As go-to-market (GTM) teams have grown and evolved, so too have our perceptions of “pre-sale” and “post-sale” roles. Customer success and account managers must now focus beyond retention to emphasize expansion and growth.

These new rules of account growth dictate a new approach. To meet their goals, account managers need to channel new logo sellers. But don’t panic: By learning to challenge customers and deliver Insights, Challengers set themselves in front of the competition and find new approaches to grow business. Let’s dig into the shifts in account management that necessitated this change, what it means for GTM teams, and easy strategies to get started.

The evolution of customer success

The idea of customer support isn’t new, but client success and account management functions are, relatively speaking. The first CS role emerged in 1996 at a company called Vantive. In 2005, as Salesforce grew rapidly and acquired both new customers and other companies, they recognized a need to address increasing levels of customer churn and built out a real customer success team. This team reflected the early function of CS teams: focusing on renewals and retention for CRM companies.

Eventually, venture capital investors recognized the value of scrutinizing retention plans in the same way they prioritized a startup’s approach to new business. After all, it’s much easier to grow business from existing accounts than to start fresh with new ones, right? Well, that’s overstating it a little.

What really drives account growth?

Today, as the CS field grows, account managers and customer success teams face new challenges. Increasingly, they must balance retention and service delivery with growth. In this clip, Challenger Account Director Megan Dolan looks at how renewals and expansion fit into a typical AD’s quota in 2021 and how those expectations evolved in 2024 in our recent Winning The Challenger Sale Webinar “Reframing Account Management for Growth.”

So, what strategies can help them get there? In 2018 and again in 2023, Challenger surveyed account managers and sales leaders to find out what they thought contributed to growth. Eighty-eight percent of those account managers replied that great service was the biggest driver. Yet, our research shows that only 28% of sales leaders are regularly reporting meeting account growth targets.

In short, while reps report that service yields growth, sales leaders report that strategy isn’t working. How do we explain that discrepancy?

As we know from the original Challenger research, it all comes back to the customer experience. The sales experience is the single biggest driver of customer loyalty. A Challenger sale sets your company up as the kind of trusted advisor that can partner with clients to bring them Insights they aren’t seeing elsewhere. Carrying that support forward is key to growing accounts. As Marinus Maris, our General Manager of International Sales, says, the key is not customer service but customer improvement.

“The metric you want your customers to have in their mind is, ‘I can’t live without this person because what they’re bringing to me is insightful,’” Marinus says.

For Challenger sellers, this means continually bringing Insights to the table, looking ahead to unforeseen blockers, and helping them navigate internal and external threats.

“It’s far more profitable to go after your existing base,” Marinus says. “One of the expressions that we use in the team here is that the customers you want are like the customers you already have.”

Yet, as Megan shared, it’s not enough to deliver Insights and improvement.

Strategies for approaching expansion like new business

First, we recognize that most CS professionals didn’t choose that career path because they enjoy cold calling or even engaging in sales conversations. At the same time, most sellers — unless they’re those fantastic Problem Solvers — don’t thrive in a post-sale environment.

That’s why the first step in successfully growing revenue with existing accounts is a strategic shift in the way your GTM team approaches growth. Just look at how sales leaders attending our recent webinar responded when we asked how their teams shake out.

Whether you divide your teams into pre and post-sale or not, it’s critical that everyone sees growth as a shared responsibility of a holistic GTM team. From there, leaders can begin coaching their CS and AD teams to push the boundaries of what they might naturally consider “account management.”

Dig into your clients’ success metrics

According to research from LinkedIn and Ipsos, 78% of B2B buyers rated sellers “aligning with [them] on success metrics related to purchase” as very important in a sales engagement. Customer success and AD teams tasked with growth should know those metrics, too — and should use their ongoing connection with customers to dive beneath the surface.

Hear more in this clip from Megan.

Get comfortable moving beyond the main points of contact

Next, CS and AD teams must partner and plan to break into new business units at existing clients. Often, that means getting comfortable moving outside their main POCs.

When Megan wants to begin a conversation with a stakeholder in a new business unit, she reaches out on LinkedIn and sends resources to key contacts. Crucially, these resources aren’t about the product — they’re directly related to those stakeholders’ interests. She also asks for introductions and sometimes makes them herself.

