We’ve all heard or experienced the challenges of silod sales and marketing teams. It’s a common challenge to reach full sales and marketing alignment (or even get them into a meeting together), but it’s crucial in order to create a cohesive customer experience.
But what about aligning sales with other departments?
Think about how often Sales sits down with anyone outside of Sales. While it makes sense to interact with Marketing, it’s less common for Sales to meet with Customer Success (CS) beyond a company all-hands. Sure, it’s great to hear about updates, KPIs and current initiatives, but imagine what Sales and CS could learn from each other regularly and how it would impact both roles and your buyer journey.
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Here are a few reasons to schedule a standup between Sales and Customer Success, and why they’re your next dream team:
Customer Success Insights for Sales
Your CS team works with your customers firsthand. Nobody is closer to your customers, and their insight can be valuable teachings for the sales team. Customer Success can communicate why customers churn, common questions and why some customers are more successful than others. All of these insights can help Sales have more proactive conversations and address these concerns earlier in the sales cycle. If your sales reps think their job ends once the contract is signed, they could be missing out on knowledge that impacts that customer and every deal thereafter. If they’re responsible for renewals or upsell opportunities, it’s also in their best interest to remain updated on customer health and any feedback related to their involvement.
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Sales Insight for Customer Success
CS can help Sales understand churn, common questions, and reasons for their best customers’ success. Alternatively, Sales is a great resource for Customer Success to understand why customers buy or switch from a competitor, what about your product or service is most important to them for the engagement, and what their desired outcomes are. It’s important for CS to ingest this information prior to onboarding a customer, so their experience is as tailored as possible.
A strong handoff between Sales and Customer Success is the foundation of the customer experience. Having a regular standup to communicate details of each deal and dynamic of the sales relationship is important for CS to understand in order to align brand message and customer experience.
Alignment of Customer Expectations
CS and sales reps can meet to discuss shared accounts, and how the experience has been going after the handoff. If there isn’t alignment on what was promised to the customer pre-sale, and how it is actually going post-sale, both can adjust their future processes and save at-risk accounts. It may shift their sales pitch, and the types of accounts they go after moving forward.
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Seamless Alignment with Mixmax
Using workflow automation, templates, sequences and seamless integration with Salesforce, Mixmax can quickly align your sales and success teams. If your teams use Gmail/Gsuite you can be up and running in a few days (literally!) Try Mixmax free for 14 days, or get a custom demo for your team today!
