Customer Success vs Account Management

The two functions are fundamentally different in role, purpose and skillset, yet often get bundled together. Here's why that shouldn't be the case.

Once you've answered the existential question 'should we have a customer success team?' (hint: the answer is most likely 'yes') next it is important to understand why the Customer Success role and function is different from that of Account Management, and why the two can co-exit and are mutually exclusive.

The Important Questions

Your company will regularly review it's business, structure and customer base and often this will result in an organisational structure change or strategic shift in focus. The question may come "should we have a Customer Success team and an Account Management team? can't we have one team do both functions? why don't we have just one, we don't need the other." The reality is, they have different purposes and the answer is not 'either, or'.

The reason, need and purpose for a Customer Success and Account Management function may change over time and you could find yourself emphasising one over the other depending on the stage of company lifecycle you are in. It is ok to change as it will depend on a number of factors.

• How many customers you have, their size, spend, use case, vertical/industry?

• How complex or strategic the sale or renewal cycle is, whether it is Sales led vs Product Led?

• How technical the product itself is, does it require heavy implementation effort or assistance, specialist knowledge or frequent or custom changes?

• How aggressive are the sales/financial/growth targets and goals of the business and where do we have emphasis and priority?

• Do we know why the customer bought our product, do we have an ideal customer profile or personas that we successfully sell to?

• Do we have any gaps in how we are able to assist our customers at any point along the customer lifecycle?

The TL;DR is... whether you have a Customer Success or Account Management function should be driven by, first, what you and the customer needs in order to make them successful and, second, how that can intersect with generating further revenue from their success.

Armed with the answers to these questions you will then want to identify what roles exist today, what people are in those roles and the skills they possess, and most importantly whether they are adequately able to meet the needs of the customers.

Comparing the typical roles of Account Managers and Customer Success Managers, you will understand why there is often confusion between the two, however it is the type of responsibility and the focus of work with the customer that will determine if it is an Account Manager or Customer Success Manager that owns the task.

Below is a list of key responsibilities that might exist across both roles and a dive into how each would handle them. From here you will start to have a feel for how this works in your organisation.

Key Role Responsibilities

1. Renewals:

   • Account Manager: Drive the sales cycle for major renewals and expansion (up-selling and cross-selling) by managing pipelines, proposals, and negotiations.

   • Customer Success Manager: Own smaller or flat renewal transactions, but will often hand it off if it is more than a straight forward transactional renewal. Might also be used in a Sales administration capacity or pseudo Renewal Manager

     
     

2. Strategic Account Planning:

   • Account Manager: Develop strategic account plans with a focus on existing and future revenue, use cases and user bases, align your company's products and offerings with customer needs to maximise and extend commercial gain.

   • Customer Success Manager: Supporting in the building of account plans which will often have the customers pains, goals and objectives as the primary driver, whilst looking at how the company's products and offerings can bring more value to the customer.

     
     

3. Relationship Management:

   • Account Manager: Build and maintain strong, multi-threaded relationships with key decision-makers and influencers within the customer organisations, looking to penetrate and build relationships with yet untapped commercial opportunities.

   • Customer Success Manager: Develop and nurture strong, trust-based relationships with key stakeholders (from end-users to C-level execs), positioning oneself as a trusted advisor and the go-to person for providing value to the organisation.

     
     

4. Customer Engagement:

   • Account Manager: Engage customers through the lifecycle of the customer via check-ins aligned to commercial milestones or indicators, and by understanding their business needs to foster long-term retention. The driver being to demonstrate value for money, and identify future expansion opportunity.

   • Customer Success Manager: Engaged through executive business reviews, success meetings, and progress tracking sessions to re-align customer goals with product outcomes. The driver being to feedback on value, progress and output.

     
     

5. Collaboration with Internal Teams:

   • Account Manager: Work closely with Marketing and Sales peers and leadership to prioritise account prioritisation and highlight customer needs to drive further revenue.

   • Customer Success Manager: Work closely with Product, Support and other GTM functions to help the customer achieve greater success and value in using your product or service.

     
     

6. Pipeline and Forecast Management:

   • Account Manager: Maintain and update customer account data, using SFDC or similar CRM tools, and provide accurate revenue forecasts on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis, with a view to achieving commercial targets.

   • Customer Success Manager: Provide a supporting voice and alternative perspective on the commercial outlook of the account. Also likely to have to maintain systems of record regarding the customer

     
     

7. Identifying Growth Opportunities:

   • Account Manager: Continuously identify and leverage 'land and expand' opportunities by recognising new business units, additional channels, or untapped use cases and key stakeholders.

   • Customer Success Manager: Through the course of engagement activities and customer interactions, identifying new contacts or business opportunities to pass to Account Manager to further explore. Often known as 'CS Qualified Leads'

     
     

8. Commercial Negotiations:

   • Account Manager: Lead win/win negotiations to maximise contract value while sustaining positive customer relationships. Will typically own and lead discussions where there is discernible uplift to the contract value or price point.