“I’m often connecting people at the same organizations and actually brokering meetings between them,” Megan says. “It’s up to us to create that bridge, that off-ramp, to get them to the same destination.”

Of course, your points of contact may not welcome this approach, at least at first. You may hear them ask, “Why are you reaching out to so-and-so?” But remember that Challenger sellers don’t pursue relationship building for its own sake. They build relationships, yes, but they build them around commercial growth.

“It’s about those interactions between the workshop or the training where we can help them overcome roadblocks they weren’t even aware of,” Megan says.

Deeply understand the business and identify new opportunities

To grow accounts, account managers must understand what the customer cares about across multiple business units. Look at the company website, understand its segments and organizational charts, and speak to the broader problems facing the industry. Don’t forget to read financial statements and annual reports. Megan particularly likes turning to podcasts, LinkedIn posts, or product launch videos.

“It’s a minute and thirty seconds straight from a C-Level or from an executive,” Megan says. “When you reach out to that person, you can let them know you saw their video.”

Then, return to your Challenger skills and use that knowledge to disrupt their status quo. This is about identifying the problems they haven’t thought about, and it allows account directors to elevate their credibility and build a path to growth.

“Then they can think back to: Megan helped me with this,” she says. “And that sets up that fantastic experience that we discussed, one that’s based not on service, but on growth.”

Turning account growth into a strategy that wins

The new rules of account growth dictate that pre- and post-sale teams must align closely together if they want to achieve ambitious growth goals. As the lines between sales and CS begin to blur and disappear, Challenger-trained account managers and CSMs will find themselves a step ahead. They can use tailored Insights to build on a strong sales experience in a way that centers relationships around customer improvement, not just customer service.

For more, check out our on-demand Winning The Challenger Sale Webinar, “Reframing Account Management for Growth.”

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There are four communication styles in Robert and Dorothy Bolton’s communication styles model, each with its own specialties, stress reaction, and learning preferences.

Looking at the table below, which of these lists best describes you?

If your first reaction is that you fit into more than one list, that can be true. Yes, everyone is unique in their own way so it’s hard to put yourself in “one box.” But the Boltons have discovered that there are similarities in the way people communicate, so everyone has a dominant style. Let’s look at each style in more detail:

• The words in the upper left corner describe an amiable. Amiables are relationship-oriented, specialize in listening and being supportive, and acquiesce when stressed.
• The words in the upper right corner describe an expressive. Expressives are social-oriented, specialize in making personal connections and having a lot of energy, and attack when stressed.
• The words in the lower left corner describe an analytic. Analytics are process-oriented, specialize in fact-finding and methodical processes, and avoid when stressed.
• Lastly, the words in the lower right corner describe a driver. Drivers are results-oriented, specialize in problem-solving and decision-making, and autocrat when stressed.

Once you have determined your dominant style, it’s crucial to understand how to flex to others to ensure you are communicating effectively based on their characteristics. By understanding my style, I gained self-awareness, allowing me to have more productive conversations in and outside of the workplace. For example, I learned that as an expressive, I can go off on a tangent when talking, which another expressive might enjoy; however, I should try to stick to the point if I’m communicating with an analytic because they don’t like to veer from the facts.

I am also more aware of the communication styles of others. Now, I catch myself trying to diagnose the communication styles of those around me in my personal and professional life. I can’t help but think how useful learning this skill sooner would have been. It can be beneficial during group projects in school, social settings, or conflicts with my friends and family.

It’s been eye-opening to hear how representatives practice self-awareness in our Effortless Experience Capabilities Builder sessions. By knowing their own style and being able to diagnose the customer’s style, they can improve communications by flexing to better meet the needs of the customer. In my first few months, I heard representatives reflect on how conversations with some challenging customers could have gone differently and what they are doing now to enhance the customer experience. A common realization among representatives is that driver customers want to get straight to the point; whereas, amiables are likely to start an interaction by describing the details of their day and why they are reaching out.

Understanding communication styles is so important, it is the first skill we teach representatives because it sets the tone for the rest of the conversation. Giving them the tools to identify communication styles through verbal and even nonverbal cues ensures they can effectively interact with customers to deliver a low-effort experience.

