CSM Practice - The Customer Success Podcast

TAM vs CSM: Navigating Customer Success Roles

β€’ Irit Eizips & CSM Practice β€’ Season 4 β€’ Episode 4

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Explore the differences between Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and Customer Success Managers (CSMs) with Sol Refael and find out if we need both. Learn how to navigate account management effectively, handle challenges, and enhance customer relationships for success in your organization. Get practical tips and valuable insights from industry experts.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube!

π‡πˆπ†π‡π‹πˆπ†π‡π“π’

- Delve into the distinct roles of TAMs and CSMs for streamlined account management.
- Uncover practical strategies for overcoming challenges when merging technical and customer-centric tasks.
- Gain expert insights on optimizing customer relationships and driving success in your organization.

π€ππŽπ”π“ πŽπ”π‘ 𝐆𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓

Sol is an experienced Technical Customer Success and Project Manager, with over 10 years of experience in Customer Success work, leading and developing customer-oriented projects (Including 365 integration in the Ministry of Health, Digital communities' project users and Step-Ahead users). Over 5 years of experience in Customer Success Management in different large scale organizations.

πŸ”— You may connect with Sol via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sol-refael/

𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐅𝐔𝐋 π‹πˆππŠπ’

πŸ“‘ Read: What is a Customer Success Manager?

πŸŽ₯ Watch: CS Tech Stacks from a Technical Account Manager

⏬ Download: Customer Success VS Customer Experience

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1. Enhance Your Customer Success Approach β€” Grab a free copy of our Customer Success templates and infographics to streamline your strategies. Click Here

2. Join Our YouTube Community β€” Explore Customer Success insights and strategies with industry experts. Learn from professionals about optimizing partner relationships in the tech sector. Click Here

3. Build Your CS Strategy β€” If you're a startup executive eager to elevate your Customer Success strategies, our Mastermind program is designed for you. Collaborate with leading customer success professionals to gain the clarity and tools needed to effectively implement and enhance Customer Success in your organization. Click Here

