Exostar is seeking a Manager of Customer Success to lead the team serving small and medium-sized businesses using Exostar Managed on Microsoft 365 and CMMC Ready Suite solutions. You will be accountable for team performance, customer adoption, and retention across the SMB business line, helping defense suppliers make secure collaboration part of everyday work and progress toward CMMC readiness.
This is a hands-on people leadership role. You will hire and coach Customer Success Managers, establish consistent operating practices, and build programs that serve a growing customer base efficiently. Working with Sales, Solutions Consulting, Onboarding, Professional Services, Product, Support, and Operations, you will align the team around customer outcomes and sustainable growth.
Responsibilities: Your day if you join us:- Lead, hire, onboard, and develop the SMB Customer Success team. Set clear goals and performance expectations, provide regular coaching and feedback, and build individual development plans.
- Translate SMB business objectives into team priorities for adoption, retention, customer satisfaction, and expansion. Review results with leadership and take action where performance falls short.
- Design the SMB customer engagement model, including account segmentation, coverage, outreach cadence, and escalation paths. Balance individual attention with group education and digital engagement.
- Establish consistent success plans, onboarding handoffs, and adoption milestones. Partner with delivery teams to remove activation barriers and shorten the time to customers' first productive use.
- Build repeatable lifecycle programs, including welcome communications, administrator training, office hours, webinars, self-service resources, and renewal preparation. Use engagement and usage data to refine these programs.
- Run regular portfolio health and renewal risk reviews. Coach CSMs on recovery plans, ensure actions have clear owners, and escalate recurring barriers to the appropriate leaders.
- Own the Customer Success contribution to renewal readiness and retention forecasting. Partner with Sales on renewal execution and qualified expansion opportunities based on customer needs and realized value.
- Serve as the management escalation point for customer concerns. Coordinate Support, Operations, and other teams on resolution plans, customer communications, and follow-up to prevent repeat issues.
- Equip CSMs to explain purchased solution capabilities, approved CUI workflows, and shared responsibilities. Coordinate technical and compliance specialists to support readiness milestones within the customer's contracted services.
- Manage team capacity and account assignments using portfolio size, customer complexity, lifecycle stage, and workload. Recommend staffing, tools, and process changes that support service quality and efficiency.
Establish CRM and customer success reporting standards. Maintain reliable dashboards and bring recurring customer feedback to Product and leadership to improve the SMB experience.
Qualifications: You are a great fit for this role if youRequired:
- 5 or more years of experience in customer success, account management, or related post-sale roles supporting SaaS, managed IT, or cybersecurity solutions, including at least 2 years of direct people management.
- Experience leading a team serving SMB customers, with a record of improving adoption, retention, and customer experience across a portfolio of accounts.
- Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, evaluate, and develop customer-facing employees while holding the team accountable for measurable results.
- Experience building repeatable customer lifecycle processes and scalable engagement programs, including customer segmentation, onboarding handoffs, health scoring, and renewal risk management.
- Ability to use customer and commercial data to identify trends, forecast risk, prioritize team activity, and communicate performance to leadership.
- Working familiarity with Microsoft 365 collaboration tools, including Teams and SharePoint, and foundational concepts in identity, access management, and secure information sharing.
- Foundational understanding of Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), CMMC, and NIST SP 800-171, with the ability to coach customer conversations and engage qualified specialists.
- Strong communication, cross-functional leadership, and escalation management skills, including the ability to explain technical topics to business owners and customers with limited IT resources.
- Experience using CRM, customer success, and support systems to manage team workflows, customer health, and reporting.
Preferred Qualifications:You are exactly who we are looking for if you:
- Experience supporting aerospace and defense suppliers, the Defense Industrial Base, or other regulated SMB markets.
- Familiarity with Microsoft 365 GCC High, managed secure environments, virtual desktops, or managed security services.
- Exposure to CMMC readiness programs, shared responsibility models, policy management, evidence collection, and assessment preparation.
- Experience scaling an SMB customer success function, improving the cost to serve, or implementing automation and customer education programs.
Location: Herndon, VA, Cincinnati, OH, (Hybrid- 3x/week)
Remote Locations:NC, GA, TX, NJ, PA, IL, DC, MD, OH, FL, SC, CO, IN, WA, NV, CA, MAThe annual base salary range for this position is $150,000k - $175,000k/yr; plus, eligibility for variable commission compensation, however, the final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, skills, qualifications, and location. Exostar also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance, EAP, Flexible Spending Accounts, 401(k) matching, flexible time off and sick leave).
