Do these scenarios sound familiar?

1. The exec at a customer tells you s/he loves your product, but your CSM says that the junior day-to-day lead hasn’t made any progress with it.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Your CSM thinks the customer is making a ton of progress with your product, but the exec emails you and says they’re not getting value.
   
   
   
   

Both of these scenarios are troubling. In the first one, it’s only a matter of time before the junior lead tells the exec that it’s not worth renewing your contract. In the second, it doesn’t matter whether the customer is making progress “in reality”, since what really matters is the exec’s view of reality.





It’s critical to create alignment across the people at the customer. After all, “the customer” is really just a collection of people, all of whom have different personalities, opinions, and influences over whether “the customer” becomes successful, renews, and recommends your product.





We’d love to hear from you - what strategies have been successful in correcting misalignment between Customer Executives and CSMs?





For more information on Gainsight's approach, check out my blog post on Engaging with Execs at Our Customers.