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How Solutions Orgs are evolving to include Post-Sales Activities:
The Xpert Community hosted its first virtual thought leadership discussion, bringing together senior Solutions Leaders to engage with pressing topics.
The topic of the first meeting was how Solutions Orgs are starting to inherit post-sales activities in the new era of the sales-proof buyer. Buyers always want access to experts, and that’s true after the sale as well as during the buying cycle. The old strategy of a distinct line between pre & post sales teams won’t cut it today.
Several of the participants have already started the process of merging pre & post sales teams. A few examples were bringing Solutions Consultants (presales) & Solutions Architects (post-sales) under one team, bringing Solutions Consulting under post-sales leadership, and creating an entire new org containing all Solutions Consultants & all post-teams (TAMs, Support, etc…).
Participants explained the reasoning behind such changes: having these teams roll to one leader meant that team members organically interacted with one another and therefore improved the pre & post sales handoff. As a result, presales starts to better understand what implementations/onboarding looks like and can then better prepare buyers, while post-sales starts to understand the strategic vision better and can therefore articulate it to new customers.
In addition to merging teams, responsibilities have also started to cross the pre & post sales lines.? For example, Solutions Consultants are starting to be involved in some of the initial onboarding. This is not “support,” nor are they the ones doing the implementation; however, they ensure that product and or services are being implemented as discussed in the sales process and that everything’s aligning to the strategic objectives uncovered during discovery.?
Overall, how a Solutions Org approaches inheriting post-sales activities depends on their businesses. Multi-product companies or consumption-focused businesses seemed to trend to leveraging account SCs that lived in both pre & post sales but were supported by product line specialists. Single product companies tended to have SCs primarily stay in the presales side but be involved in some of the initial onboarding and implementation.?
Regardless, a key point is that customers need access to product expertise throughout their entire buying journey. If there’s a consistent contact for that expertise through both pre & post sales,, the result will be happier and more loyal customers.
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