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The biggest difference is account managers have sales quotas and required to bring in new business. CSMs usually don’t have quotas and focus on upselling and account retention.
Customer Success is a very broad job title. It can be very technical or very sales oriented. All depends on the company. I worked as a CSM and has nothing to do with selling or a quota.
That’s interesting! Yea, I think the two roles are ever-changing in that the definitions are constantly changing. I think at the end of the day it’s all based on the company you work for.
Different organisations have different set of responsibilities for both the roles. Majorly Account Managers are responsible for bringing new business and closing account renewal deals. Client Success Managers on the other hand come into picture post closed won deals. They ensure that the clients leverage the product/services to reap the maximum benefits out of their contract, which in turn results in more likelihood of account renewal and less churn. Success Managers are more product/service oriented, while Account Managers are sales oriented. The end goal of both the roles however is the same - increased renewals n less churn. The lines at times are a bit blurred in some organisations.
CS at my company (ad tech SaaS) is a lot more enablement/training focused. We also act as industry experts. We want our clients to be successful, because if they’re successful, they’re more likely to scale and spend more money (which is how we’d make more money). My salary is 90% base and 10% commission.
Because the new thought is that you want your customers to be successful - we are typically farmers and not hunters. I am salary and not commission (I do get bonuses) so when I talk to my customers about something they know I am usually not trying to sell them to make my month.
My personal take is:
Orgs fall into a couple of brackets re Customer Success - those that are meant to actively sell and those that are meant to be more customer relations.
Personally, I feel the best CS teams are a mix of both, without the active sell. A good CS person fundamentally understands the current and ONGOING issues that a customer wants to alleviate and works to ensure that where possible those issues are alleviated by use of their orgs product. They also communicate in a good way to stakeholders at said customer that the solution is working well and benefitting the customers company in X manner.
Account Management IMO historically is there to play “bad cop” and work on an aggressive expansion model. But they work in tandem with CS.
CS will grow organically the usage of Product X and by doing so reduce the likelihood of churn. When they find a new area in the customer org to target they’ll likely bring in the AM to have the hard negotiations on price and overall contracts etc.
The AM will go after senior stakeholders rather than the organic growth, and look to grow usage of the product throughout the org with a top down sales approach. And then, if won, pass over to CS to onboard and retain.
Long story short - CS should be the nice guy and customer advocate, and true source of on the ground knowledge re the account.
AM should be strategic in outlook but one can’t properly work without the other if you’re REALLY looking to dominate with a customer and not be replaced by another vendor.
Should add that CS generally have incentives based on retention and converted new biz in an account that they have farmed for AM. AM will be pure rev generated from accounts they own
I’m wondering the same thing!
Same. Following!
Also curious
Sales people started using the term “Account Manager” because it sounded classier than “Sales representative.” so now there is confusion. A true account person (whether manager or executive or coordinator) is there to be a liaison between the client and the agency, and to help meet the client’s business goals through the strategic use of agency’s products/services.
An account manager should not be a “yes man” (someone who says yes to everything the client wants without consideration of if it is right for the client’s business) or a service provider, but an expert in their agency’s offerings and their client’s business needs.
Yes exactly! Confusion for sure. Lol
Depends from company to company. In my company AMs are on the revgen side, and CSMs more on driving adoption etc…