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Think about this in a customer service interaction: An encounter with a distracted representative will inevitably lead to frustration and a high effort experience for customers. How do we reinforce active listening on our teams to ensure effortless experiences for our customers?

Effortless Experience’s findings on active listening

Our Effortless Experience team regularly listens to customer service interactions where we hear representatives catch a key phrase or a few words and jump into action. When this happens, representatives tend to:

• Interrupt with a response as soon as the customer takes a pause
• Believe they are right, and the customer is wrong
• Make incorrect assumptions about what the customer needs

Where customer frustration kicks in

When representatives spring into action, they are likely trying to get off the phone quicker and give their solution to the customers before they have had a chance to fully explain their problem. While it is easy for the representative to have this expectation when they see the same issue three or four times that day, they need to be aware that solutions are not a one size fits all. What works for one customer may not work for another.

Promoting active listening

While reps should always be listening, active listening is making the conscious effort to lean in and shut out all disruptions—really be attentive to what the customer is saying. It is more than just a soft skill. If a representative is attentive, it ensures they are engaged in a two-way conversation, rather than passively taking in what the customer is saying.

Active listening lays a foundation for any successful customer service interaction. By committing their full attention to an interaction, representatives keep the focus on the customer experience, which reduces the chances of miscommunications, while also making the client feel valued and heard.

Attentiveness is the key to active listening

How can representatives actively listen and be attentive to customers?

1. Listen and Confirm: Representatives need to listen without formulating an immediate response. By using simple phrases like “Okay” or “I understand” reps can confirm with customers they are actively listening before confirming their issue. Remember, representatives cannot listen if they are speaking.
2. Seek Clarification: Oftentimes, representatives are not entirely sure why a customer is contacting the company. This may lead to incorrect assumptions about both the problem and the solution. To prevent this, representatives need to ask clarifying questions. The upfront time spent here will reduce customer frustration and time later in the process.
3. Paraphrase and Probe: Customers want to feel heard. To accomplish this, customer service representatives should pause, reflect, and ask questions. Representatives should repeat and paraphrase what a customer says to demonstrate care and understanding. This reduces frustration and lets the representative develop a clearer understanding of the problem. Responses such as “What I’m hearing is” or “Let me gather all this information correctly” build rapport.

Increasing customer loyalty through the service experience

We have all experienced interactions with customer service representatives who simply follow a script and lack interest in solving issues. These interactions erode trust and confidence. Customers want candid and human-driven experiences. Remember: If your current customers encounter representatives who seem disinterested or distracted, they can—and will—go elsewhere.

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So I did what we all do. I asked around. I asked friends, I asked family: “Do any of you have a standing desk? If so, would you recommend purchasing from this company? Would you re-buy your desk if you were looking today?”

And one of my friends who I trust wholeheartedly (because she’s that friend—you know, the one you have who researches EVERYTHING?) was like: “I have the desk for you.”

She recommended a company I hadn’t heard of . . . but, then again, I’m not that friend who does the research.

The buying process was easy. The company’s website was not only cool (loved the demo videos), but it was easy to navigate, and I was able to find the product and price that fit my budget. So I ordered it . . .

It shipped. It arrived.

Then the chaos began. One of the legs on my new sleek desk wasn’t functioning. We (yes, my wife was running point here as she’s much better at this stuff) jumped on with tech support. They walked us through a few things to troubleshoot and then gave us the answer we already knew. Faulty part. They would have to ship us a new one from California (I’m in Maryland) so the half-built desk ended up sitting behind me for over a week as we waited . . .

The new part shipped. Then it arrived.

And the chaos continued. The new leg worked but the mechanism that makes the desk go up (do you see why I’m not the one doing the research OR putting it together?) didn’t work. So we went back to tech support, BUT this time they set up a time for us to TALK LIVE to an agent. The company knew that this was the second issue, and they, too, couldn’t believe it.

What happened on that call was magical. I got a rep who—as we say here at Effortless—truly owned and advocated for me. He apologized. He wanted to capture all the details so he could connect with both product and his customer service leadership team to make sure this didn’t happen again. He conveyed advocacy by being an active champion for my issue and working on MY behalf to achieve resolution . . .