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00:00 Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining our customers, success, podcast, the CSM practice, where we actually dive into the difficult questions and if you have ever worked at a company that had a Tam or had a CSM and thought it was the same rule or asked yourself should we have both roles in our organization
00:23 or just get rid of one because maybe the CSM can do it all or the Tam can actually do some CSM activities.
00:28 what is the right answer here? And so I brought in this amazing person that actually worked as a technical account manager to explain what this role is.
00:39 She also worked as a technical account manager with CSMs, and I'm going to dig in and ask her what worked and so with that.
00:50 So, Lafayne, thank you so much for joining our show again. Thank you for having me tell me the pleasure for those of you who are watching sold for the first time.
00:59 She's also been on our channel before, so check out her previous episode as well. It was pretty, it was pretty cool, so okay.
01:09 So in your past life, you worked as a technical account manager, is that not the case? It is the case.
01:15 I'm currently a solution engineer and project manager starting to direct my own department and in customer services at joint, our travel tech startup based in Jerusalem.
01:25 And I've been a TAM before. My previous position was at EasySend. Also an amazing startup, a little bit bigger. My position there was a TAM senior technical account manager, and I worked there a lot with other customer success managers from another team.
01:40 And we did have a lot of conflicts of like, whose territory is this, why are you talking to my customer without letting me know, et cetera?
01:48 So, I think this is a pressing issue that we need to sort up today. Having that experience of being a technical exam manager and working with a CSM, what are some of the biggest issues of having both roles in an organization?
02:03 I know it's two different roles. It doesn't require two different specialities to be a technical exam manager and to be a customer success manager.
02:10 A technical exam manager is based in the areas between project management. Again, it can vary between companies, but these are the main criteria that we can base on.
02:20 Your organization, what were some of the challenges in working with a CSM as a technical account manager? The main is one, whose territory is this?
02:30 Who's the main point of contact for the customer? Who is talking to the customer about general issues that don't have to do with technical issues?
02:38 Who needs to manage the overall account? I think these are the most common issues that have accounted, managing accounts with customer success managers, and other situations that I used to encounter was when I, as a time, had a very good and profound relationship with the customer, don't I step into 
02:56 the customer success managers arena? Shouldn't he be the one that's closest to the customer? Shouldn't I just be on the technical side?
03:04 So that's also a lot of the issues that we had. looking back and if you had to generate that role or both roles in your current organization, because you're going to be a director of customer services, obviously, you would have that ability.
03:17 If you had to generate both roles again in a new organization, based on your learnings and experience, what kind of swim lanes would you have structured for both roles to avoid these challenges?
03:30 The first thing that needs to be done is having clear swing lanes. This is where the customer's success manager lies.
03:36 He needs to do the upsells, cross-sells, have his weekly calls with the customer, but the technical account manager is the one in charge of the technical issues.
03:44 He would update the customer's success manager, so he's on the loop on the technical aspects that are still like open with the customer, so he's not blindsided at any call, but he doesn't eat to manage those.
03:55 Those are part of the technical account manager's plate and that's his mandate to rule. The thing that can solve all of this is having a way to discuss things together, like having a one-on-one on customers, having a good communication between everyone and supporting this inside the organization, to 
04:12 prevent ego wars and stepping on each other's toes, because all in all, it's two different twin lanes. And they are meeting sometimes, but they're two different twin lanes.
04:20 You can just say, hi, and keep swimming. Who owns quarterly business reviews? It's a customer success manager. I have a technical account manager.
04:28 I like to be in depth in every account that I had. I've also used to go over support tickets. I like knowing everything that's going on with my customers.
04:37 You do need to give the respect of managing the QBR to the customer's success manager. Who owns escalations? It starts with the tab.
04:46 He escalates to his director. And then the customer's success manager can be the third point over a second point of escalation.
04:52 In a way, as the overall manager of the account, there's multiple escalation tickets who provides the status updates for the customer If it's a technical issue, the technical account manager needs to do that, in case it's like a complicated account, then I would involve the customer's success manager
05:10 up to a level. But I do think again, it needs to be split out because you don't want to overload both terms and customers' success managers to attend to each other meetings, it doesn't make any sense.
05:19 You don't need two people to be on the same meeting, but yeah, all in all, I do want everyone to be aligned and create one point of knowledge, so everyone knows where the to where the state is, who owns technical adoption?
05:33 It's at the technical economy that you're straightforward. Okay, so product adoption, the technical account manager owns, can they be held responsible and accountable for the percentage of utilization, consumption, frequency of use, breadth and depth of features adapted?
