This article comes from Sarah Katzman’s engaging talk at our Revenue Operations Festival. Check out our collection of world-class keynote insights.

Have you ever felt like your sales and customer success teams are speaking different languages when it comes to customer health? If so, you're not alone. This misalignment is a common challenge that can hinder growth and create friction within organizations. 

But what if there was a way to get everyone on the same page?

As the Director of Global Customer Success Strategy and Operations at LinkedIn, I've seen firsthand how crucial it is to align these teams. So, in this article, I'll share our journey toward building a more holistic understanding of customer health across our organization. 

It's a story of how we tackled the age-old challenge of aligning sales and customer success teams, and the innovative approach we took to simplify how we understand, prioritize, and communicate the health of our customer base.

Whether you're a RevOps professional looking to boost growth and improve team synergy or simply curious about how a large organization like LinkedIn handles these challenges, you're in for some valuable insights. 

Let's dive in!

Misalignment between sales and customer success

Let's start with a bit of context. At LinkedIn, we have two core post-sales account team roles: the Account Director and the Customer Success Manager (CSM). The Account Director focuses on selling, while the CSM concentrates on engagement and helping customers realize the value of their purchase.

Sounds straightforward, right? Well, not quite. These two roles often have conflicting priorities, which can create friction if they don't have visibility or understanding of what influences each other's decisions. For instance:

  • An Account Director might want to focus on accounts with low penetration but high upsell potential.
  • A CSM might prioritize accounts that are "all in" and focus on retention across those customers.

When account teams successfully navigate this complexity and work in harmony, they can accomplish more together than they could apart. But getting to this point isn't easy, especially as a company grows and evolves.

Boost customer satisfaction: Aligning sales and customer success
Align sales and customer success teams by implementing handover processes to streamline the customer journey and increase revenue retention.
Revenue Operations AllianceRebecca Stewart