Head of Customer Success

Imp Software; Exeter; On-site; GBP 54,000 - 66,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

27 days holiday

Maternity/Paternity leave

Health insurance

Broadband allowance

Home office stipend

Life assurance

CPD funding

Job summary

IMP Software Ltd. in Exeter seeks a Head of Customer Success to lead the CS team, ensuring customers derive maximum value from our MAT-first software for school trusts. You will shape how CS collaborates with R&D, Implementations and Account Management, driving health, adoption and renewals.

You will partner with Product and Engineering to anticipate customer needs, set a clear retention strategy and build scalable processes as the company grows, reporting to the Chief Customer Officer.

Qualifications

• Led customer success teams in B2B software or shown impact as a leader.
• Forecasted and planned for customer adoption and value realization.
• Experience coordinating with product, sales and support teams.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the Customer Success team and own customer outcomes.
• Develop retention and adoption plans with cross-functional partners.
• Coordinate go-live handovers and ensure smooth customer journeys.
• Lead regular customer-facing sessions on product direction and adoption.

Skills

Customer success leadership

Strategic thinking

Cross-functional collaboration

Public speaking / webinars

Product storytelling

Tools

HubSpot CRM

Job description

Job Title

Head of Customer Success

Salary

Up to £60,000

About IMP

At IMP we help Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) take control of their finances. Our MAT-first software is built by people who know the sector inside out. Former trust professionals, finance experts and product specialists are all part of our team. More than half of all MATs in the UK already use IMP to plan with confidence, simplify complex processes and make smarter decisions.

We’re proud to be independent, founder-led and growing fast. Alongside our award-winning products, we’ve built a culture we’re equally proud of. We are ranked as one of the UK’s Top 25 Great Places to Work for mid-sized companies. Respect, collaboration and personal growth sit at the heart of how we work. You’ll find flexibility, support and opportunities to develop here, alongside regular team socials and funded CPD.

Role Description

The Head of Customer Success leads the team that makes sure our customers get the value they bought. Once a trust is live on an IMP product, your team is the one thinking about them: whether they are using what they have, whether they are getting results from it, what they will need next, and what might get in the way.

The job in one line: make sure our customers have what they need before they have to ask for it.

As IMP scales, Customer Success becomes its own department with its own Head, separate from Support. This role shapes how it works: what the team does, how it works with Account Management, Support, Implementations and our R&D team, and what good looks like for our customers. You will not inherit a fully formed process. You will take what exists today and build it into one that works as we grow.

You work closely with R&D to know what is coming for each product and what customers will need from it, and you decide what customers should hear, learn and do ahead of a launch, then make it happen. You build the retention plan with the Head of Account Management. This is not a commercial role: renewal and expansion sit with Account Management, and you own the customer health and adoption work behind them.

This is a leadership role. You are accountable for customer outcomes and for the team, and you report to the Chief Customer Officer.

What the role is accountable for:

• Successful customers: every live customer getting the value they bought, with the Customer Success team in front of the ones who need it before they have to ask.
• The health of every live customer: a current read across the whole customer base, so the trusts that need attention are found early and acted on before they tell us.
• Adoption: customers using what they have bought, with depth measured and worked on, not assumed.
• Escalations prevented: problems headed off by a named intervention, not just escalations handled well.
• The go-live handover: the named receiver of each customer handed over from Implementations, with the right to accept it or send it back.
• The retention plan, built jointly with the Head of Account Management: Customer Success owns the health and adoption actions in it; Account Management owns the commercial outcome.
• Customers knowing what is coming: a customer-facing view of each product's direction, kept current with R&D, and a regular rhythm of sessions that keeps live customers engaged and informed.
• Customers staying successful through every product launch: what they need to hear, learn and do, planned and delivered before the launch lands on them.
• A well-led team: clear portfolios, clear priorities, every person managed and developed.

Key responsibilities:

• Have a view of every live customer: what they bought, how they are using it, who at IMP they deal with, and where they are heading.
• Build and run the customer health framework using the data the business already holds: usage, support contact, engagement, renewal timing. Keep the read current across the whole customer base and act on what it shows.
• Set priorities across the Customer Success team's portfolios and move effort to the customers who need it.
• Receive every go-live handover from Implementations: agree the criteria, accept the customer or send the handover back with what is missing.
• Build and run the retention plan with the Head of Account Management, and design how the two teams work together: who contacts which customer, when, and about what.
• Give early warning to Support when a customer pattern shows a product or knowledge problem, and to Account Management when it shows a commercial one.
• Work directly with R&D to understand what is coming for each product, and turn it into something customers can plan around.
• Decide, for each launch and release, what customers need before it reaches them, and get the right people in to deliver it, from Customer Success, Support, Implementations or R&D.
• Run a regular customer-facing rhythm of sessions on product direction and adoption, and own their content and attendance.
• Give Support the customer demand signal ahead of a launch: what customers will ask, when, and in what volume.
• Lead, manage and develop the Customer Success team: portfolios, objectives, one-to-ones, development plans.
• Report monthly to the Chief Customer Officer on customer risk, health, adoption and launches supported, and feed the senior leadership team's view of customer risk.
• Work through tooling rather than by hand: our CRM, our work management tools and AI, so the health picture stays current and the admin stays out of the job.

Skills, experience, and attributes

• You are customer obsessed. You have either led a customer success team in a B2B software business, or you have been an outstanding customer success lead and are ready and hungry to lead a team. Either way, you can show what changed for customers because you were there.
• You think ahead of the customer. You can show where you spotted what customers would need, built it, and delivered it before they asked.
• You are comfortable in a non-commercial seat: you can work alongside a commercial team, build a shared plan with them, and not need to own the number to care about it.
• You have run customer-facing sessions at scale, such as webinars, user groups or product briefings, and you know what makes people turn up and come back.
• You can hold a picture across a whole customer base, spot the ones drifting before they tell you, and act early.
• You can build a process with a peer, agree the boundaries, and hold both teams to them.
• You have worked closely enough with a product team to translate a roadmap into what it means for a customer, and to carry the customer's voice back without losing it.
• You work through tooling and AI by default; a CRM such as HubSpot is an advantage, and appetite matters more than the track record.
• You can lead a small team: set direction, give honest feedback, develop people.
• Experience in education, MAT finance or a comparably regulated sector is welcome, but not essential.

Benefits:

• 27 days of holiday per year plus bank holidays (with a buy option up to an additional5 days)
• Enhance Maternity and Paternity leave
• AXA Health insuranceincluding dental, opticaland mental health
• Broadband allowance
• Home office stipend
• Life assurance (4 x basic salary)
• Encouraged and funded CPD