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.
Why Champion Matters
Understanding Champion is important for professionals working in customer success. 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. When this concept is applied well, it directly affects how teams retain customers, drive expansion revenue, and reduce churn. Companies that invest in Champion typically see better outcomes in team performance and operational efficiency. It is not a theoretical exercise but a practical priority that shapes daily work across customer-facing teams.
For individual contributors and managers alike, developing depth in Champion opens doors to more strategic roles. Hiring managers in customer success consistently list this as a desired area of knowledge. Professionals who can speak to Champion with specifics rather than generalities stand out in interviews and internal promotions. As the customer success field matures, this is one of the concepts that separates experienced practitioners from newcomers.
How Champion Works in Practice
In most customer success teams, Champion involves a combination of planning, execution, and measurement. The day-to-day reality looks different depending on company size, industry, and team maturity, but the underlying principles remain consistent. Practitioners typically start by assessing the current state, identifying gaps, and building a plan that connects to measurable business outcomes.
Execution requires coordination across departments. Champion does not happen in isolation. Sales, marketing, product, and customer-facing teams all play a role. The most effective practitioners build relationships across these groups and create processes that are easy to follow. Regular reviews and adjustments keep the work aligned with shifting business priorities and market conditions.
Key Skills for Champion
Professionals who work with Champion benefit from building competency in several related areas. The following skills are frequently associated with this concept in customer success roles:
- economic-buyer: Understanding economic-buyer and how it connects to Champion gives you a more complete view of the discipline.
- stakeholder-mapping: Practitioners who understand stakeholder-mapping are better equipped to implement Champion initiatives that stick.
- red-account: red-account is frequently paired with Champion in job descriptions and team charters.
- customer-advocacy: Building skill in customer-advocacy supports the kind of cross-functional work that Champion requires.
- qbr-quarterly-business-review: Teams that combine qbr-quarterly-business-review with Champion tend to see faster adoption and better results.
Getting Started with Champion
If you are new to Champion, these steps will help you build a working foundation:
- Study the fundamentals: Read the definition and key concepts on this page. Look at how Champion is discussed in job postings and industry publications to understand what employers expect.
- Observe how your team handles it today: Before proposing changes, understand the current state. Talk to colleagues in sales, marketing, and customer success about how they experience Champion in their daily work.
- Start with a small project: Pick one specific aspect of Champion and run a focused initiative. Measure the results, document what worked, and share the findings with your team.
- Connect with practitioners: Join customer success communities, attend webinars, and follow practitioners who share real-world examples. Learning from others who have implemented Champion at different companies accelerates your growth.
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. This is a common area of focus for customer success teams working to improve their approach to Champion.
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. This is a common area of focus for customer success teams working to improve their approach to Champion.
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. This is a common area of focus for customer success teams working to improve their approach to Champion.
What tools help with Champion?
Several platforms support Champion workflows, including tools reviewed on The CS Pulse. The right choice depends on your team size, budget, and existing tech stack. Most teams start with the tools they already have and add specialized solutions as their Champion practice matures.
How does Champion affect career growth?
Professionals who develop expertise in Champion are well-positioned for advancement in customer success. This skill is increasingly valued as organizations invest more in their go-to-market operations. Practitioners with a track record of executing Champion initiatives often move into senior and leadership roles faster than peers who lack this experience.