How Will a Client Success Manager Benefit Your Business?
As First Steps Financial has grown over the last 10 years, one thing has remained important — our clients’ experience with us and the service they receive.
Throughout the last decade, our company has changed from working with small solopreneurs to larger firms with employees. No matter the size, we still want everyone we encounter to have an amazing experience with us from the get-go. First impressions are everything. That is why we are using a Client Success Manager.
What is a Client Success Manager?
The role of a Client Success Manager (CSM) is to be accountable for the client experience, understanding the client’s needs, and solving long term problems.
- They are responsible for managing interactions between customers and the company and act as an advocate for customer-facing employees.
- They are a guide for new and existing clients through the onboarding process — fostering customer retention by ensuring a smooth customer journey as well as training employees on how to provide excellent customer service.
- CSMs actively collect and analyze data to improve customer service through surveys and meetings with clients.
How do they help?
Client Success Managers (CSM) reach out to new clients within 3 months of the engagement with a survey and a short meeting. This ensures that all promises extended in a proposal are met and reviews areas where we can improve. The will then communicate with the the team to let them know what steps they need to take to ensure a harmonious relationship.
If someone on your team thinks there may be an opportunity to serve a client better or discovers an issue with a service, the CSM is the perfect person to go to. This will allow the team to stay in their role and the CSM to take over with their excellent resolution skills.
From the client’s perspective, having a Client Success Manager means they have more people looking out for them and the welfare of their company without having to manage them. Not to mention, they have another resource they can go to if there’s an issue or if they have a question.
A great Client Success Manager is the perfect solution to achieve the highest quality of customer care, without putting more on the plates of your team. Hiring a CSM means you’ll have someone to conduct careful monitoring of team training, ample client interactions and problem solving, adding benefits for all parties involved.
Are you ready to take the plunge and add a CSM to your team?
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1. Your Financial Reports Never Match Reality If statements show healthy margins, but the bank balance feels tight, something is off. This disconnect often points to missing entries, timing issues, or misclassified transactions. Start by reconciling accounts monthly. Compare statements against source documents such as invoices, receipts, and bank activity. Consistency creates trust in the numbers and reduces surprises when reviewing performance. 2. You Are Always Behind on Updates When records lag weeks or months behind, visibility disappears. Decisions become guesses rather than informed choices. Create a recurring schedule for updates. Weekly or biweekly check-ins keep information current and manageable. Smaller intervals also make it easier to catch errors early, before they compound into larger issues. 3. Expense Categories Keep Changing Frequent shifts in how costs are labeled make trends impossible to track. Without consistency, comparing periods lose meaning. Establish a clear chart of categories and stick to it. Adjust only when operations evolve in a meaningful way. Stable classifications help reveal spending patterns and support better planning. 4. You Rely on Your Bank Balance Alone Checking available cash may feel sufficient, but it only tells part of the story. Outstanding invoices, upcoming obligations, and recurring commitments are invisible without proper reporting. Use cash flow summaries to understand timing. Seeing inflows and outflows together provides clarity and reduces stress during slower periods. Awareness supports proactive choices instead of reactive ones. 5. Corrections Happen Only During Year-End Waiting until the end of the year to clean up records can feel efficient, yet it often creates confusion and rushed fixes. Important insights are lost along the way. Build in periodic reviews. Quarterly assessments allow adjustments while details are still fresh. This habit improves accuracy and reduces the burden of large-scale corrections later. Turning Clarity Into Confidence Addressing these red flags takes time and discipline, but the payoff is control. Reliable records support smarter pricing, steadier cash management, and calmer leadership. First Steps Financial partners with organizations that want clarity without adding internal strain. Through fractional bookkeeping and financial consultation, our team helps bring structure, consistency, and insight to financial systems so leaders can focus on running their operations with confidence. If you are ready to replace uncertainty with clarity, let’s connect .
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