What Is Champion?
A champion is the internal advocate at the customer organization who actively supports and promotes your product, often serving as the primary point of contact for the CS team.
Champions are the people inside your customer's organization who care about your product's success. They championed the original purchase, they promote adoption internally, and they defend the renewal when budget discussions happen. Losing a champion is one of the top predictors of churn.
Champions are not always the person who signed the contract. They are the people who use the product daily, see its value, and advocate for it to colleagues and leadership. In some accounts, the champion and the economic buyer are the same person. In others, they are different stakeholders with different motivations.
Identifying and Nurturing Champions
Look for engagement signals: frequent product usage, participation in training, attendance at user groups, responsiveness to CSM outreach, and proactive communication about feature requests or expansion needs. These behaviors indicate someone who is personally invested in the product's success.
Nurture champions by helping them look good internally. Share ROI data they can present to their leadership. Invite them to advisory boards and customer events. Give them early access to features. When your champion can demonstrate value to their organization, their advocacy strengthens and the account becomes more secure.
Champion Risk Management
Champion departure is one of the highest-risk events for any account. The person who loved your product leaves, and their replacement may prefer a different tool or have no context on why your product was chosen. Multi-threading (building relationships with multiple stakeholders) is the primary mitigation strategy.
When you learn a champion is leaving, activate immediately. Get an introduction to their successor before they depart. Ensure knowledge transfer happens. If possible, ask the departing champion to brief their replacement on the product's value and the relationship history. The transition window is narrow. Once they are gone, reconnecting is much harder.
Track champion status in your CS platform. Who is the champion for each account? When were they last engaged? Have they changed roles recently? Systematic champion tracking turns a relationship dependency into a manageable risk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a champion in customer success?
A champion is the internal advocate at your customer's organization who actively supports, promotes, and defends your product. They are often the primary CSM contact and play a critical role in adoption, renewal, and expansion decisions.
What happens when a champion leaves?
Champion departure is one of the highest churn risks. The successor may not value your product or may prefer alternatives. Mitigation strategies include multi-threading (building relationships with multiple stakeholders) and immediate outreach during the transition.
How do you build champions?
Help them succeed internally. Share ROI data they can present to leadership, invite them to advisory boards, give them early feature access, and make them look good. Champions grow when they see personal and professional value in advocating for your product.