Too Many Managers

This article has been written with Ekaterina Korneeva (Wrike, Customer Success Manager). Ekaterina is an established professional with more than 4 years of sales and customer service experience.

In modern companies working on subscription-based models, the number of managers communicating with the customer during the different stages of the life cycle has significantly increased. The approach used to be different — companies preferred to take traditional roles (like key account manager or customer support manager) and slightly modify them according to the current needs. As the companies continued to grow and expand, it became clear that the roles had to be fundamentally reviewed and revised. To stay competitive and offer the customers better service, the new roles should be justified and clearly defined.

Sadly, both in Russian and international markets, there is a tendency to follow rather than lead. Instead of studying the best practices and the purpose of each role, when it’s needed, and what area(s) this role needs to cover, companies just rebrand the existing positions with trendy names, only slightly modifying the roles (or not changing them at all). But the nominal change is usually exposed fairly easily. A short conversation on what the “new” role involves makes it clear that the “customer success manager” is really the account manager, and the “deployment consultant” is a customer support specialist.

So let’s take a look at each role and its responsibilities, as well as how these roles can and should complement each other.

First, though, we’d like to stress that in smaller companies (especially startups), an employee can fill several roles. For example, an account manager can partially cover the role of a customer success manager and renewal specialist, while a customer support manager can help with product deployment. This is why we decided to stick with the term “role” rather than “position.” But inevitably, as the company continues to grow, each role eventually is covered by a separate employee. Following are the roles in the order that the client encounters them.

Stage 0: Sales development representative (SDR)

An SDR is the first person the client interacts with. If a client leaves their contact information when subscribing for a trial, the SDR reaches out to them to find out if they have any questions when testing the product. The main goal of this call is to validate the client’s request and see if the lead can be converted into an opportunity. If the answer is “yes,” the SDR transfers this opportunity to the account executive. Usually, The KPIs of SDRs are the number of calls and how many opportunities are created.

Stage 1: Account executive (AE)

In smaller companies, this role may be combined with the SDR role. The AE describes in detail all the benefits of the product and is responsible for delivering the product demos for the decision makers. They also discuss the client’s pain points and requirements so they can recommend the appropriate product version or type.

Some difficult use cases may require help from a deployment consultant and/or a customer success manager. They can help to develop a customized solution for the customer’s problems (for example, building integrations with the systems that are already being utilized by the client, such as CRMs, accounting systems, etc.).

Stage 2: Customer support specialist

This role is unique because the person will interact with the client during the entire customer life cycle (from the trial stage to the end of the subscription). Depending on the product type, the customer support team may fall into several categories:

• Specialists responsible for the main flow of the tickets (calls, live chats, letters, replies to direct mail, etc.)
• Specialists handling difficult technical cases (product bugs, individual help on setting up a certain integration, etc.)

It’s important to note that technical support comes in not only when something is not working, but also with billing issues or general questions about setting up the product. In the latter case, a customer support specialist may forward the request to the customer success manager to handle.

Stage 3: Account manager (AM)

From the moment the client decides to purchase your subscription-based product, the account manager becomes the primary contact for almost all questions. The AM’s role from the business perspective includes finding opportunities for growth and expansion, selling add-ons and subscription upgrades. AMs also help tailor the product to fit the customers’ business processes.

Since customer success managers usually cover only the clients above a certain MRR threshold, the AM helps with product adoption. A professional AM always understands the client’s use cases and is often working in collaboration with other managers (like CSMs and DCs) on the client calls.

Stage 4: Deployment Consultant (DC) aka implementation Specialist

In the ideal scenario, the client and a deployment consultant work together to integrate the product into the client’s business. This process should begin immediately after the purchase. The main goal of a deployment consultant is to implement the product while tailoring it to the customer’s existing processes. This includes such steps as organizing basic product training sessions and creating a plan of usage for the initial stages of adoption.

Many companies consider the services of a DC superfluous and try to proceed without them. Long term, this usually leads to poor product adoption and a significant decrease in the speed of company-wide product implementation. Although the client’s team is relatively small, they may be able to adopt the product without the help of the DC.

Stage 5: Customer success manager (CSM)

In subscription-based organizations, after many clients have been signed, the focus shifts to the retention of clients. Of course, new business opportunities are still explored by AMs and SDRs, but customer retention falls to the CSM.

CSMs work with existing clients and build long-term relationships. Together with the client’s representatives, they come up with a list of goals the customer wants to achieve with the product, and help them achieve those goals.

Also, CSMs are often responsible for finding opportunities to grow and expand the client’s account. These opportunities can vary from increasing the number of seats to switching to a more expensive subscription with additional functionalities. In the majority of companies, CSMs are not authorized to conduct any negotiations on the pricing. After they ascertain the customer’s needs, they forward that information to the AM who initiates the dialogue on this topic.

Stage 6: Renewal Specialist

The name of the role is self-explanatory — the key responsibility of this employee is to renew the client’s subscription. During this process, the specialist explores the opportunities for a price increase and signing up the client for a longer term. Usually, the product’s R&D process requires significant investments that affect the price, but the customer often has the opportunity to “fix” the price by signing a contract for a longer term.

The client usually meets the renewal specialist 3 months before the end of their subscription, and negotiations on price begin 1 month before its end. Sometimes the role of the renewal specialist is covered by the account manager. This may be the case if the client decides to expand or upgrade the subscription and reaches out to the AM in advance. In this case, the renewal specialist may assist only on the technical side (for example sending a quote).

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If you set up all 7 roles correctly, the client will get all the care and attention necessary (and of course, the great product that you’re offering!).

What roles exist in your organization? Let us know — we’d love to hear!