How does a Customer Success Manager work with other teams?

What is cross functional collaboration? As a Customer Success Manager, your goal is to be the main point of contact and resource for your client. Oftentimes, you will not have the answer and will need to work with many different roles and departments to ensure your client has an exceptional experience. This means that you will collaborate cross-functionally to provide your clients with updates and solutions. Some common groups of people that you will work with are listed below:

Account Executive

The Account Executive on the Sales team secures new business and he/she is typically incentivized to keep the account engaged and happy through the lifecycle of the client’s journey. Since it costs more money to acquire a new customer versus keeping an existing customer happy and growing, the AE or Account Manager will be invested in working with the CSM to keep the customer satisfied.

Some examples of collaboration include expanding the account into a new division or subsidiary, getting a reference for a new customer or asking the customer for a referral from their network.

Implementation/Onboarding Manager

Once a client goes through onboarding and is ready to launch the product or service to their team, they are handed off to the Customer Success team to maintain and support the client from adoption through maturity of the lifecycle. You may continue to work with the Implementation team in the early stages to ensure the account has a smooth transition and processes that were introduced in training were implemented.

An example of how you would work with an Onboarding Manager is a Transition call to hand off the account or sharing strategies on how to resolve change management issues with the product rollout.

Product

As the client matures, they will have product feedback based on how they are currently using the system or service for their organization. This may mean a critical feature is missing or an improvement is needed that could also benefit other clients. The product team will rely heavily on the CSM for direct communication on product feedback to help improve the experience of the customer.

Examples of how you would work with the Product team is having your client participate in a product beta or focus group asking for product feedback on a new feature or design.

Marketing

The marketing team is responsible for promoting the brand and attracting new customers. They will work with the CSM to find happy and loyal customers who can become brand advocates or loyalists.

Some ways that you would work with Marketing would be to introduce clients who would participate in a Case Study, partner with the team in a marketing video or be a Brand Ambassador.