CURE the “Who Owns the Customer” Question With These 4 GTM Considerations

The answer to the “who owns the customer” question is never black and white. Every SaaS business will define an initial expansion motion that will invariably evolve several times over as the company scales through different phases of maturity and organizational complexity, The CURE framework—an approach I initially wrote about several years ago—is a straightforward way to identify the right organizational strategy to maximize net retention rates at different points in your journey.

In customer-obsessed companies, everyone shares accountability for driving customer success—but when everyone is on the hook for the retention number, who truly owns customer growth?

Commercial ownership for the installed base of customers is frequently a “hot potato” in SaaS: When the proverbial music stops, who is really carrying the bag? Most organizational philosophies fit into one of the following ownership models or some variation thereof:

• Customer success managers own renewals and expansion conversations in addition to their day-to-day value creation and relationship management responsibilities

• Sellers own renewals and account growth (or at least for a subset of “strategic” logos or named accounts) in addition to their new business targets

• Dedicated account managers—who do not manage day-to-day customer relationships—own renewal and expansion targets

• Renewal managers manage the operational process and paperwork for more transactional renewals, and one of the aforementioned resources is accountable for expansion and growth (if relevant)

Let’s address an elephant in the room: Great CSMs are often not great salespeople. This is fine. The fundamental difference between the modern-day “customer success manager” and the classical “account manager” is that the former is focused on driving customer outcomes that ultimately yield renewal and growth (commercial upside) whereas the latter is explicitly focused on the commercial management of the account—so when the CSM does their job well, the account manager’s life becomes much easier. This is a subtle but important nuance.

With the exception of early stage businesses, new logo sellers should focus on new logos only, and CSMs should never own renewals and growth outright. Asking sales to own account growth is a distraction from new logo growth, and asking CSMs to do it will likely result in less productive outcomes given the aforementioned points about CSM core competencies. CSMs are key stakeholders in the renewal process and should be incentivized to ensure their customers renew and grow, but their primary focus should be ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes and extract maximum value from the product; pushing for expansion feels like a moot point until the value you’ve created is undeniable. So if neither CSMs nor sellers are owning account growth, who is? 

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach for existing business commercial ownership, the CURE framework outlines key considerations for where customer growth should live as well as what skills matter most and an account manager model tends to be the most impactful approach for companies who are past the early stage.

CURE framework considerations: Contract size, Upsells and cross-sells, Resources, and Enterprise

Contract size — Contract size can be a helpful proxy for how to manage the commercial side of the installed base. Lower ACVs often yield more straightforward contracts (e.g. consistent pricing tiers for all customers), which means renewals can be more transactional. Many renewals can be managed through auto-renewal language (Editor’s note: All draft contracts should include auto-renewal language [and perhaps even an uplift clause], even if those terms are more likely to be struck in enterprise deals). Operational renewal managers—who index higher on process management than customer-facing commercial skills—are typically best suited to manage these smaller deals. Mid-market and enterprise contracts have significantly more nuance (in terms of number of customer stakeholders, terms, etc.), so a customer-facing resource with stronger deal management and negotiation skills (read: an account manager) is a better fit.

Upsells and cross-sells — Do you have additional SKUs and capabilities available to drive customer upsell and cross-sell opportunities? If you do not have cross-sell products to offer and pricing is largely usage-based, the renewal is more likely to be transactional and can be managed by the previously mentioned renewals manager type profile. If you have a product suite with several different products and modules available and/or pricing is more complex or bespoke, the dedicated account manager model is the better fit.

Resources — Your approach to account growth will invariably vary based on the stage of your company and the resources at your disposal. For early stage companies, it is perfectly acceptable for the new business team to assist with expansion opportunities and renewals, especially when your sellers have strong customer relationships. As companies grow and scale, however, expansion opportunities often prove to be distractions to the new business team, which could ultimately compromise your quota/OTE coverage and other sales efficiency metrics. Some early stage companies will task their customer success managers with expansion; this approach can work in the days of the “Generalist CSM,” but should be sunsetted as the broader CS org evolves to be more specialized. Asking CSMs to negotiate account commercials can jeopardize their strategic partnership with customers, so a CSM ownership model should only exist when teams are still very lean.

Enterprise — When I use “Enterprise” as a descriptor, I’m not talking about a particular contract size threshold. Instead, I am referring to deals that require sophisticated multi-threading of key stakeholders and more often than not, the need to get on an airplane to get a deal done. Enterprise deals are time-intensive and involve a number of stakeholders, but they are exciting because they are often ripe with white space or “land and expand” opportunities (e.g. start with one business unit and leverage strong results to sell into others). Dedicated account managers are usually the best fit for these scenarios because of the contractual and organizational complexities. However, if there is a material churn risk at play or an entirely new evaluation team in the mix—perhaps there is a new economic buyer who needs to be completely resold—it is worthwhile to bring the new logo sales team back into the conversation, as that will often imply a process that looks more like a net new sales process (including a competitive element).

The four dimensions of the CURE framework give way to a number of different organizational permutations of account ownership models. Consider this decision tree as you weigh your options:

Note: It would be disorienting to the customer to have both a paperwork-oriented renewals manager as well as a dedicated account manager focused on account growth. The “full-stack” account manager—someone who manages all facets of the contract—allows for a more coordinated, customer-friendly approach: a project manager for initial implementation, a CSM for strategy, support for technical troubleshooting, and one account manager for all contractual matters. That said, if your customer base spans a number of different market segments, you might consider employing the renewal manager model for the smaller customer segment and the account manager model for others (this was the exact approach we took when I was the CCO of Marigold, a roll-up of different martech SaaS companies with varying GTM motions).

The decision tree confirms the dedicated account manager as the modal approach for SaaS account growth ownership—but where should account managers sit in the organization? While historically this role often reported to the sales team, it has become increasingly aligned with the customer organization. When I was the CRO at Sailthru—overseeing both new logos and existing business—I deliberately moved our dedicated account managers into the customer success organization. The account managers reported to regional CSM team leaders, which strengthened our coordination internally (and with customers!) via regular line-by-line account reviews in team huddles and aligned compensation incentives (variable compensation for account managers heavily weighted net retention in addition to just expansion booking targets). This organizational change ultimately drove a nearly 25% improvement in gross churn and a 10% improvement in net retention inside of its first year in action.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of aligned incentives; as I said back in February, “your team can’t be aligned if their compensation plans aren’t.” Equally as important to thoughtful organizational design is ensuring that compensation incentives are aligned to drive the best outcomes for both customers and your own retention and expansion numbers. If you’re craving inspiration or a gut check, that February installment provides some helpful examples for how to align plans for CSMs and account managers.

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…and that wraps Tactic Talk for 2024! Thank you to 8,000+ of you who have subscribed to follow my SaaS quips since I launched this newsletter back in January. Expect lots more fodder in 2025 and in the meantime, you can review all 12 of this year’s Tactic Talk installments here. Happy holidays!