Cross training Sales, Customer Success and Pre Sales
Dustin Dean
Dustin is a five time CRO, with companies ranging in size from 20 to 2,000. He's committed to sharing the learnings he's picked up over that time. Both the "dos" and as importantly, the "don'ts".
Cross training Sales, Customer Success and Pre Sales
During the past 10 years serving in top leadership roles for SaaS companies ranging from publicly traded to VC funded, I’ve always pushed that close alignment between the sales and customer success teams is crucial for maximizing customer satisfaction, growth and long-term success. As a salesperson, my objective was to be able to credibly “play a customer success role on TV” if needed. I am always amazed when I work with companies how silo'd the various functions are. Would you expect a business to run smoothly if the CEO, COO and CTO were all off doing their own things, with little or no communication? The same applies to Sales, CS and Pre Sales teams.
To achieve this, it's important to establish a common understanding, share information, and provide joint guidance to everyone that interacts with your customers. Here's how this philosophy can play a role in aligning the sales team with customer success:
Cross Training: Both the sales and customer success teams should receive training and education on the product, its features, and its value proposition. This ensures that everyone understands the solution being offered, its benefits, and how it meets customer needs. Common education helps align the messaging and enables both teams to communicate effectively. To shape training during annual kickoffs, I’ve worked to achieve about 60% function specific based education and development, and 40% joint up-skilling.
Information Sharing: Regular and open communication channels should be established between the sales and customer success teams. This allows for the exchange of important customer information, such as pain points, expectations, and churn risk and most importantly growth opportunities. Sales should provide comprehensive insights gathered during the sales process, while customer success can share feedback and observations from their interactions with customers. Understanding each other’s roles helps refine which information is most relevant to the other party.
Customer First Focus: Sales and customer success should collaborate on defining and refining the customer journey. They can jointly develop playbooks, guidelines, and best practices to ensure a seamless handoff from sales to customer success. By working together, they can identify critical touch points and establish a shared understanding of the customer's needs and expectations at each stage. This collaboration enables smooth transition when engaging the different teams, consistent messaging and a customer-centric approach throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
Feedback Loop: Establishing a feedback loop is essential for continuous improvement. The sales team can provide valuable insights about customer preferences, objections, and market trends to the customer success team. On the other hand, customer success can offer feedback on product usage, customer satisfaction, and potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities. This feedback loop enables both teams to refine their strategies, enhance the product, and deliver an exceptional customer experience.
Examples of concepts and skills I’ve cross trained teams on include:
MEDD(P)ICC (tactical execution with the customer)
Challenger (strategic positioning, education and communication to the customer)
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