Customer Experience vs Customer Success: Differences and How They Complement Each Other [2026]
Customer Experience and Customer Success are two disciplines mentioned together constantly, but that operate on different planes. Confusing them--or worse, believing one replaces the other--is a strategic error that ends up costing retention and revenue. If you're building your customer operation and don't have clarity on where CX ends and CS begins, this article gives you the eight key differences, a comparison table and the explanation of why you need both working in a coordinated way. For a complete view of customer success as a discipline, check our guide on Customer Experience.
Quick Definitions: CX and CS Are Not the Same
Customer Experience (CX) is the overall perception a customer has of your brand across ALL touchpoints: from the first ad they see, through the website, the purchase process, onboarding, product usage, support and renewal. It's the total sum of every interaction, every emotion and every impression. CX encompasses marketing, sales, product, support, billing and any other department that touches the customer directly or indirectly. It's broad by definition: it covers the complete lifecycle.
Customer Success (CS) is a proactive and deliberate strategy focused on the customer ACHIEVING the specific objectives for which they hired your product. The focus is not perception or emotion, but measurable results: product adoption, achievement of business KPIs and value expansion. CS operates fundamentally in the post-sale phase and is managed by a dedicated team led by a CSM (Customer Success Manager).
The fundamental difference: CX is broader--it encompasses the entire company and the entire customer journey--while CS is deeper--it concentrates on guaranteeing the customer obtains concrete results with the product. CX asks "how does the customer feel"; CS asks "is the customer achieving what they need". If you want to dive deeper into what customer success exactly is, check what is Customer Success.
Comparison Table: 8 Differences between CX and CS
| Aspect | Customer Experience (CX) | Customer Success (CS) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Entire company, all departments | Post-sale, focused on product |
| Focus | Perception, emotion, overall satisfaction | Results, customer's business objectives |
| Responsible | CX team, Chief Experience Officer, entire organization | CSM, VP of Customer Success, CS team |
| Key metrics | NPS, CSAT, CES (Customer Effort Score) | Churn Rate, NRR (Net Revenue Retention), Customer Health Score |
| Touchpoints | All (marketing, sales, product, support, billing) | Product + support + onboarding |
| Applicable to | B2B and B2C equally | Mainly B2B and SaaS |
| Reactive / Proactive | Both: measures past experiences and designs future ones | Mainly proactive: anticipates risk and activates interventions |
| Main impact | Brand, satisfaction, competitive differentiation | Retention, revenue expansion, LTV |
The eight rows reveal that CX and CS look at the customer from complementary angles. CX is the strategic umbrella that covers how the customer feels at each moment. CS is the tactical execution that guarantees the customer obtains concrete value from the product. CX without CS is perception without substance. CS without CX is efficiency without emotion. Both combined build a relationship that retains, expands and generates promoters.
A detail that's often overlooked: CX metrics (like NPS or CSAT) measure customer perception at a given moment. CS metrics (like Churn Rate or NRR) measure impact on business over time. You can have a high NPS and still lose customers if nobody is ensuring they achieve their objectives. And you can have an impeccable CS team that crashes against a chaotic purchase experience that drives customers away before they reach post-sale.
How CX and CS Complement Each Other
CX creates perception. CS delivers value. When they work aligned, the result is a customer who is not only satisfied but is achieving what they came for--and knows it.
Practical example: imagine a SaaS project management company. The CX team designs a smooth onboarding, with an intuitive interface, personalized welcome emails and clear documentation. The customer feels well attended from minute one--that's CX. Now, the CSM assigned to that account schedules a kickoff call one week after signup, reviews the customer's specific objectives (reduce delivery delays by 30%), configures personalized dashboards and establishes monthly check-ins to measure progress--that's CS.
Without the good onboarding experience (CX), the customer arrives frustrated at the first call with the CSM and the relationship starts uphill. Without the proactive CSM (CS), the nice onboarding experience dilutes in two weeks when the customer doesn't know how to extract real value from the product. One without the other is insufficient. Together, the result is a successful customer who renews, expands and recommends. To understand how CS differs from reactive support, check Customer Success vs Support.
Organizational Structure: Who Leads CX and Who Leads CS
In large (enterprise) companies, CX and CS are usually separate departments with independent but coordinated leadership.
CX typically reports to the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) or VP of Marketing. Their team includes experience designers, voice of customer (VoC) analysts, UX researchers and NPS managers. They work cross-functionally with all departments because customer experience doesn't live in one place--it lives in every interaction.
CS reports to the VP of Customer Success or Chief Customer Officer (CCO). Their team consists of CSMs (Customer Success Managers), account health data analysts and onboarding specialists. They work closely with product and support because their focus is post-sale.
In small companies and SaaS startups, the reality is that the same team--sometimes the same person--manages both functions. And that's fine. What matters is not having two separate departments, but having the distinction clear: one thing is designing how the customer feels at each touchpoint (CX) and another is ensuring they achieve their objectives with the product (CS). You can do it with one person or a hundred, but the mindset must be different. If you're just starting, check the customer success metrics to know what to measure from day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Customer Experience and Customer Success the same thing?
No. Customer Experience is the customer's overall perception at all touchpoints with the company. Customer Success is the proactive strategy for the customer to achieve specific results with the product. CX is broader; CS is deeper. They're complementary, not synonymous.
Which department should I create first, CX or CS?
If you're a B2B SaaS company, start with CS: you need to retain customers and reduce Churn Rate before optimizing the overall experience. If you're B2C or sell consumer products, start with CX: brand perception and purchase experience are your first differentiator. In both cases, the second department should arrive in the next 6-12 months. To learn how to build the customer success operation, check our guide on Customer Success.
Can CX and CS be measured together?
Yes, and you should. NPS is a metric that connects both worlds: it measures customer perception (CX) and predicts retention (CS). Combine NPS with Customer Health Score and you'll have a complete view: how the customer feels AND if they're obtaining value. Tools like Gainsight or Totango allow consolidating both perspectives in a single dashboard.
CX and CS don't compete: they enhance each other. GuruSup deploys AI agents on WhatsApp that improve customer experience by automating immediate responses (CX) while monitoring satisfaction and escalating to humans when the customer needs strategic attention (CS). One channel, two disciplines solved. Try GuruSup free and unify your customer operation.
