Table of Contents
- Key Highlights
- Introduction
- The Perception Gap in Customer Success
- The Voice of Customer Success Managers
- Strategic Approaches to Elevate Customer Success
- Addressing Common Concerns in Customer Success
- Want to Know More About the Survey?
Key Highlights
- A significant 59% of Customer Success Managers (CSMs) report feeling less valued than their sales counterparts, highlighting concerns over prioritizing new business over customer retention.
- Disparities in revenue visibility, legacy growth strategies, and inconsistent budget allocation contribute to the undervaluation of customer success teams.
- Companies can elevate customer success to a strategic revenue driver by reframing their narrative around customer retention, fostering ownership of expansion revenue, and demonstrating the value of CSMs to sales efforts.
Introduction
The modern business environment increasingly recognizes the importance of customer success teams. Their role extends far beyond traditional support functions; they are pivotal in retaining clients, driving expansion, and ultimately enhancing revenue in a sustainable manner. However, despite this critical role, a recent survey reveals a concerning trend: customer success teams are often perceived as less valuable than sales teams. This piece explores the reasons behind this perception gap and offers actionable strategies for business leaders to elevate customer success and align it with overarching revenue goals.
The Perception Gap in Customer Success
Recent data from ChurnZero’s survey of CSMs underscores a significant cultural and operational disconnect within many organizations regarding the value of customer success. While nearly 59% of respondents feel that their contributions are undervalued compared to sales, only 6% believe that customer success teams are more valued. This disparity raises essential questions about how organizations define value and prioritize customer engagement.
Revenue Visibility: The Underlying Issue
One central issue that contributes to the undervaluation of customer success is the visibility of revenue generation. Closed sales can be easily quantified, celebrated, and attributed to specific business activities. In contrast, the contributions of customer success—such as renewals, expansions, and churn prevention—are not always as tangible or visible.
Kristen Hayer of The Success League highlights that customer success leaders must effectively demonstrate the financial impact of their teams. “A clear connection between customer success activities and revenue generation must be established,” she advises. Otherwise, the impact of the customer team may remain obscured, leading to inadequate investment in resources and training.
The Legacy of Growth-At-All-Costs
Another barrier is the lingering influence of outdated growth strategies that prioritize new customer acquisition over customer retention strategies. Many organizations continue to focus disproportionately on pipeline growth, sidelining critical metrics associated with customer success. This bias perpetuates a culture where sales efforts receive robust financial backing and visibility, while customer success teams struggle to gain the same recognition.
Company leaders can often find themselves more engaged in sales pipeline reviews than discussions about customer retention metrics. This exclusion sends clear signals that organizations favor upfront sales over long-term customer relationships, ultimately undermining the perception of value held by customer success teams.
Budgeting and Resource Allocation
In challenging economic climates, budget constraints often skew further expectations. Business leaders tend to protect or increase sales budgets while customer success teams may see their resources diminished. The disparity in investment sends a powerful message about organizational priorities, reinforcing the notion that customer success isn’t as vital as driving new sales.
“Investing in CSM well-being, tools, and training should be prioritized just as sales resources are maintained,” asserts Naomi Aiken of Techtonic Lift. Without adequate backing, customer success teams will inevitably struggle to deliver positive outcomes, which can further exacerbate negative perceptions of their value.
The Voice of Customer Success Managers
The survey results also revealed the sentiments of CSMs about their perceived value. Several respondents articulated frustrations regarding trust and credibility. A recurring theme emerged: many CSMs feel unrecognized for their role in revenue generation and are often blamed for customer churn resulting from mismatched product offerings by sales teams.
These voices highlight a critical point: effective communication and collaboration between sales and customer success teams is essential. Neither team can afford to work in isolation, and recognizing contributions across the entire revenue ecosystem is crucial for enhanced performance.
Strategic Approaches to Elevate Customer Success
To counteract the perception gap and raise the profile of customer success within their organizations, customer leaders can adopt several strategic initiatives.
1. Equipping Customer Success Teams with a Revenue Narrative
Creating a compelling “revenue story” for customer success involves reports that articulate the financial impact of renewals, expansions, and churn prevention. Customer leaders should emphasize key performance indicators (KPIs) that are familiar to sales, including net revenue retention (NRR), gross revenue retention (GRR), and customer lifetime value (LTV).
By translating the contributions of customer success into a language that resonates with broader business strategies, organizations can highlight how these efforts directly correlate with financial outcomes. As Kristen Hayer suggests, proper visibility into CSM contributions during leadership discussions is essential for enhancing acknowledgment and resources allocated to customer success.
2. Claiming Ownership of Expansion Revenue
A closer look at customer success teams reveals that only 43% have ownership of expansion revenue, despite their deep customer relationships and insights. Establishing a repeatable expansion process, such as the REACH framework—focusing on relationships, engagement, actions, value, and horizons—can empower customer success teams to claim their rightful place in managing expansion revenue.
By developing structured approaches to nurturing existing relationships, organizations can empower CSMs to gradually build momentum and achieve their revenue objectives, thereby enhancing their perceived value.
3. Communicating the Synergy Between Customer Success and Sales
Even in situations where the customer success team doesn’t directly manage expansion revenue, they wield tremendous influence over sales success. Insights garnered from customer success can significantly inform sales strategies, including refining target profiles and enhancing messaging.
Sales teams can increase upsell rates by leveraging the knowledge that CSMs have about customer pain points and desired outcomes. Clear communication channels that enable collaborative efforts between these teams can lead to improved sales pitches, resulting in customers being better matched to products that satisfy their needs.
Addressing Common Concerns in Customer Success
Why Is Customer Success undervalued compared to sales?
The disparity in value perception stems primarily from visibility challenges, legacy attitudes emphasizing new customer acquisition, and inadequate resources dedicated to customer success functions. Without clear communication on how customer success contributes to revenue, it risks being seen merely as an ancillary role.
What steps can companies take to rectify this imbalance?
Organizations should invest in illustrating the connection between customer success activities and revenue outcomes, take measures to claim ownership of revenue processes, and ensure customer success teams are equipped with the tools and resources necessary to thrive.
How can CSMs better advocate for their value?
CSMs should regularly highlight their contributions to customer retention and expansion in discussions with leadership, articulating how their insights and experiences lead to improved business outcomes. By fostering strong ties with both the sales and finance departments, CSMs can advocate more effectively for their value in driving business growth.
What metrics are crucial for customer success teams to track?
Key metrics include NRR, GRR, and LTV, as well as customer satisfaction scores and renewal rates. Tracking these metrics enables customer success teams to quantify their impact on revenue and communicate their achievements effectively to the leadership team.
Want to Know More About the Survey?
The 2025 CSM Confidential Report, which examines opinions and trends among CSMs, emphasizes the importance of aligning customer success strategies with revenue goals. It offers insights into career aspirations for CSMs while analyzing the evolving economic landscape. For those wanting in-depth information, further details and findings can be accessed in the complete report available on ChurnZero’s website.
In conclusion, while customer success plays a critical role in business revenue and customer retention, its perceived value still lags behind that of sales teams in many organizations. By addressing misconceptions, advocating for necessary resources, and illustrating their impact on revenue, customer success leaders can bridge the value gap and elevate their teams’ roles from support functions to pivotal revenue drivers.