What it Really Means to “Own” the Customer Relationship
By Kristen Hayer
"Own the customer" is a phrase that gets tossed around a lot in Customer Success. It sounds clear and decisive, but it can be misleading. In many organizations, it has come to mean that one person, often the Customer Success Manager, is solely responsible for everything related to the customer. That might work on a small scale, but as companies grow and customer needs evolve, this approach can introduce risk rather than reduce it.
When only one person holds the relationship, the customer’s experience becomes fragile. If that CSM is out on leave, transitions to a new role, or leaves the company, the connection can break. The context disappears. And the trust the customer has built may not carry over to the next person. In high-value accounts, this kind of single-threaded relationship is especially dangerous.
A better model acknowledges that while someone should be accountable for guiding the customer journey, they do not have to do it alone. In fact, they should not.
Why Sole Ownership is Risky
Many companies assign a single point of contact to create clarity for the customer. This can feel helpful, especially during onboarding or complex implementation projects. However, if that single contact is the only person at your company who understands the customer’s goals, challenges, and history, you are introducing significant risk.
Turnover is the most obvious threat. Even in a stable team, absences happen. And beyond personnel changes, one person can only represent so much of your business. If the CSM is the only connection point, the customer never builds relationships with product, support, or leadership. This limits collaboration and creates friction when the customer needs help outside the CSM’s domain.
Moving to a Shared Ownership Model
Shared ownership does not mean that everyone is equally responsible for every customer interaction. It means that multiple people are invested in the customer’s success, and the knowledge of that customer is distributed across your organization.
In this model, the Customer Success Manager acts as an orchestrator. They are still the central point of coordination, but they are not operating in isolation. Instead, they bring in the right team members at the right moments and ensure everyone working with the customer has access to context and insight.
This approach builds resilience. If one team member is unavailable, someone else can step in with confidence. It also enhances the customer experience. When your support team understands the customer’s priorities, they can provide faster, more tailored service. When your product team has visibility into the customer’s feedback, they can prioritize requests more effectively. When executives are involved, the customer feels valued and heard.
What Shared Ownership Looks Like in Practice
Shared ownership can take many forms, depending on the structure of your company and the complexity of your accounts. Here are a few ways it might show up:
A sales engineer or onboarding specialist stays engaged beyond go-live, offering continuity and technical depth.
A support team has access to customer profiles and health scores, allowing them to escalate issues more appropriately.
Product managers participate in roadmap reviews with strategic accounts to hear feedback firsthand.
Executives are assigned to a small group of key accounts to provide sponsorship and occasional outreach.
These examples require internal alignment and communication. Teams need shared tools and processes that allow for seamless handoffs and visibility. The goal is to create a strong internal network around each customer, not just a single point of contact.
How to Apply This to Your Team
If your team is currently operating with a single-owner mindset, you do not need to overhaul everything overnight. Here are a few steps you can take to move toward shared ownership:
Map out the customer journey and identify where different teams already interact with the customer.
Create internal profiles for key accounts that summarize goals, history, and current risks. Make these accessible to all customer-facing roles.
Involve cross-functional teammates in customer calls or business reviews, especially when their input is relevant.
Establish internal workflows for knowledge-sharing, such as regular syncs or shared notes in your CRM.
Train your team on how to act as orchestrators rather than gatekeepers. Encourage them to bring in others, not carry the relationship alone.
Track the number of active internal touchpoints with each strategic customer. Use this as a health indicator.
These actions do not add unnecessary complexity. They create resilience. By sharing ownership, you reduce risk, improve outcomes, and build deeper trust with your customers.
The Bottom Line
Owning the customer relationship should not mean isolating it. The goal is not to create dependency on one individual, but to surround the customer with a team that understands and supports them. When you move from individual ownership to shared responsibility, you strengthen your company’s ability to deliver value, even as team members change or scale increases.
That is what true ownership looks like.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers certification training for both CSMs and CS Leaders. Classes like Delivering the Customer Experience and Kicking off the Relationship are in our popular CSM Essentials series. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more on our trainings and other offerings.
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.
