The critical role of internal customer intelligence transfer in the buyer experience
Your organization has a problem with internal customer intelligence transfer. And you’re not alone.
What typically occurs is this: An Account Executive (AE) closes a deal, the team celebrates, and the new customer is handed off to a Customer Success Manager (CSM). But a lot is lost in that moment of excitement when an opportunity reaches closed-won.
Strategic Consultant Lincoln Murphy describes the risk of a bad handover on the critical next step of the buyer’s journey, onboarding:
“In a high-touch sales process, the sales handoff makes or breaks onboarding. And if you have a self-service buying process, the transition will obviously look very different from that of a high-touch sales process, but it’s [just] as critical to build a bridge from marketing promises to the realistic, in-app experience.”
Leaders focused on customer retention and revenue growth must get internal intelligence transfer right. It boosts customer loyalty and provides valuable insight for teams across revenue to improve how they work. Numentum’s four best practices are proven to work in B2B sales organizations with minimal workflow change and maximum impact.
Challenges when a buyer is handed off after closed won
It’s worryingly common to see very little information passed between Sales and Customer Success is limited. Some high-level intelligence transfer might occur, but sellers don’t typically go into the weeds. In many cases, it’s more accurate to say that they run for the hills.
This is a disaster for a CRO focused on driving improvements to the buyer experience. The CSM who takes over is forced to ask the new customer for details they’ve already shared or to explain why they purchased the product they did. This loss of credibility and trust can be difficult to recover.
Manish M, a Customer Success Consultant, paints a familiar picture of reactive customer relationship management: “The CSM starts off on a completely wrong foot, and most of his time is spent firefighting and re-building trust with the customer in addition to performing the onboarding tasks.”
Haphazard handovers have knock-on effects for multiple other teams in the revenue engine. Cross-sell and upsell sellers operate blindly without the original AE’s insight into the planned growth of a customer’s business. Marketing misses the opportunity to strike up a partnership for future speaking or case study opportunities.
Why improve internal customer intelligence transfer
The best AEs set all their cross-functional partners up for success. For sellers who work on cross-sell or upsell, a specific briefing from the AE means they can work with Customer Success on a shared roadmap of outreach that feels personalized and relevant to the customer.
Across the divide in marketing, many companies struggle with a healthy customer reference pipeline. The moment a deal closes is the perfect time to start the conversation to find out why the customer bought, keep them engaged, and tell their story further down the line once the results have rolled in. Whether it’s for events, blogs, podcasts, webinars, or traditional case studies, the best AE is always looking out for their allies in marketing.
Then there’s the benefit to longer-term business development. First impressions matter. The customers you impress at this key moment will be more likely to introduce your company to other people in their own organization, other decision-makers in their network, and take you with them if they move elsewhere.
Leaders who invest in creating a seamless hand-off process and transfer of customer intelligence for their teams are committing to their business's long-term future.
How to improve customer intelligence transfer
At its heart, better transfer of customer intelligence between teams relies on documentation processes. Sales managers should coach their AEs on these four best practices to streamline how they capture and share information:
1. A self-serve intelligence repository
All calls with buyers and customers should be recorded using software like Gong or Chorus to streamline future searchability and analysis. Deal notes need to be kept up to date in the CRM, and any files shared by the customer should be saved in a place that is accessible to all teams.
With a self-serve repository, Customer Success and other revenue teams have a wealth of customer intelligence at their fingertips—without needing to come to Sales
2. Strategic deal notes
Sellers should be encouraged to add their own strategic viewpoint to the deal notes they upload to the CRM. Does the champion mention another team they work with that has similar challenges? Does the decision maker reference a team and the competitor solution they currently use? When a seller notes these details, they are already starting to build a case for future cross-sell initiatives.
Similarly, opportune moments might come from conversations about activities or events that could be turned into co-marketing opportunities. While the self-serve intelligence repository gives other teams access to the content of conversations, the AE is still the person closest to the deal and best able to connect the dots to find the gold nuggets of future opportunity.
3. Working in lockstep across the revenue engine
Sales teams that work well cross-functionally know the plans and key performance indicators of the other parts of the revenue engine. For example, by knowing that the customer marketing team is looking for case studies in a particular vertical, sellers can tee them up with a customer as soon as the deal is won—along with all the notes that showcase why they’re a good fit.
Tight alignment with cross-sell teams means that AEs know exactly what information to provide as the buyer is handed over. The buyer benefits from a seamless experience where no information falls through the cracks.
4. Don’t forget the customer
The final piece of this puzzle is how to manage communication with the buyer as they become a customer during this transfer process. Sellers should think of this as a relay race; you have to get pretty close to the next runner before the baton is handed over. The new customer should feel like Sales and Customer Success have been woven together.
Once the handover has taken place, sellers need to know to step back. As Hubspot puts it, “Staying too involved can impact the customer's success, leave them confused if two different people are helping them, and increase the likelihood of conflicting information.” It’s time to start moving the next buyer to that closed-won stage.
The key to customer intelligence transfer is communication—and process
The relationship an AE has with their revenue counterparts has the power to make or break effective customer intelligence transfer. Open and effective communication is critical, and it’s enabled by better processes that are implemented from the top.
Sales leaders should focus on encouraging their AEs to cross-collaborate and forge relationships with those in Customer Success and Marketing. The result is an understanding of shared goals, increased effort toward reaching them together, and consequently a better, more joined-up buyer experience.
Revenue Forward
Numentum is a B2B enterprise sales training company that integrates social selling into existing sales processes to engage today’s hyper-informed buyers. Our programmatic approach maximizes the utility of brand, marketing assets, and sales technology to generate predictable pipeline and revenue. We partner with forward-thinking brands to bring focus, routine, and accountability to their sales teams. Our customers include SAP, Workday, Vodafone Business, Verizon Business, Broadcom, and RELX.
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