Crafting the Ideal Post-Sales Strategy: Key Questions to Guide You
Having the right post-sales structure can be the key to building lasting customer loyalty. It can determine your ability to retain clients, grow revenue, and drive a better customer experience. This guide walks you through the core roles in a successful post-sales setup, helps you decide whether Customer Success Management (CSM), Account Management (AM), or a hybrid approach is right for your business, and offers essential questions to help you assess and refine your structure. If you're ready to lead change in your organisation’s post-sales experience, this article is here to help you get started. If you’re already well-versed in the essentials of post-sales, feel free to skip ahead to the questions.
Key Areas of Post-Sales and Their Role in the Client Journey
Before we dive into the actionable questions, let’s do a quick recap of the essential teams involved in most post-sales strategies. Each of these teams plays a role in shaping the client journey, so understanding them is important when you’re thinking about optimising your structure.
Implementation and Professional Services
Think of Implementation as setting the stage for the client’s experience with your product. It’s about making sure clients can start strong and see value early on. Professional services come in to offer specialised support, which is often essential for complex solutions that need a more tailored approach.
Customer Success Management (CSM)
CSM is about being proactive—helping clients reach their goals with your product. These teams focus on ongoing engagement, keeping an eye on customer health, and, ideally, preventing churn. A strong CSM team can be a real driver of growth and long-term loyalty.
Account Management (AM)
Account managers work to build deep relationships with key accounts, often focusing on renewals, upsells, and making sure clients stay satisfied. AMs can be key to increasing customer lifetime value, especially with high-value clients who have evolving needs.
Support and Technical Resources
When clients hit a roadblock, a responsive support team can make all the difference. Good support not only keeps clients happy but reassures them that they can rely on your company to help them make the most of your product.
Partnerships
Partnerships might be overlooked, but they can significantly enhance your product’s value. Partnership managers focus on relationships that add complementary services or tools to your ecosystem, helping clients get more out of your product.
Additional Roles That Can Add Value
Depending on your setup, you might find that some specialised roles bring extra value, including:
Community Managers: These folks help build and nurture client communities, driving engagement and facilitating peer-to-peer support.
Post-Sales Marketing: Dedicated marketing that keeps clients engaged with targeted campaigns, updates, and education.
Business Partners: People who co-develop solutions alongside your clients, bringing specialised support that aligns with clients’ business goals.
Product Teams: Sometimes directly involved in post-sales, gathering feedback and ensuring the product continues to meet client needs.
Choosing Between CSM and AM (or Both): What Works for Your Business?
Many of these roles can be refined or adjusted based on where your business finds the greatest value. A common question I hear is whether to have a CSM, an AM, or both. Let's explore the reasoning behind each approach so that you can determine what makes the most sense for your business. Don't worry, I’ll get to those key questions afterward.
Customer Success Management (CSM) Model
Overview: CSM teams focus on helping customers succeed with your product, proactively driving growth and reducing churn. This model is ideal for subscription businesses, where long-term engagement is essential.
Revenue Benefits: CSM increases customer lifetime value (CLV) through upsells, cross-sells, and renewals while reducing churn by identifying and addressing issues early.
Challenges: The model can be resource-intensive and difficult to scale with a large customer base. Defining measurable success can also be complex.
Account Management (AM) Model
Overview: Account managers focus on building long-term relationships with high-value clients, acting as the primary contact for renewals, upsells, and support needs.
Revenue Benefits: AMs drive higher revenue per client through personalised upsells and stronger renewal rates.
Challenges: This model can be time-intensive and harder to scale with lower-value clients. Potential role overlap with CSM and support teams can also create confusion if not managed clearly.
Hybrid Approach (CSM + AM)
Overview: Combining CSM and AM allows for high-touch service for key accounts and scalable CSM support for a broader customer base.
Revenue Benefits: The hybrid model maximises growth by tailoring engagement based on client value, offering cost-effective CSM support for smaller clients while targeting high-value accounts with revenue-driving interactions.
Challenges: Coordinating roles requires clear processes to avoid confusion. This dual-team setup can also be more costly.
Key Questions for Evaluating and Refining Your Post-Sales Structure
If you’re assessing your current structure or considering a restructuring to align with your goals, here are the key questions to guide you:
What are our clients' needs and expectations at each stage of their journey?
Your clients likely have different needs. Some may need ongoing guidance, while others prefer a more hands-off approach. Understanding these expectations helps define your team’s roles and structure.
Are roles and responsibilities aligned with the client journey?
Gaps in support or overlap in roles can lead to inefficiencies. Take a look at each stage of the client journey to ensure your team is effectively supporting clients where they need it most—and that you’re rewarding and incentivising them for doing so.
How can we measure outcomes effectively to define success for each role?
Establishing clear KPIs aligns each team’s work with your business goals, whether that’s reducing churn, driving revenue, or increasing engagement. Setting these measurable outcomes provides focus and purpose for each role.
Do we have overlaps or redundancies in responsibilities?
Overlapping responsibilities can confuse clients and slow your team down. Make sure each role—from CSM to AM to support—is distinct and designed for efficiency.
How will restructuring impact internal communication and collaboration?
Teams need to work together smoothly to create a seamless client experience. Clear communication channels ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Can we scale this structure as the business grows?
A structure that works today might not fit tomorrow. Consider if a digital-first CSM approach is sufficient for smaller clients or if more personalised support will be needed for larger accounts as you grow.
What training resources do/will support these roles?
As you add new or expanded roles, training needs may change. Upskilling your teams on product knowledge or engagement techniques could be crucial for both their immediate and long-term success.
How will we incorporate client feedback to improve our post-sales approach?
Client feedback is essential to understanding what’s working and what isn’t. Regularly gathering and applying this feedback lets you adapt your structure as needed.
For Employers Considering Significant Structural Changes
If you’ve asked yourself these questions and recognised a need for change, well done in identifying the path forward! Before diving into restructuring, it’s important to pause and take a closer look with a few more questions—both for yourself and your affected teams. Applying your company’s unique lens to this process is essential, but a great starting point is making sure these foundational questions are fully addressed:
What would an ideal client journey look like?
Picture the best possible experience for your clients, then use this as a guide for all restructuring decisions.
How will changes impact customer satisfaction and retention?
Use your data to project how a new structure could affect satisfaction, engagement, and long-term revenue.
How can you measure outcomes effectively to define success for each role?
Establish clear, actionable KPIs that show how each role contributes to the overall client experience and revenue goals.
How can technology support a new structure?
Digital tools like CRM and customer engagement platforms can streamline workflows, making it easier to manage post-sales interactions at scale.
By thoroughly addressing these questions, you’ll be better equipped to make thoughtful, impactful changes that strengthen both client relationships and internal team dynamics.
Final Thoughts and Next Steps
Assessing and refining your post-sales structure is a dynamic process. By asking these questions and digging into what your clients and business truly need, you’ll create a structure that strengthens client relationships and drives sustainable growth. A solid post-sales strategy goes beyond just having the right people in place; it’s about delivering value at every stage of the client journey.
Ready to optimise your post-sales structure? Start by evaluating your current setup with these questions, or reach out here to discuss how we can create a tailored approach to meet your needs.