From learning to doing: How coaching drives change in customer success teams
- Deborah Knight
- Aug 26
- 5 min read
When renewals are uncertain or engagement drops, the first response is usually to deliver more training. While training helps to build awareness and introduce new ways of thinking for your customer success (CS) team, it doesn't always create long-lasting behavioural change. For example, a customer service manager (CSM) may have completed conflict management training but when presented with a real-life customer conflict, the knowledge might not spring into action.
It’s a nice feeling seeing your team motivated following training but behaviours can quickly change when it comes to putting these learnings into practice. Pressure and a lack of confidence are often to blame, which is where CS team coaching comes in.
Quick summary
Training is an important investment and great starting point but customer success team coaching can help your team action the training in real-world scenarios
An external CS coach offers a non-biased and non-jugdemental space where teams can speak freely about their opinions and challenges
If your team isn’t applying learnings, that doesn’t mean teaching was a failure. Sometimes they need that extra motivation and space to reflect and understand the changes to apply them
What we’ll cover
The difference between learning and doing
How an external CS team coach can help
How a CS coach supports training
How CS team coaching works
Build a strong customer success team
The difference between learning and doing
More often than not, your customer success team will know what to do in a range of situations – whether that’s to reach out to a customer or de-escalate a situation. But there are a number of reasons why they may not take action, such as low confidence or not wanting to overstep.
While training gives them the key, coaching unlocks the door.
Real work starts after training by empowering your CS team to embed changes, despite the day-to-day pressures they’re under. Customer success managers (CSMs) today aren’t just managing relationships — they have a wide range of duties including retention and advocacy. Research reveals retention is top priority for 87.2% for CSMs, followed by:
Customer advocacy (80.5%)
Strategic engagement (78.7%)
Product adoption (78%)
Upsell and cross-sell (59.1%)
Renewals (55%)
Many CS teams oversee hundreds of accounts but with over a third struggling with limited support from senior leaders, CSMs are often left to shoulder the complexities. One-to-one coaching provides a space for CSMs to share any worries or challenges to reduce burnout, and group coaching means teams aren’t working in silos.
How can an external CS team coach help
As a people leader, you may excel in leadership and coaching, offering one-to-one sessions, confidence building and feedback. But there is a difference between individual coaching and team-wide coaching, the latter which can help you to create behavioural change across your team. CS team coaching also reduces silos, giving you the opportunity to align behaviours and language.
To deliver CS team coaching effectively, it’s essential your team has a safe space where they can share their opinions and reflections without fear of judgement or repercussions.
Here’s how an external coach can help:
Dedicated time: An external coach offers time away from your team’s day-to-day activities, so they can reflect, collaborate and share opinions/ideas.
Neutral facilitator: Your team may be reluctant to share with a facilitator who is in charge of their role, so a third-party facilitator can encourage them to speak openly.
Pattern recognition: It’s hard to know what’s going wrong when you’re in the situation, so a coach helps them to recognise any bad habits, blind spots or shared pressures.
Scenarios: Your team can put training into practice with real-world scenarios and reflect on what went well or what could be improved. This is more aligned to the actual high-pressure situations they may face.
Build fluency: Help your team show confidence and build trust by aligning your language, ensuring it’s authentic and natural instead of a sales script.
Customer behaviour: You can’t always predict how a customer will respond or when a negotiation falls flat, so coaching will help your team understand how best to respond.
How a CS coach supports training
Customer success coaching helps your training to stick because the coach will work with your team to mitigate challenges, share experiences and identify next steps. Coaching also offers long-term value because it focuses on commitment to change. It’s an ongoing process, so it may take longer because you’re shifting your team's perspectives and behaviours.
Training | Customer success team coaching |
Deliver information | Align your teams with your goals and purpose |
Often one-off sessions | Monthly, personalised group sessions |
Lacks interaction | Encourages employees to share experiences, feedback and questions |
Short-term process | Long-term investment |
Customer case study: Perkbox
Employee benefits and rewards platform Perkbox approached me for its training services but it became clear the team needed ongoing coaching to embed that training and drive forward commitment to change.
With more than 20 years’ experience in customer success, I delivered customer success team coaching. It started with a monthly coaching call to chat through any results, struggles and wins. With ongoing coaching, the team came together, learning new strategies and commercial skills. I helped them to demonstrate value and build long-lasting relationships with customers, so they could drive renewals for the subscription model.
“Kaptive's workshops and coaching galvanised our team with new skills and a refreshed confidence to tackle renewals strategically, driving improved outcomes and overall satisfaction." Ed Ellis, Former Chief Operating Officer, Perkbox
How CS team coaching works
Whether you want one-to-one customer success coaching for managers/leaders, or whole team coaching (which is very effective), I can help you deliver it with monthly sessions tailored around your business and goals.
Schedule a call
Customer success team coaching starts with a call for you to ask any questions and get to know me and how I work. I’ll also ask questions about your goals, barriers and existing strategies to come up with a tailored plan.
Tailored strategy
Based on the information provided, I’ll will put together a strategy for your team. It typically starts with a series of six sessions that are delivered monthly – this gives you enough time to apply any advice and get feedback.
Monthly coaching sessions
During the coaching, I’ll organise monthly check-ins where you can provide feedback and monitor progress. Your team will have the space to chat through challenges and wins, and I can take action like delivering separate one-to-one sessions.
Evaluation
We can measure the success of the coaching by getting feedback, employee sentiment, customer performance data, your KPIs, or any differences/changes you see in your team. I’ll work with you and can adjust the strategy as we go along.
Build a strong customer success team
If your team isn’t applying learnings from training, that doesn’t mean it’s a failure. Sometimes they need that extra motivation and space to reflect and understand the changes to apply them together.
Behavioural change can’t happen overnight, so start with a series of customer success team coaching sessions to support your team and develop a high-performing customer success team.