05:52 I think the beginning of the general adoption and I think so, but yeah, I think going into feature adoption and special feature requests and all of that should be managed by the because it was successfully.
06:03 I think it goes from this specific level that should be at the technical account manager's level to things that are more general related to the account that should be managed by the customer successfully.
06:14 If it's new features, new use cases, you're expecting the customer success manager to lead because they need to sell the business case.
06:23 But once they started activating a certain feature, If there's any technical issues using those, the technical account manager would do that.
06:32 But if it's just a matter of an end user training and making sure that the feature is embedded in a core business process, you would leave it to the CSM to do.
06:42 Did I get that right or do you think about it differently? I think so. There's also a little bit of a semantics because if it's a technical guidance that you need to provide the customer, then I would expect the customer success manager to it as a request, but to approach the technical economy, which
06:56 might do it in the end, or open a ticket for the implementation team. At that level, I think that's, if I just narrow it down a little bit.
07:03 So the technical account manager doesn't own adoption. The only step in when there's a barrier to success from a technical product standpoint, yes?
07:16 Yeah, definitely. I like a Swiss knife for the CSM, use it as needed, but they don't own the account, they own the technical success of the account.
07:27 So whether it's multiple support tickets and there's like a little bit of a mess that support can't handle it, somebody needs to manage, it's like 10 support tickets, the technical account manager will step in.
07:37 If there's a hot fix that's being developed by R&D, the technical account manager can manage the communication with the customer, because in your opinion, should a technical account manager always be designated or dedicated resource or can we also do a pooled model with some accounts.
07:58 We try that at easy send and I don't think it worked well. It can change if it's a high touch or a low touch.
08:04 I'm a person that gets attached to customers. I like all the customers that get my way, but I don't like the full idea and I think it should be a designated thing.
08:11 Even with developers, I do think there's a better management when you get to know your specific materials, you know, the customer, you know, there are technical demands and everything and you're well acquainted with Deka.
08:21 Let's talk about organizational structure and what's optimal. Some companies that do have an technical account manager and a CSM likes to put them in pods.
08:32 That means that they would probably own multiple accounts together versus having the technical account manager work with multiple CSMs on the five accounts that they are dedicated or designated to.
08:46 I think it's a good idea. Again, it has to do a lot with a relationship. I think if the relationship is good, it could be great because you're always working with the same one and you get along and everyone knows their job.
08:56 But there's discrimination between the departments or the stakeholders here, then you can just being with one can create a lot of conflict throughout a lot of accounts.
09:04 So it's also a disadvantage. There's other things that CSMs do with accounts or customers. One of them is, for example, having a relationship with the executive sponsor and giving them updates on an ongoing basis.
09:16 Did you ever find yourself as a technical account manager in a position where you actually developed a relationship with the executive decision maker and if so what kind of things did you communicate to them that you felt was valuable and interesting for them?
09:30 In my position as a technical account manager, I overshadowed my customer success managers a bit. I used to work with European markets specifically with German customers and I did create a relationship that was profound.
09:41 So I was the one ruling the account and the customer success manager was aside on managing the account on a general level but again I was the more dominant one.
09:50 So I did work with executives to be honest I think it's a disadvantage. The profession of being a customer success manager is a different profession.
09:56 The same way that I as a project manager don't know enough about doing upsells and crosssells and managing a cube you are the way that a customer success manager does.
10:06 I can do it. Well I can swim, but will I when fast will I be semi-microphelps? No, probably not. So I do think we should keep it as it is.
10:15 We should keep everyone on mastering their profession because that's what keeps the company and the role strong facing the customer.
10:22 I'm just going to play Devils Advocate some accounts or some organizations also have an account manager role. Did you guys have sales but attached to the account, a CSM, in a exam.
10:33 We had all three. All three. And so why the CSM owning upsells and crosses shouldn't the account manager own that?
10:40 And easy-send, they stop at the sales. Also, in joint, the account manager manages the sale. Once the customer signs it goes into the customer's success, we might consult with them because they know the customer from the grooming phase, but no, that's said the customer's success manager's character.
10:57 But it's interesting what you're suggesting. it will happen with larger organizations, and so in that respect, for what I typically see in work well is the account manager will own sometimes the renewals, sometimes they will have a renewal manager for that matter, but he will own any kind of financial