   • Customer Success Manager: Where there are commercial transactions that require limited negotiations. Customer Success Managers typically would handle 'flat renewals' or handle discussions that are primarily administrative in nature.

     
     

9. Industry/Product Knowledge:

   • Account Manager: Gain and use a deep understanding of the product, industry trends, and customer pain points to effectively position solutions, understanding how your product might compare to competitors so that you can effectively resolve concerns and questions in the buying cycle.

   • Customer Success Manager: Master a deep understanding of the product so that you can be an effective product specialist and provide the customer with best practice guidance on how they can get the best from your solution. Understanding the industry is essential for being a credible voice in customer conversations.

     
     

10. Performance Reporting:

    • Account Manager: Prepare and provide reports on account performance, renewal statuses, and revenue forecasts to both customers and management.

    • Customer Success Manager: Led by customer health scores and understanding of key users, stakeholders, and the business use of the product, provide internal feedback on the likelihood to renew and either expand or contract.

      
      

11. Customer Feedback Loop:

    • Account Manager: Capture and communicate customer feedback back to internal teams (such as product or marketing) to help refine solutions and strategies

    • Customer Success Manager: Same as above, although this tends to come from different customer interactions and often represents end-user feedback rather than top-down feedback from senior stakeholders

      
      

12. Onboarding & Integration:

    • Account Manager: Limited to now involvement in onboarding a new customer. The main interactions ramp up and increase post-sale once the customer is using the product.

    • Customer Success Manager: Lead the customer onboarding process to ensure a smooth transition from Sales to product adoption, often including in-depth training sessions, best practice usage and recommendations, and non-Support related product questions.

      
      

13. Driving Adoption & Value Realisation:

    • Account Manager: Driving the business case and business value realisation and tying that back to the commercial value and ROI of the product solution.

    • Customer Success Manager: Guide customers in leveraging the product’s features to maximise value, with a focus on driving adoption at the micro and macro level, and encouraging long-term engagement and partnership.

      
      

14. Proactive Issue Resolution & Support:

    • Account Manager: May be recipient of such requests, with these handled more appropriately by Customer Support or other more technical functions.

    • Customer Success Manager: Actively address customer challenges that arise in the product, serve as an escalation point for issues which are then handled by Customer Support, assisting in reaching a swift satisfactory outcome for the customer and minimise any relationship impact.

      
      

15. Expansion & Upsell Opportunities:

    • Account Manager: Through account planning and execution activities and strategic outbound motion, identify expansion and upsell opportunities in existing accounts. Nurturing and managing opportunities through a sales pipeline.

    • Customer Success Manager: Identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling by monitoring customer usage, engagement levels, and evolving needs. These then get passed to Account Manager as 'CS Qualified Leads'

      
      

16. Customer Health & Success Metrics:

    • Account Manager: Limited monitoring and tracking of success metrics, Engagement and involved on accounts with no expansion opportunity often driven by accounts identified as being in poor health and a potential threat to future expansion.

    • Customer Success Manager: Manage and track key customer success metrics (such as Net Revenue Retention, customer health scores, and usage metrics) to ensure ongoing satisfaction and retention of customer at the end of the commercial period.

      
      

17. Voice of the Customer:

    • Account Manager: Represent the customers needs, to gain greater internal support and visibility for requests which have an impact on future revenue. Providing revenue impact enables Product Management teams to prioritise.

    • Customer Success Manager: Represent customer interests internally by relaying feedback, advocating for necessary product enhancements, and adjusting strategies based on insights. Insights may come from direct close engagement or indirectly through surveying mechanisms. Ensuring that there is a closed loop on the feedback is essential

      
      

18. Customer Training & Education:

    • Account Manager: Limited to no involvement in training and educating the customer. Will likely bring in other internal people or focus the customer on available resources for scaled consumption.

    • Customer Success Manager: Conduct training sessions one-to-one or one-to-many, product demonstrations, deep-dives and hands-on setup to empower customers with knowledge and best practices. These will be delivered on the existing product or in relation to new/upcoming product releases.

      
      

19. Customer Portfolio Management:

    • Account Manager: Oversee a commercial book for business, acting as the 'CEO of your own business', driving additional commercial gain and success. This portfolio of customers is likely to be a segment of the broader business, based on territory/region, segment, ideal customer profile, or growth opportunity. This will not necessarily overlap with the Customer Success Managers book of business.

    • Customer Success Manager: Oversee a designated portfolio of customers, ensuring personalised success plans, risk mitigation, and continuous business growth. These will consist of customers based on segment, product, ideal customer profile, or industry.

Whilst these are by no means exhaustive, hopefully you will get a feel for how the two roles can differ, with different emphasis given by each role in the context of their organisational motivators and drivers towards revenue and the customer.