Should Customer Success Managers Sell?

Yes and no.

Customer success managers are selling to their customers everyday. Customer Success Managers sell their customers on the solution’s value and walk their customers through a process to help the customer achieve their desired outcomes.

Account executives also sell their customers on the solution’s value, but account executives walk customers through a buying process to make a purchasing decision which will help the customer achieve their desired outcomes.

Customer Success Managers -> Manage Adoption and Retention Process

Account Executives -> Manage Negotiation and Purchase Process

The nuance is subtle but substantial. There is a different set of skills for helping customers make a purchasing decision versus helping customers adopt and realize value from a product. You don’t want your customer success managers or account executives to straddle both skillsets.

So, yes, customer success managers should be learning and utilizing sales skills and techniques, but the customer success manager should be using those selling techniques to help the customers adopt, retain, and expand.

A customer success manager should not be managing the the negotiation and purchasing process for a client. An account executive should be managing that process.

In terms of compensation, customer success managers should be compensated on managing successful retention and growth, while account executives should be compensated on managing the customer purchase process. This is typical to most SaaS companies- account executives are paid commissions on new sales quotas, and customer success managers are paid bonuses based on target retention number.

The two skillsets overlap, but separating the two functions enables both teams to specialize and better serve the customer. You don’t want a customer success manager dealing with product demos, purchase orders, and contract negotiations. Likewise, you don’t want your account executive worrying about technical product details, onboarding tasks, and product adoption.

Sales in customer success is a bit of a hot topic, and this has been my thought process on the subject. I would love to hear your feedback and what you have seen work.

Thanks for reading.