|
This echoes some of my recent frustrations with customer success organizations to a T. I'll also add in that many customer success organizations feel like the Post-Sell Upsell Sales Team rather than the Make My Customer Successful Team (upsells might be a goal, but it shouldn't feel that way to customers). At most SaaS companies, customer success is designed as a slightly-better support function, rather than a value-added consultative function. This is actually an evolution from the old model, where you'd have a more expensive professional services function that accompanied enterprise software purchases, usually because the implementation itself required a great deal of technical sophistication that the cloud has made obsolete. Customer success managers tend to be lower paid than consultants who have domain expertise and strategic thinking skills. They also typically handle a much larger client load, which makes it hard to invest time in relationships, and have automated their work to the point of annoyance, which makes it hard for them to individualize. On the other hand, it's not always such a great idea for a company, especially a SaaS company looking to make an exit, to have their own professional services function, let alone a paid services function. Consultants are expensive and have much lower margins than software. They also add headcount and bring down valuations when it's time to sell the business. That's why most software companies a partner ecosystem around their software, rather than trying to do it in house. Based on my experience, there are a handful of customer success organizations that get this right. But as a discipline, customer success is still meandering around trying to figure out what it really is. At most companies, the legacy is in a customer support function, not a professional services, consultative sales, or account management function. So that's the level of service you get. I'll be interested to see if they'll respond to feedback like the posters and evolve towards a more consultative model. |