4 Keys to Sales & Customer Success Synergy

Customer Success and Sales

How to align with your Sales Counterparts to create synergy and success

In Tech and SaaS companies, Sales and CSM teams are bound to a constant collaboration. Sales teams bring the new customer (new revenue) to the organization and CSM teams take over that new customer to build, maintain and further the relationship during the entire contract cycle. When this is done right, the customer naturally stays and renews with the organization, sometimes adding more to their current product package. This is the reason why a harmonious collaboration is important between Sales and CSMs to achieve this common goal, to keep a customer for life. In this post, we’ll cover how to foster a win-win relationship between both teams resulting in a happy and renewing customer in a thriving and flourishing company that works for  both teams.

Sales is at the origin of the new customer, the new revenue to your organization. Through their hard work of cold calling, demonstrating, doing PoC (proof of concept) and telling the story of the success that current customers are getting from your organization’s solutions or products, they “closed the deal” and  landed the new customer. This is followed by a handoff of the customer to the CSM who now walks the customer along the journey from product demos to the materialization of business  outcomes. 

Handoff

There are 2 steps to this: the internal handoff and the handoff meeting. The internal handoff happens between the Sales Executive and the Customer Success Manager. During that one-on-one, Sales will provide the full background about the customer leading up to the closing of the sale, the customer’s use-case, the outcome they intend to achieve and any special discounts or promotions that were part of the sale. The handoff meeting happens usually during the formal onboarding between CSM and the customer where the two parties that will now work together, officially meet. Sales should be in that call to make an introduction and to reiterate the outcome the customer desires to reach.

Cadence call

It is not mandatory for the CSM to invite the Sales executive to all cadence calls since sales’ goal is to go after new revenue. However  it is always great for the CSM to keep Sales in the loop to identify future expansions and have sales on the call when needed. Meetings such as Business Reviews (whether quarterly, bi-annually or annually) is a great example of when to add sales to a cadence call.

Expansion

But during the day-to-day collaboration between the customer and CSM, if new opportunities for expansions or add-ons are identified, the CSM should bring Sales back to the conversation. Some tech organizations empower CSMs to lead expansion negotiations, but in most, the sales team is brought back to handle that. Usually, CSM will send a lead to Sales with details of what new add-on the customer wants and Sales will work with the CSM and customer to add that to their existing through addendum.

Conflict resolution

In any human relationship or collaboration, conflict can arise due to disagreement, difference of opinion, conflict of interest, etc. This can also happen between Sales and CSM teams. In Tech organizations, Sales Executives are regarded as “Account Owners'' which confers to them a “leadership role” over any decision making about the customer’s lifecycle. This creates sometimes an uncomfortable situation for the CSM who has to run any major decision by the Sales Executive. The CSM may feel more appropriate to make that decision because of the day-to-day collaboration with the client and the relationship forged. This may lead to bypassing the Sales Executive and making the decision on their own instead.

We have to remember that the Sales quota and (their bottom line) is tied to all the deals they close  and any modifications can have an impact on those numbers. As a courtesy, it is always best to consult with your Sales partners before making any drastic change to the customer’s lifecycle. A good way to do this is to have a regular check-in in the form of cadence or ad-hoc conversations with Sales partners, so you are both aligned. CSMs may have several Sales Executives depending on the size of their organization (and vice-versa) which can be another added task to an already busy workload. However this could go a long way and be the source of a success story for your organization. As a matter of fact, this will show a united team in front of the customer and a sign of the commitment of the whole tech organization to achieving their outcomes. When the new customer successfully completes their first term and renews, then both Sales and CSM can open the champagne and celebrate together while the customer reaps the benefit of the product and sees a great return on investment.

Customer Success Managers and Sales are the main generators of revenue for their organizations, under different scopes. They are the customer-facing teams and do their best to sell the value and demonstrate the value of their product to their customers. And both teams need to collaborate and work together for the best outcomes of their customers, and the growth of their own organization.

Olivier Fiaty is a Senior Customer Success Manager at Camunda where he focuses on strengthening relationships with the Enterprise and Strategic clients in North America in the Process Orchestration field. Olivier is a polyglot and uses French and English among the languages he speaks, to conduct business with his clients. He is well-versed in On-premise and SaaS technologies, having worked in the tech space for over 10 years, and in Customer Success for over 6 years. Outside of work, Olivier is an avid traveler and enjoy flying to exotic destinations with his family, but also loves continuing to explore his city of San Diego in California.

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