6 Tips to Enhance the Sales and Customer Success Dynamic

Effective collaboration between sales and customer success teams is essential for driving business growth and achieving customer satisfaction. By aligning their efforts and leveraging automation to streamline processes, these teams can provide a seamless experience for customers and address any issues that may arise.

In this article, we share insights from our Director of Sales on how to establish sales and customer success alignment and optimize the relationship  for maximum impact. Here is our 6 tips for effective collaboration between sales and customer success teams

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6 tips for effective collaboration between sales and customer success teams

Actively complimenting each other to the customer

Sales and customer success teams can work together to build and maintain trust by actively complementing each other to the customer. This can involve sharing information and resources, supporting each other's efforts, and presenting a united front. By demonstrating a cohesive and collaborative relationship, both teams can strengthen their relationship with the customer and improve customer satisfaction.

Co-owning goals and KPIs

Setting shared goals can foster a sense of teamwork and drive mutually beneficial results. Sales and customer success teams can set goals for customer satisfaction, retention, or revenue, and work together to achieve them. By co-owning goals and working towards a common mission, both teams can ensure that they are aligned and drive better outcomes for the business and its customers. Examples of specific goals that can be shared between sales and customer success:

• Engagement goals, such as increasing attendance at quarterly business reviews, registering for webinars, or increasing participation in forums.
• Adoption goals, such as increasing usage of a specific product, service, or module.
• Alignment goals, such as combining data on account mapping and influential stakeholders gathered from both teams to ensure a cohesive approach to customer success.

Reading each other's key data and reports

Data and reports are an essential tool for any business, as they provide insights into performance, trends, and areas for improvement. Collaborating through data sharing and analysis can help sales and customer success teams better understand each other's progress and challenges and identify opportunities for improvement. By staying informed through data and reports and discussing key findings, both teams can work together towards common goals and drive better outcomes for the business and its customers.

There are several types of reports that can be used by both sales and customer success teams to stay informed about each other's progress and challenges and identify areas for improvement. Here are a few examples:

• Customer satisfaction report: This report tracks customer satisfaction levels over time and can help identify trends or patterns in customer feedback. Sales and customer success teams can use this report to understand how customers are feeling about the product or service and identify areas for improvement.
• Account health report: This report tracks key metrics related to a customer's account, such as usage, adoption, and retention. Sales and customer success teams can use this report to understand the overall health of a customer's account and identify any potential issues or opportunities for growth.
• Revenue report: This report tracks the revenue generated from a customer's account over time. Sales and customer success teams can use this report to understand the financial health of a customer's account and identify opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.
• Churn report: This report tracks the rate at which customers are canceling their accounts or subscriptions. Sales and customer success teams can use this report to understand the reasons for churn and identify opportunities to improve retention.

Monthly joint team meetings

Regular team meetings can be an effective way for sales and customer success teams to come together and discuss ongoing projects and initiatives, share updates, and identify areas for collaboration. These meetings can also help both teams get to know each other better and share ideas, best practices, and feedback. Overall, monthly joint team meetings can be a valuable tool for fostering teamwork and collaboration between sales and customer success teams and driving better outcomes for the business and its customers.

Singing from the same song sheet

To present a united front to the customer, all team members should work towards a common goal and follow internal playbooks that outline how to approach tasks and interactions with customers. Aligning these playbooks helps sales and customer success teams work towards the same goals and maintain the customer's trust and confidence in the company. This can improve the business's relationship with the customer and drive better results.

To do that properly you need to align on the customer journey and define roles and responsibilities.

Ensuring systems talk to each other

Integrating systems and having a single source of truth can improve efficiency and effectiveness for sales and customer success teams. This helps prevent duplication of efforts, saves time, and improves data accuracy. It also allows all team members to access real-time, updated information from a single source. This can drive better results for the business.

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At EverAfter, we use system integrations to create a shared language for describing what good looks like and to improve efficiency and effectiveness for both the sales and customer success teams. We carefully plan which data points need to be mutually mapped, shared, and monitored, so that relevant data does not have to be consumed in multiple duplicate reports. For example, we use integrations like e4e and Salesforce-Slack to ensure that the right information is being shared between systems in a timely manner. By doing so, we can prevent duplication of efforts and ensure that both teams have access to the most up-to-date information.

Improving the relationship between sales and customer success is crucial for driving company growth and benefiting both teams. By actively collaborating and sharing information, both teams can achieve mutually beneficial results and provide a better experience for customers. By doing so, both teams can not only contribute to the overall success of the company, but also gain more for themselves through improved efficiency and effectiveness.

Most software packages are often associated with one team, such as sales or customer success, which can create ownership gaps between the two teams. However, a customer-oriented platform like EverAfter puts the customer, their journey, and their experience at the center, fostering meaningful customer success and sales collaboration for scaling customer success, sales and the business. By focusing on the customer's needs and goals, both teams can work together to drive successful outcomes, whether that be engagement and adoption, retention, or growth. Through the whole journey with the customer, a customer-oriented platform can drive collaboration and improve outcomes for both the customer and the company.