Customer Success Management
The USF Customer Success Management CAP is your gateway to excelling in the rapidly growing Customer Success profession and related fields. Combining targeted coursework, company visits, interactive workshops, and real-world consulting projects, this Career Accelerator Platform prepares you for dynamic roles in Customer Success, Product Management, Business Development, and Product Marketing within the thriving technology industry.
Required Two Classes
CAP-Focus Classes
For students interested in careers in customer success management
- Market Research Methods
- Product Management
- Predictive Analytics
- Coding for Analytics
- Marketing Analytics
CAP Overview
The Customer Success Management (CSM) CAP equips students with the expertise and mindset to excel as trusted business advisors, skilled analysts, and strategic partners. With a focus on customer-facing activities, processes, and data, students develop the tools to drive retention, loyalty, and growth.
Leveraging USF’s prime location and deep connections in the Bay Area’s thriving tech ecosystem, the CSM CAP emphasizes opportunities within subscription-based business models. Students learn to systematically enhance the customer experience to retain clients, create impactful success stories, and grow revenue through account expansion and new customer acquisition. Graduates leave with the skills to make this happen—and the vision to make an impact.
Faculty
Professor Vijay Mehrotra serves as a professor of Business Analytics at the University of San Francisco, where he has recently developed an innovative module for his MBA students that is focused on Customer Success Management (the first such academic program in the world).
CSM Student Consulting Projects
Customer Success Management Student Consulting Projects provide value for both the students in this CAP and for the companies that they work with. Past projects have included analysis of customer churn data, examination of Net Promoter Score trends and drivers, and evaluation of customer profitability and product usage patterns. Projects have come from large organizations (including McKesson, Charles Schwab, and Sage/Intacct) and also from mid- and early-stage companies.
Project Cycle Example
- “Pitch Presentations” From Clients
February 4–15 - Students Assigned to Teams and Clients
February 18 - Project Kickoff Meetings
February 19–25 - Statement of Work Approved by Clients and Professor
March 1 - Weekly Project Status Meetings (with Professor) and Check-Ins (with Lead Client Contact)
March 1 – May 3 - Mid-Project Status Presentation to Clients Client Feedback to Project Teams
April 1–5 - Final Presentations to Clients
May 13–17
Additional Student Project Opportunities
The CSM program also has MBA students working on Innovation Projects throughout the year. Please check with Professor Mehrotra (vmehrotra@usfca.edu) if interested in exploring other possibilities.
Company Participation FAQs
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Each client company is required to designate a primary Point of Contact (POC) for the project. The POC will work with the project team to determine who is needed for the project kick-off meeting and for the final project presentation and to coordinate other activities (most notably data delivery and quick feedback on preliminary results). An important part of our process is teaching the students to respect their client’s time and efficiently collaborate with the POC.
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Except for occasional meetings, the bulk of the project work will take place at the USF Campus in downtown San Francisco.
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Our students and faculty take client confidentiality very seriously. If needed, we will usually be happy to sign non-disclosure documents (and can provide examples from past projects if needed).
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Our teams work diligently with clients to ensure that results, knowledge, and recommendations are successfully transferred to the client organization. In some cases, students are hired as interns by their clients to continue the project work or to build on their project experience to tackle other challenges.
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We are happy to discuss possibilities with you. Please contact Professor Vijay Mehrotra (vmehrotra@usfca.edu) with any questions that you might have.