It’s becoming increasingly important to ensure you have connected/spoken with the post-sales team prior to signing your new cloud software subscription. Why? The answer is simple, especially for more complex enterprise systems. The model of how cloud software is sold motivates sales reps to “Sell the Vision” (this is actually what it is referred to) or show the “Art of the Possible” (another common phrase). Ideally, by juuuuust about any means necessary in order to hit their sales target for the quarter. However, both of these phrases aren’t grounded in the reality of what you are about to sign on the dotted line for. Unless a specific time frame can be put around when you will realize said vision or possibility, I’d suggest getting a good idea of what things will actually look like once that sales rep has moved onto the next deal.
Who better to have that conversation with than a member of the Customer Success (CS) team (assuming the cloud software provider has set up this critical team in place). Customer Success Managers (CSMs) are typically responsible for owning the life time value (LTV) of the customer. In many cases this means ensuring you renew your cloud software subscription. In other cases they may simply be measured on things like Net Promoter Score (NPS) or overall product adoption/usage. In any case, CSMs are tasked with bringing the vision/possibility into the "Realm of the Real" (ok, I made that one up). Or at least managing expectations around your perception of reality (valid or not). As such, they’re the ones who are best suited to talk about what it will be like to partner with the cloud software provider once you are live with the solution.
Ideally, this would be a 1:1 conversation with CSM. Sales may not like it, but if it means getting the deal, they’ll allow it. During the convo, ask the CSM about things like common reasons for support escalations, adoption/usefulness of product enhancements, broken upgrades, industry insights or KPI’s you should track, value realization timelines they’ve seen with other customers, biggest challenges they have among their existing customer base etc. etc. The list goes on.
Remember the sales team is the one that takes you out on the first few dates. They’re more than happy to wine and dine you and regale you with stories of how great their cloud platform is and will be. But really it’s the Customer Success team that knows what the long term marriage will be like starting. They’re the ones you’re going to be locked in with and can tell you what their perspective of the relationship will be like going forward. Without talking to them ahead of time, don’t be surprised when you start seeing things that make you want to revisit your marriage with the cloud software provider come renewal time.
