When CS handovers fail
When CS handovers fail
How to build a process that saves you on churn
Hey, Toni from Growblocks here! Welcome to another Revenue Letter!
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Have you ever called your bank and had to key in your information?
And then, when you finally get a hold of a person, you have to do it all over again?
It’s annoying, right?
But what about when it happens to your customers?
Picture this:
Your AE uncovers a list of their prospect's pain points during the sales process.
The customer signs a month or two later.
And when they finally sit down for a discovery call with CS, the account manager suddenly uncovers a brand new set of pain points.
Oh, and they don’t match what Sales wrote down a couple of months ago at all.
Sounds familiar?
So what does this happen?
Simply put, because the economic buyer Sales sold to has a different perspective from the actual user CS is onboarding.
Now your success criteria are off.
And you leave yourself with a higher chance of churn.
So what can you do about it?
Here are 3 things I would recommend you start now.
1. Tagging the right use cases to the right persona
The reality is that these handover issues start much earlier in the funnel with your inbound and outbound teams.
What solutions attracted them on the website? In your cold emails? In the sales demo?
To avoid having success criteria all over the place, you need to log why the user and the economic buyer purchased your solution.
And they'll rarely be the same thing.
For each one, ask what is the rationale for them buying it? What impact are they looking for?
Use this to create a shared document that CS can access - ensuring that they're not starting from scratch.
It'll also give a better customer experience - showing the customer that you know exactly what they wish to accomplish.
This enables CS to build on a foundation that Sales has laid down.
It'll also give CS a strong direction on what they need to solve to deliver the value.
And more importantly, being able to tailor their communication depending on who they're talking with, and why they bought.
2. Map out the minefield
The handover is when you need to be super transparent and talk about the red and yellow flags.
What was sold in the process that’s maybe a bit iffy?
Did your sales rep omit something?
Was a feature sold that’s still in development?
By documenting and creating a roadmap of this minefield, you’re giving your Account Manager and CSM an early warning on what could go wrong.
Now, they can re-assess the success criteria for that account.
And they’re ready to address problems head-on if that planned feature isn’t delivered on time.
3. Plan for expansion
Finally, a proper handover document isn’t just about keeping the customer.
It’s about creating opportunities to expand or upsell them in the future.
When you’re AE is handing them over to CS, ask:
What can this account plan look like?
What can you upsell this account to?
What needs to be achieved to get them there?
This gives account managers real outcomes that they need to aim for.
A roadmap that they can follow from the very start.
And when it comes to renewal time, they have more ammo on that account.
P.S. We’ve been thinking about these handover issues a lot at Growblocks lately because just a Sales forecast isn’t enough to capture what’s happening across your whole funnel. I would love for you to check out what we’ve been doing, and let me know what you think!