Turns out we just got a dud. It was the perfect storm. The company shipped that second replacement part from their east coast warehouse to ensure we had it overnight, and scheduled time with their tech team to support us (really the wifey) in putting the final pieces together (forward resolving!).

The road wasn’t easy, but I love my new desk. Would I recommend this company to a friend? YES. Because even though we ran into several issues, when I got to their live rep, they didn’t follow a script or hide behind policy. They fixed my problem.

Happy wife, happy life . . .

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That title probably caught your attention, so without making you wonder a single second longer, here is the worst question a service rep can ask:

“Have I fully resolved your issue today?”

This is actually one of the most commonly asked questions at the end of a customer service interaction—and there are several variations of it too (e.g., “is there anything else I can do for you today?”).

File this question under the “innocuous but egregious” label.

What’s concerning isn’t so much the question itself, but the response it usually prompts, which is “yes, I think so…”, which then leads the rep to quickly close the call and move onto the next customer in queue. But while the rep is moving on, the customer is often left wondering… “WAS there something else the rep could have done for me? DID they actually solve the thing I was trying to solve?”

Guess what happens next? That’s right…they call back, or write a new email, or start a new chat—frequently because the issues wasn’t, in fact, fully resolved at all. We’ve all had experiences like these:

“So I tried to make that error message go away based on what the rep told me yesterday, and that seemed to work at the time…but now I’ve got this other message.”

“I just opened my invoice, and I think the credit that I called about last week was applied, but I can’t really tell…”

“You told me I would get the refund check shortly, but it’s been three days and I still haven’t seen it, so I thought I’d better check in.”

A Better Way Forward

At the risk of being cliché, customers don’t know what they don’t know. Here at Challenger, we’d argue that it’s really the responsibility of the company to make the next suggestions proactively (e.g., “while I have you on the line, I’d like to make you aware of X related issue”). This is the concept of next issue avoidance (aka forward resolution), which is really all about looking around the corner on behalf of the customer to help them anticipate next steps, next questions, or next problems. When the rep asks a customer if they have fully resolved their issue, it places a lot of onus on the customer and also introduces a seed of doubt that the rep themselves doesn’t actually believe they have resolved the issue!

A client recently posed this question to us on the topic: “What if there aren’t opportunities to provide forward resolution information? What’s the best closing question a rep should ask then?” I would suggest that reps could close with something like “have I answered all of your questions?” or “do you have any additional questions for me?”, which lifts that burden from the customer of trying to figure out whether their issue has been resolved. These questions are also appropriate in situations where the rep has not resolved the issue (and both the customer and the rep know it).

Ultimately, organizations should resist the urge to mandate a single “approved closing” (and please, please, please do not put such a thing on your QA evaluation). If it is necessary to suggest something for reps to use as a closing, try to find several acceptable closing options (better yet: let the reps brainstorm their own list that will sound most authentic). Then, let the reps decide what to use in the moment, as we know customers can hear scripted service, and it drives up their perception of effort. Furthermore, if reps are being forced to use a phrase that doesn’t make sense in all situations, customers will see right through that. For example, I once listened to a call from one of our insurance clients where the customer called to (angrily) cancel their auto policy, only to have the rep close the call with “as always, thanks for being a loyal customer” because it was required on the QA form. We can avoid these uncomfortable moments by simply letting reps use a little bit of situational judgment. I’m sure that rep would readily agree that it wasn’t the right comment at the right time.

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That might sound rude, but I was fed up. If the interaction had been a low-effort experience, I would have been willing to hear him out. I love a good promotion. But the fact is that he hadn’t earned the right to try to sell me on much of anything. I had baggage from the duration of my issue and number of calls I had placed, and he hadn’t addressed any of it. He hadn’t conveyed that he would champion my cause to the refund team, and I didn’t have faith that my issue would be resolved. And he wasn’t flexing to my communication style – I had sent him all the signals that I wanted him to get to the point and he was trying to chit-chat about our similar Philadelphia area codes.

Lowering customer effort through the teaching and reinforcement of these 9 competencies leads to customer interactions that are 94% more likely to repurchase and 88% more likely to increase spend. Said differently – low-effort interactions drive customer loyalty behaviors and grease the wheels for a sales conversation.

