Customer Success and... Sales [Part 2]

Customer Success and Sales are crucial to increasing customer retention and driving upsell opportunities, no news here. We know how they interact to achieve these goals:

1. CS and Sales work together closely to align their strategies and goals to ensure alignment. This collaboration starts from the initial sales process and continues throughout the customer lifecycle.
2. To provide a transparent handoff, once a deal is closed, Sales teams share comprehensive information about the customer's needs, goals, and any specific agreements made during the sales process. CS takes over the onboarding process, ensuring a seamless transition and starting the relationship positively.
3. CS professionals, who have deep insights into the customer's goals and challenges, can proactively identify opportunities where additional products, features, or services could provide value. They can refer these opportunities to the Sales team, who can then engage with the customer to explore these upsell possibilities. CS can support Sales by providing specific use cases, success stories, and data-driven insights to aid in the upsell process.

The obvious aspects are, well... obvious. But we tend to overlook two things:?

1. Both the CS and Sales teams should have a sense of shared ownership for the customer's success. While Sales is primarily responsible for acquiring new customers, Customer Success ensures ongoing satisfaction and retention. However, it's essential to recognize that the ultimate goal is the same: to help the customer achieve their desired outcomes. Emphasizing this shared ownership encourages collaboration, accountability, and a customer-centric mindset across both teams.
2. Incentives and compensation structures for both CS and Sales teams should be aligned to support customer retention and expansion goals. A purely transactional focus on new sales without considering long-term customer success can lead to churn or missed upsell opportunities. Incentives should encourage collaboration, customer-centric behavior, and measurable outcomes that extend beyond the initial sale. This alignment ensures that both teams are motivated to work together to achieve sustainable growth and customer satisfaction.