work. It requires empathy, patience, business acumen and a high tolerance for ambiguity.
One of our clients works in the political technology space, serving organizations from across the ideological spectrum. Their CSMs are regularly assigned to customers with opposing worldviews and missions. While the company avoids assigning direct competitors or ideologically hostile accounts to the same rep, their CSMs still operate in a landscape of tension and difference.
And they succeed. Not because they agree with every customer, but because they are trained to listen, stay focused on outcomes and operate with a level of respect and professionalism that transcends personal views. They do not enter conversations to persuade. They show up to support progress, no matter the perspective.
This is a powerful example of what it means to bridge divides in practice. It is not about avoiding differences. It is about learning to work within them.
Skills That Translate Beyond CS
The core competencies of great CSMs mirror the skills most lacking in public discourse and corporate culture today. These are not soft skills. They are leadership skills.
A recent article from Harvard Business Review states it directly: “Many leaders dismiss empathy as a nice-to-have, soft skill - yet it is essential to driving your team’s performance.”
Empathy, curiosity, and the ability to build shared understanding are at the center of effective leadership today. These skills allow teams to work across differences and maintain momentum even when perspectives clash.
Here are just a few that stand out:
Active listening. CSMs listen for nuance, context and emotion—not just surface-level requests.
Emotional regulation. They stay calm when customers are frustrated, and steady when stakeholders disagree.
Perspective translation. They help teams understand one another by framing ideas in accessible, business-relevant terms.
Goal alignment. They keep conversations centered on shared outcomes instead of personal wins.
Clear, respectful communication. They deliver hard truths in ways that preserve trust and forward momentum.
In a world that often rewards volume over substance, these skills are deeply valuable and increasingly rare.
Why CS Leaders Should Reinforce This Work
With so much energy in tech focused on efficiency, automation, and output, it can be easy to forget the value of human connection. But as AI takes over more tactical tasks, the uniquely human capabilities of customer success professionals become even more critical.
CS leaders should recognize this and invest in it. That means training teams to navigate complexity, not just manage accounts. It means reinforcing empathy, listening and problem solving as measurable skills. And it means showing the rest of the organization that CS is not just a delivery function. It is a model for how to lead across differences.
By prioritizing this kind of development, CS leaders do more than improve performance. They help shape company culture.
What Happens When We Lead With Connection
There is no single fix for the division we see in the world. But we can choose to model something better in the spaces we influence.
Customer success teams have the opportunity to lead with clarity, care and shared purpose. That starts with how we engage our customers. But it does not have to stop there.
The best CSMs already know how to bridge gaps, deescalate tension, and move people forward. In times like these, those skills are not just good for business. They are good for all of us.
Looking to build a high performing team? The Success League can help you! We are a customer success consulting firm that also offers coaching and certification training for both CSMs and CS Leaders. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io to learn more.
Kristen Hayer - Kristen founded The Success League in 2015 and currently serves as the company's CEO. Over the past 25 years Kristen has been a success, sales, and marketing executive, primarily working with scaling tech companies, and leading several award-winning customer success teams. She has written over 100 articles on customer success, and is the host of 3 podcasts about the field. Kristen has served as a judge for the Customer Success Excellence awards, and is on the board of several early-stage tech companies. She received her MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and now lives in San Francisco.