11:16 transactions. And so the role of the customer success manager at that point would not be to handle escalations obviously, but it would be to ensure that the customer is adopting and using the solution, and also potentially find additional use cases or additional business processes that they can impact
11:38 , and that's all related to value cycle. Some would say, yeah, they can manage or should do that too, and I think that it makes more sense for the customer success manager to lead.
11:48 They should be positioned as a business trusted advisor versus a product expert and leverage and lean into the technical account manager as the product expert.
11:59 Now, granted, they need to know enough about the product, otherwise, probably the customer wouldn't want to talk to them, but even if they do know they should delineate very technical questions to the technical account manager.
12:14 So for example, let's say they had a conversation in a QBR and they found a few additional use cases that are operating for the customer, or the next step solely typically to create a success plan.
12:26 And so I wanted to ask you, in that organization where you worked as a technical account manager, did you ever create success plans for the customer with that process, what was your role versus the CSMs, or what would you have expected that to be in an ideal situation?
12:45 We did create success plans. It was, again, managed both by me and the customer success manager together. When I would go into the technical specification going with the implementation team, the developer and the integrator to go into the technical details with the customer.
12:59 While the customer success manager stays on the use case, how many people are going to use it, what effect it's going to have, and how we can take it into a full expansion for that matter.
13:09 So in that way, the road got split to those swim lanes that we discussed earlier and a clear path. would you say that the technical account manager should manage the technical aspect of a success plan whether or not it relates to an upsell.
13:25 Sometimes a success plan is just digging it more on stuff that the client already owns and just making sure that they get maximum value from what they purchase so that when they're in real comes there's no discount conversations.
13:38 So we're you the quarterback for deciding whether we need a solution architect, the system architect Do we need R&D services sold here or you kind of like managing and coordinating that or was the CSM Deciding those types of things in my experience this customer success manager just dove to deep into
14:00 those technical aspects and then Sometimes got complicated. They didn't mistake because again, they're not that savvy in the technical aspects sometimes they want to upsell, so then they just say, yeah, we can do this in that when we grant and join right now.
14:12 It's working differently because it is split, but on the other hand, I think that it's good for the customer success manager to have enough technical knowledge in depth to also know how to look at the numbers for the customer without the technical account manager and say, okay, here is where I think 
14:28 we can improve and maybe just confide with the time to, okay, how can we improve it? But I can see the numbers here, I do expect of a certain level of understanding from the customer success manager, not just to stay at the top of things, but to go a little bit deeper, going into the numbers, we have
14:44 dashboard for example, showing conversion rates and click through rates. I do expect the customer success manager to rule that. We do have that in our company, but I do expect something to already like start asking the questions.
14:54 So the technical people, the solution engineers or the project managers, can take that into like technical tasks. If you take a look at your experiences at mechanical account manager and your work besides you with other technical account managers, what makes a great technical account manager superb at
15:12 their work in terms of skills, maybe even investments in the product knowledge, etc. I think someone that likes to learn always learn new technologies, getting to know the product on the technical level, not just demos, understanding the product, understanding tickets, understanding what the developers
15:29 do, knowing how to assess what they do, so they don't give too long of time estimations. And also getting to know the customers well, I do think that it's important for technical account managers to be the main point person for the customer on the technical level.
15:45 So it's important for them to be people person. Also with everything that has to do with communicating with the customer success manager, they need to be team players.
15:53 They need to be people that know how to play together. With other team members, the developers, the QA team, because basically technical, the manager manages the technical resources for the company for his customer.
16:04 So I think that's what I would take and of course technical knowledge, I think that goes without saying. Would you say that a technical account manager role is like a passive, a reactive role versus a CSM, a proactive meaning they have cadence calls, regardless of the health or whatever is going on with
16:22 the customer, Whereas, a technical account manager only intervenes as needed and is reactive to what the customer needs versus setting up scheduled calls or whatnot with a customer regardless what's happening.
16:37 I think it does make sense that the TAM is a little bit more reactive. I also think that it has to do it with a workload as a TAM where you have tickets, you have issues in production.
16:46 So it depends on the company, but the workload is something that is something that you get from your customers and you don't push necessarily, and I think with the customer success manager, you're the one that wants the customers to call you.
