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The differences between customer success managers and product managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 6-8 years to become a customer success manager, becoming a product manager takes usually requires 8-10 years. Additionally, a product manager has an average salary of $111,729, which is higher than the $93,820 average annual salary of a customer success manager.
The top three skills for a customer success manager include client facing, cloud and account management. The most important skills for a product manager are product management, QA, and product strategy.
| Customer Success Manager | Product Manager | |
| Yearly salary | $93,820 | $111,729 |
| Hourly rate | $45.11 | $53.72 |
| Growth rate | 5% | 10% |
| Number of jobs | 95,053 | 125,678 |
| Job satisfaction | - | 5 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 78% | Bachelor's Degree, 72% |
| Average age | 46 | 39 |
| Years of experience | 8 | 10 |
A customer success manager works to understand repeat customers and prioritize their long-term needs. Primarily, they manage the customer relationship and give them prompt value propositions. They act as mentors to customers by educating them about the sales process and ensure efficient transaction processing. Their tasks include advocating for the company, onboarding customers to the products, follow-up on renewals, and encouraging cross-sells and upsells. Additionally, they build relationships with the customer and the support team as well as advocating customers' needs.
A product manager is responsible for ensuring product development, providing the best marketing strategies, and effectively handling the sales and marketing team. Product managers' duties include monitoring the market trends and conditions, identifying business opportunities and plan initiatives, and collaborating the product launch process with the appropriate departments. A product manager is also responsible for generating ideas on improving product features, determining timetables and reasonable pricing, and analyzing product sales. A product manager must have excellent strategic and decision-making skills to contribute to its growth and profitability.
Customer success managers and product managers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Customer Success Manager | Product Manager | |
| Average salary | $93,820 | $111,729 |
| Salary range | Between $61,000 And $142,000 | Between $81,000 And $152,000 |
| Highest paying City | Redwood City, CA | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | California | California |
| Best paying company | VMware | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Retail |
There are a few differences between a customer success manager and a product manager in terms of educational background:
| Customer Success Manager | Product Manager | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 78% | Bachelor's Degree, 72% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Pennsylvania | University of Georgia |
Here are the differences between customer success managers' and product managers' demographics:
| Customer Success Manager | Product Manager | |
| Average age | 46 | 39 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 54.9% Female, 45.1% | Male, 65.3% Female, 34.7% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 3.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 4.1% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% | Black or African American, 3.0% Unknown, 5.3% Hispanic or Latino, 8.7% Asian, 8.2% White, 74.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 10% |