Who does the up-sales?

Who does the up-sales, The new business sales team or the customer success team?

When does the customer success manager step in? Two questions we keep hearing regularly from our customers...

Who does the up-sales?

Assuming that you have more than 100 clients, that you have separated your new business sales teams and have dedicated reps managing your renewals and clients, the answer is simple: Customer success should own the up-selling!

Why?

Because new business acquisition should focus on bringing onboard new clients (and focus is everything)

Because the Customer Success team has the relationship he/she can capitalize on

Because a lot of the up-sales happens with the renewal

Because a lot of the up-sales happens when the CSM is doing basic support work for his customer

..and because Customer Success is a sales role!

Depending on the size of your client base and the number of CSMs you have in your team you might consider appointing a rep in your customer success team that solely focuses on up-selling clients (put an up-sale target).

When does the customer success manager step in?

We see the majority of our clients having their CSMs stepping in right after the deal is closed.

We also see many cases where the CSM joins the process right before the case is closed. Some companies have an onboard (or consultant) managing the onboarding/implementation phase and then pass the ball over to the success manager.