16:57 You want to call them. You want to make sure that they get on the calls. You want to make sure that they're adopting the product.
17:02 So yeah, in a way that's more of a proactive approach. Being the technical account manager is introduced into, are they kind of being pulled in when there are multiple issues or severe escalations or hot fixes that are being deployed.
17:16 Once you're in and there's an active engagement with that account. In your opinion, what have worked well for you? Do some things in a cadence, for example, things that I've heard in the past, a tan would send a support ticket report once a week.
17:33 You also suggested earlier in this conversation, they should have a one-on-one cadence call with their CSM so that you can align.
17:42 Are there any other things that you would recommend doing for any tan that's listening to this video or any CSM that is working the team to make that relationship work and also give the client the best experience possible.
17:54 The best message for me is you don't need to fight over the customer. It goes out bad. I think again, it's two different swim lanes.
18:03 You should work together. There's no possible reason to fight over customers for my experience and you need to find a way to communicate and understand where everyone wants to be with the customer and stay on that lane.
18:16 Yeah, I guess I'm trying to figure out what is the best way to communicate with the client? Did you have any strategies that you said?
18:26 Well, when I do that consistently with a customer, they're getting a better experience. I think again, managing the expectations. This is your customer success manager.
18:34 He does this and this. When you approach me on an issue that has to do with them, you see him and pass it to him.
18:41 Having this sensation at in front of the customer that we're aligned. It's not me versus him. We're on the same team.
18:46 and he's part of our mini team with the customer and he's the one answering this part and getting everyone aligned on that.
18:53 And vice versa, if there's a technical issue, then that has to be done by the technical commentator. If you were to create that role in your new organization and hire somebody for that, how would you structure their compensation plan?
19:05 I don't believe in based on mission. From my experience, that's not something that technical commentators have. It's not related to their KPIs or to the way the role is based.
19:14 I would just old-fashioned kind of compensation plan. I do think that having the technical account manager travel to customers, which sometimes may be a little bit out of the ordinary, but I used to do that.
19:25 And again, it takes with the customer success manager together, I think that brings the whole experience of what the company brings to the customer, to work along with the customer face-to-face.
19:34 And I see it as part of the compensation. I want to talk about the compensation plan for a technical account manager.
19:41 It seems to me that in your world, if they gotten a 90% base salary, 10% variable, it sounds to me that the way you're thinking about it is potentially having a 10% variable be an annual bonus that is based on their performance or the companies performance.
20:04 Did I get that right? We know that CSMs, by the way, have about 80% base with a variable that's related to customer retention, upsells, and other leading indicators such as advocacy, it could be upsells, etc.
20:19 In the technical account manager's role, it sounds like it's in between a CSM and a support, but should we have the variable just general on a company's performance or are there any specific KPIs that we could say, you know what, if this technical account manager is good, this is the impact and we could
20:40 in an ideal world attach that to their variable component. If the customer's success manager for that account, and it's a big and successful account, and the customer's success manager manages to have an amazing upsell with that account, and the technical account manager did an amazing job lay the ground
20:58 to answering all the technical issues promoting the technical project plan for that matter. I think they should both enjoy the same bonus.
21:06 Usually they just get a spiff. Whatever the spiff is, the spiff is like a fixed amount that is given for an upsell opportunity and sometimes the spiff is given one of the upsell opportunities close, different companies do it differently, but overall the comp plan, the annual bonus, what should that be
21:26 tied to for a technical account manager? I would have to retention in that matter, but yeah, I would tag it to performance, the house score, and the satisfaction that the customer is having with the services of the company, definitely.
21:37 So customer health score and the C-SAT, which you also look at things at how quickly escalation tickets are closed, preventing escalations from the beginning with, if you ask.
21:49 Okay, so reduction in escalation tickets in general, would you also track reduction in support tickets? That can also be product related from my experience.
22:00 That's what I'm asking. Well, do you know that the Tam is doing the right job? The product is stable. We can consider that.
22:06 This support can be more complicated, but definitely preventing escalations. I think that's one of my goals as a Tam was to get the customers to not talk from my boss, ever.
22:17 The majority of them never knew who he was and that he existed. So you would gauge for a customer experience.
22:23 They feel like they trust you. They're getting somewhere that they're being taken care of from a technical standpoint while we're reducing support tickets or solving them faster or making them feel like we're actually care about the technical issues that they have and that's a big win.
22:42 Yeah, and we might as well also add, like for example, managing improvement in specific, I would say, arenas of the company that are not working well technically, for example, there's a customer that has a lot of support because I would expect and I would also give compensation to the technical account
