The title on your email signature might say "Chief Customer Officer." But in practice? You’ve inherited something much bigger than a department.
You’ve inherited every breakdown after the close.
Welcome to the CCO seat in 2025, where Customer Success is often reactive, under-leveraged, and misperceived — yet absolutely essential to revenue expansion and company health. You don’t just own post-sale relationships. You own the trust that growth depends on.
Your first 90 days aren’t about jumping into renewals or running QBRs. They’re about repositioning CS as a strategic pillar of GTM — one that drives profit, insight, and influence across the executive table.
And that starts on day one. If you want a proven roadmap for the first 90 days, including how to define your charter, clarify metrics, and rebuild trust across functions, download Pavilion’s CCO onboarding guide and 30-60-90 checklist templates.
The First 30 Days: Map the Reality, Not Just the Journey
Your early instinct may be to fix accounts. But the best new CCOs start by asking: what’s broken in the system?
Start with the data:
- Are NPS, CSAT, and health scores telling the truth?
- Where are onboarding and renewal processes stalling?
- What percent of your book has seen strategic touch in the last quarter?
Then zoom out:
- How clear is segmentation?
- What does a great QBR look like — and how often is it happening?
- Who owns upsells and expansions, and is that consistent?
Inside your team, examine roles and effectiveness. Are CSMs customer champions or account managers? Are they influencing outcomes or managing tasks?
This is your opportunity to spot gaps, silos, and time sinks. Pattern recognition now creates faster clarity later.
Need a mental model for the work? Julie Persofsky, GTM Advisor and Revenue Expert at Metadata, lays it out clearly in her article for Pavilion’s Topline newsletter, The Great Customer Success Identity Crisis. She argues there is no one-size-fits-all model. CS must be designed to reflect your company’s DNA, not someone else’s template.
Days 31–60: Define the Charter, Rebuild the Org
Month two is where your leadership becomes visible. You’ve listened. Now your team and peers are waiting for direction.
Start by clarifying the CS charter:
- What outcomes does your team own?
- What are the non-negotiables in strategic engagement?
- Where does CS lead, and where does it support?
You’ll likely need to reset expectations with Sales, Product, and Marketing:
- Redefine handoffs and ownership for renewals
- Tighten QBR structure and cadence
- Build consistent feedback loops with Product
CS is notorious for murky metrics. Fix that now. Partner with RevOps and Finance to:
- Audit and standardize GRR, NRR, and churn definitions
- Validate health scoring inputs and visibility
- Clarify expansion attribution across teams
Inside the team, this is the time to shift from reactive to proactive:
- Move from generalist to segment-based coverage, if needed
- Rebalance account loads and clarify role expectations
- Train your team to talk about outcomes, not just activity
Pavilion member Allison Munro, Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at Vena Solutions, puts it plainly:
"Bringing in trusted external partners early can create space to assess the team, while accelerating high-impact work with clear goals and measurable outcomes. Your network is your net worth — the right partners extend capacity and scale your impact."
Pavilion’s CCO School offers the strategic frameworks and real-world guidance you need in this moment — from CS org design and customer segmentation to cross-functional stakeholder alignment.
Days 61–90: Deliver Proof, Build Belief
You’ve done the strategy. Now show the shift.
Choose a few visible initiatives that reinforce the model:
- Relaunch onboarding with clearer milestones and ownership
- Activate new QBR templates with top accounts
- Light up health scores for CS and Sales leaders
- Realign portfolios and team assignments around customer value
Your leadership now must extend beyond CS:
- Partner with Sales to co-own expansion and prevent churn
- Team up with Marketing to launch advocacy programs
- Sync with Product to translate feedback into roadmap clarity
By day 90, you want your CEO and your team aligned on one message: CS is no longer a cost center. It’s a strategic growth engine.
What You Were Hired to Do
You weren’t hired to protect revenue. You were hired to operationalize customer value.
The modern CCO is no longer a post-sale afterthought. You’re the truth-teller, the integrator, and the signal that customer outcomes — not just acquisition — drive sustainable growth.
Get this right in your first 90 days, and you won’t just extend lifetime value. You’ll extend your company’s momentum.
Explore the full CCO onboarding guide and 30-60-90 plan, built by Pavilion’s global community of customer leaders, to make your ramp count.
