The business world is notorious for an obsession with getting more customers in the door while paying less attention to keeping them. To retain customers and increase customer lifetime value, you not only must provide customer support, but you must also build long-term relationships that result in customer success.

While customer success and customer support initiatives may seem similar, there are some key differences between them. While customer success and customer support go hand in hand, customer success focuses on the long-term relationship between your company and your customers. Customer support is reactive, whereas customer success is more proactive.

In this article, we'll help you understand the critical distinctions between customer success and customer support functions and examples of how to implement both in your business.