Let’s break this graphic down.

At the base of the pyramid, you can see how the low effort skills framework creates a solid foundation of “always-on” skills like flexing communication styles, being an advocate for your customer, actively listening, and using positive language. These critical skills establish and help maintain rapport with your customer. Not using these skills (as we saw in my disastrous example) can immediately close the door to future wallet share.

Once rapport has been established, service reps can also focus not only on what they are hearing through active listening, but surfacing additional information through purposeful small talk , which will help a rep understand their customer better and increase issue resolution. We also train reps to not avoid the baggage that 92% of your customers are bringing to their interactions – address it so that both parties can move forward in the conversation in a positive manner. In other words, when the rep helping me with my chandelier did not acknowledge my comment about this being my 9th call to gain a refund, my perception was that he didn’t empathize with the situation at all.

Most service organizations that have a service to sales component believe that if a rep solves the current issue, they’re ready to pivot to a sales conversation. But what happens when the customer must call again in a week or two because of the downstream issues associated with the current issue, which the rep could have predicted?

“Couldn’t you have told me this last time I called? This is so frustrating. By the way, I was considering that contract/product/upgrade you showed me last time I called… but forget it – you are too high-effort to deal with.”

To avoid this classic mistake, we teach reps how to recognize opportunities to forward resolve , and how to position that opportunity in a natural way, especially since the rep is asking the customer to stay on the phone a bit longer (a skill that can be equally utilized to move the conversation in a sales direction).

The bottom line is, when implementing a service to sales strategy, you still have to solve the customer’s issue first. The way that you solve it matters. If you make the customer feel that the interaction has been effortless, your customer is 94% more likely to listen to that promotion and open the website to buy something on a whim. In a high-effort interaction, the customer might just hang up.

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Unfortunately, it still exists. 

Whether you’ve read about it or are experiencing it, disengagement is widespread, and attrition isn’t far behind.  The good news?  The number of contact center leaders expressing concern about their team’s well-being has grown exponentially.  This aligns with the research I’ve seen from Brian Cantor at CCW stating more than 70% of contact center leaders identify employee well-being as a top priority.

The not so good news?  Contact centers leaders are struggling to find solutions. 

The engagement struggle is real, so companies are getting creative. What’s often overlooked, however, are the financial implications that come along with high levels of disengagement.

Reps Have a Hard and Thankless Job

It’s never been easy to be a contact center rep, but it’s gotten worse over the last 18 months. 

A few weeks ago, I was speaking with an executive at a company who shared the current state of their organization.  Reps are unhappy cause they’re getting yelled at by customers and they’re unhappy cause they’re getting yelled at by management. 

Who likes being yelled at all day? Gartner recently found “Disengagement is rampant among customer service reps, leading to high rep turnover and poor customer experiences.”

Let’s just say that’s not what you want from a group that talks to your customers all day, every day.

Here are a few unique levers contact center leaders I’m talking to are pulling to engage their reps:

• Weekly meditation
• Treasure hunt for kids (several companies are engaging reps and their families)
• Virtual concerts (one company brought in a local ukulele artist)
• Wine tastings
• One company has begun offering their reps stock options (or at least the ability to participate in the ESOP)

The engagement challenge remains despite these efforts.  And it’s leading to historic levels of attrition, which translates into real dollars.

Attrition Costs…A Lot

When I speak to contact center leaders about the cost of attrition, there is general recognition that it’s expensive. However, I tend to find most underestimate how expensive.  In fact, I’ve had plenty of leaders admit they don’t know how much it costs and worry (rightfully) what that number may look like.

Keeping tabs on attrition is especially important today!  One company shared their attrition numbers are up to 50%!

Here’s a simple way to estimate the cost of attrition: 

Gartner recently updated the cost to hire one rep = $14,113 (ouch).  
Let’s say you have a team of 200 reps and a standard 20% attrition rate. 
This means you have 40 reps turning over annually (200*20%). 
Multiply that 40 by $14,113 and attrition is costing you $564,520…a year! 

What are you doing to engage your staff?  

How much is attrition costing you?

Check out this interview with PayPal to learn about the exciting levers they’re pulling to engage staff and reduce attrition.

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