22:57 managers that does something to prevent that or improve that, that we see a certain area in the company that's not working well for the customer, for example, like a specific level.
23:06 We have a lot of support tickets on one issue and we can prevent that or improve that specific issue and solve it from the beginning with.
23:12 I would expect that as well from a very good time. Do the Tam gets access to the CS software or do they mainly live in the it was sales force.
23:27 So we had both the support tickets and the customer success management there. I think it's important to have both because we need to manage the support tickets, we also need to manage.
23:36 I would for example add all the call summaries that I had with the customers, so the customer success manager can know what we discussed, what are the open issues and all that's where aligned again.
23:46 So yeah, I think it's important to have both. Should the Tam being involved in renewals? To be honest, I think he's part of why customers should want to renewal in the first place.
23:56 So in a way he is, but I wouldn't involve him in all the strategic and business discussions, because I think he has enough on his plane.
24:02 Again, it's like the different swim lanes discussion. What kind of companies should even have a technical account manager? I think in a way, it has to do with the volume of customers that you have and the necessity.
24:15 Right now, for example, in my company, we are 2025 employees. We have a small amount of customers. And I'm the solution engineering project manager and I think for now it's okay I think in the upcoming three months we're probably going to hire another and then it might just have to be a term for that
24:29 matter. It will be a project manager slash technical account manager. It depends more on the amount of customers I would say going from 20 customers up you will probably need a term that's or at least two project managers.
24:41 Yeah, it's a specialized role that you start adding as to the Workstructure, as soon as things get a little bit more complicated, are there companies do you think out there that have a thousand employees, 10,000 customers, and don't ever need a technical account manager?
24:57 I don't think they don't need one, I think they don't have one, or they might have someone doing time work without calling it a time.
25:03 They probably have a time, I think they probably do. What is the difference between a time and a support ticket agent then?
25:09 A support ticket agent does immediate response to immediate issues? Yeah, it could be managed differently. It be high e-screaser by priority and importance, I think the technical economy is your manages all the technical aspects of the account, going into feature requests, technical specifications, and
25:28 working and managing the production development and Q18. So it's a different role. What if the product is very simple? It could be a relatively simple product.
25:38 And I can say our product right now had joined a super easy to manage. Customers don't even need to manage it.
25:43 a different position. I think we don't have a support yet. For example, we might need in the future. But again, it's a proactive versus reactive rule, but it depends on which kind of reaction you're getting here.
25:54 So if you have a thousand customers do all customers get a Tam or which ones would you assign a Tam to?
26:02 I think I would assign a Tam to the most customers that have more tickets that have more issues that have a lot of adoption.
26:08 So they need someone to control everything that's going on in that account on the technical level. And even if you have a customer that doesn't have a lot, but needs the attention, and you want to grow that account, and you want to have a technical point person to that account, then that's also a reason
26:23 to give them a damn. Are there any situations where you would say, you know what? You could just have a CSM or just a term, and some situations where you would say, you absolutely need to have both roles.
26:34 I think I would never say that a person can do both. It's two different mindsets. I'm doing both right now and it's mind-blowing.
26:41 It's not the same position. It's two different roles. One requires going into details and asking a lot of technical questions and doing sanity checks and working with the development and QATM.
26:53 And it's a much more detailed oriented position. While the customer's success management is a role that's a lot more I wouldn't say fluff, but it has more conversation than going into weak pleas and discussions with the customer and going in-depth in things and not getting things done approach.
27:12 It's two different people and you might get a unicorn that can do everything, but I don't think it'll be at the best quality that you would.
27:20 This is how much education we need to do internally. If you want to be successful in your role and it's a recently established CSM role, make sure that you establish the swim lanes clearly define the processes, clearly define roles and responsibility, and educate on what kind of cadence meetings you're
27:40 doing, how do you gauge for performance of your CSM, and celebrate value delivered via CSMs, not just to the client, but also to other internal teams.
27:52 Hope this interview was sensationally helpful. I know I got a lot out of it, so you're so great. Thank you so much for taking the time, we should be best in your new position and continue to spread in everything that you do.
28:06 Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure. If you like this video, give it a like. Write in the comments below what were some of the how moments that you got and with that it's a wrap.
28:17 Thank you everyone. I'll see you at the next video.

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