Senior Customer Success Manager

Position Overview

As a Senior Customer Success Manager at SBS, you will be responsible for managing a portfolio of strategic customers while leading, developing and coaching a team of Customer Success Managers.

You will act as a subject matter expert for Customer Success, driving the continued evolution of the Customer Success function and embedding a proactive, value-led approach to customer engagement across SBS. Through strong leadership, coaching and mentoring, you will develop team capability, improve consistency of delivery and ensure Customer Success Managers have the skills, tools and support required to drive measurable customer outcomes.

The role combines customer ownership, people leadership, operational excellence and transformational change. You will work closely with the Head of Customer Success to define and implement the Customer Success operating model, establish best practices and build a high-performing team that contributes directly to customer retention, growth and long-term success for SBS.

• Location: Bristol, UK
• Work model: Hybrid

Responsibilities

• Customer Success transformation: Partner with the Head of Customer success to define and execute the customer Success strategy and operating model.
• Team leadership & people management: Provide day-to-day leadership to a team of Customer Success Managers, ensuring clear priorities, accountability and alignment to departmental objectives.
• Business alignment: Establish trusted-advisor relationships with across the organization; align Customer Success Plans (CSPs) with account priorities and translate them into actionable programs of work.
• Client engagement & governance: Act as the primary client contact and lead the governance cadence with the customer: operational syncs, service reviews, business reviews and executive reviews, keeping stakeholders aligned, tracking progress and steering joint decisions.
• Onboarding & Build-to-Run transition: Support Professional services teams, consolidate Build-phase updates and represent SBS as the primary client touchpoint during the transition, ensuring governance continuity into early Run.
• Usage & adoption: Track adoption of SBS offerings, identify areas for improvement, drive usage, and proactively monitor retention and churn to address risks early (leveraging AI-powered analytics).
• Incident & escalation management: Lead SBS representation during critical incidents and escalations, ensuring stakeholder alignment and effective coordination of internal teams through to resolution.
• Customer satisfaction action plans: Lead the execution of health initiatives, planning, customer-facing reviews, prioritization and follow-through to improve overall satisfaction.
• Value communication & renewals: Communicate the value of contracted SBS offerings so clients continue to renew and expand and support the renewal process and customer references.
• Cross-functional orchestration: Align with Professional Services, , Operations, and engineering to ensure consistent, streamlined communication with the client.
• Commitment tracking & fulfilment: Keep track of the commitments made to the client, contractual and operational and verify they are delivered against the agreed scope, timelines and quality, proactively flagging and following up on any gaps
• Growth enablement: Work in tandem with Account Management to surface usage risks, unmet needs and expansion opportunities (commercial negotiation remains with AM / Sales).
• Voice of the customer & reporting: Capture and share client insights and Business expectation internally; produce clear reviews and documentation, including follow-up actions.
• Client intimacy: Travel to client sites as required to build trusted client relationship

Qualifications

• Significant experience in Customer Success, Service Delivery, Account Management or a related customer facing leadership role.
• Experience leading organisation or functional transforma