Customer Success Manager

Overview

You own the post-sale relationship with accounting firms using Basis. Your job is to drive adoption, prove ROI, and expand usage from one use case (e.g., business tax) to multiple (CAS, audit, advisory). You're managing 15-25 firm accounts, working closely with partners, operations leaders, and staff accountants to get value from the AI agents and renew contracts.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Series C equivalent ($1.15B valuation, $100M raise)

Size: 1,453 employees

Growth: Expanding rapidly across Top 150 firms and mid-market

Market Position: Category leader with strong product momentum (shipping new agent capabilities)

GTM Reality

Your Mandate:

• 60% Adoption/Retention - get firms using Basis consistently, prove ROI, renew contracts
• 40% Expansion - identify new use cases, upsell additional modules (tax → CAS → audit), cross-sell to other practice areas within the firm

Support Structure:

• Implementation team handles initial onboarding (first 60-90 days)
• You take over once they're live and using the product
• Access to Solutions Engineers for technical escalations and expansion demos
• Support team handles day-to-day troubleshooting

Competitive Landscape

Churn Risks:

• Firms don't see ROI fast enough (adoption is low, staff aren't using it)
• AI accuracy issues erode trust
• Change management fails (partners or staff resist)
• Competing priorities (mergers, leadership changes, budget cuts)

Expansion Opportunities:

• Start with one use case (e.g., business tax), expand to others (CAS, audit)
• One practice area using it successfully → other practice areas want it
• Mid-market firms growing into enterprise features

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Client Meetings/QBRs (35%) | Adoption/Training (25%) | Expansion Selling (20%) | Internal Coordination (20%)

Key Activities

• Driving adoption: Working with operations leaders and staff to integrate Basis into their workflows. This means training sessions, workflow reviews, troubleshooting why usage is low, and addressing concerns from staff who are skeptical or resistant.
• Proving ROI: Running reports on time saved, workbooks completed, error rates, and presenting results to partners in QBRs. You need to show concrete value to justify renewal and expansion.
• Managing escalations: When the AI makes an error or produces unexpected results, you're the first call. You triage, work with product/engineering to diagnose, and manage client expectations while it's resolved.
• Identifying expansion opportunities: In your regular check-ins, you're listening for pain points in other service lines ("CAS is killing us this quarter" = expansion opportunity). You bring in an SE to demo, build a business case, and close the expansion deal.
• Navigating firm politics: Accounting firms are partnerships with distributed decision-making. One practice area might love Basis while another is skeptical. You're building relationships across the firm and managing consensus-building.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Change management is messy: Staff accountants worry about job security. Partners worry about client reactions. Getting buy-in across the firm is slow and requires constant reinforcement.
• Adoption doesn't happen automatically: Even after a successful sale, getting staff to actually use Basis consistently is hard. You'll spend a lot of time coaching, troubleshooting, and following up.
• You own the outcomes: If a firm isn't seeing value, it's on you to figure out why and fix it - even if it's a product limitation or the firm's internal dysfunction.
• Busy season chaos: Tax season (Jan-April) is when your clients need Basis most, but it's also when they're least available for training or expansion conversations. You need to plan around their calendar.
• Accuracy issues are high-stakes: When the AI makes a mistake (and it will occasionally), clients lose trust fast. You need to respond quickly and professionally to prevent escalation.

What Success Looks Like

• 95%+ gross retention (renewals)
• 110-120% net retention (renewals + expansions)
• Clients actively using Basis across multiple use cases and seeing measurable productivity gains
• Becoming a trusted advisor to partners and ops leaders - they call you for advice, not just problems
• Building case studies and references from your happiest clients

Who You're Working With

Primary Contacts:

• Managing Partners (economic buyer - you present ROI to them in QBRs)
• COO/Operations Director (your main day-to-day contact - owns adoption and expansion decisions)
• Staff accountants and managers (end users - you train them and help optimize workflows)
• IT/Security (occasional contact for integrations or security questions)

What They Care About:

• Partners: Are we getting ROI? Will this help us grow without adding headcount? What are the risks?
• Operations: Is adoption actually happening? Are we hitting productivity targets? What's not working?
• Staff: Is this making my job easier or harder? Can I trust it? Will this replace me?

Requirements

• 3-5 years in customer success, account management, or consulting (ideally with technical products)
• Experience managing complex B2B accounts with multiple stakeholders and long adoption cycles
• Strong change management and training skills - you're coaching people through workflow changes
• Comfortable with data and ROI analysis - you need to quantify value and present it credibly
• Ability to identify and close expansion opportunities (this isn't pure CSM - you're selling)
• Patience and persistence - adoption takes time and you'll face resistance
• Ideally some familiarity with accounting, professional services, or workflow automation (they'll train you, but it helps)
• Comfortable in a fast-moving, high-expectations environment