“There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
I disagree.
Take this question I asked a customer in a CS kickoff call: “Can you walk me through the business outcomes you hope to achieve with our product?”
Or worse: “Just confirming, did you buy the standard or … the premium package?”
I wasn’t incompetent. It’s just that our Sales-to-CS handoff was broken.
CS wasn’t looped into deals before closed, CRM notes were threadbare, and there was no Gainsight. My entire prep was the 25 minutes I got with the rep the day of the kickoff.
Granted, this was a nightmare of a handoff that we eventually fixed. But, it’s not that uncommon for CS teams to be unhappy with handoffs.
A bad handoff leads to a bad CS kickoff, where the customer quickly realizes that promises made won’t be kept. The post-sales journey starts in a hole, and it takes exceptional CS execution to dig out–let alone build a happy, long-term customer.
In this post, I’ll walk through three things you can do right now to fix your handoff process.
Loop CSMs Into Deals Before Close
Great sales reps don’t just close deals; they set customers up for long-term success. One of the best ways to do that? Involve CS early.
You don’t need a full one-on-one meeting before a contract is signed.
Even a simple ten-minute introduction on a sales call helps establish trust and sets expectations.
Better yet, have Customer Success Managers (CSMs) shadow multiple calls.
It’s not just about giving the customer good vibes—it forces pre- and post-sales teams to align on pain points, goals, and stakeholders before the deal closes. That alignment makes all the difference in the handoff and post-sales customer experience.
Gainsight Timeline: The Ultimate Alignment Tool
Gainsight Timeline is a structured activity-tracking tool that allows reps and CSMs to log and view customer interactions in one place.
Pair it with the Gainsight Salesforce Connector, and now you’re pulling in CRM notes, emails, and sales activities automatically. That means when the deal closes, CSMs have a full customer picture, not just scraps of information.
And the benefits don’t stop at the initial handoff. Timeline keeps knowledge intact even through internal CS transitions.
HeySam: The Call Intelligence Platform
But what if you weren’t looped into the deal at all? And the CRM notes pulled into Timeline are, well … useless?
Luckily, HeySam, the AI Sales Copilot solves that problem—with the power of AI.
Sam transcribes sales calls and extracts key insights—customer pain points, desired outcomes, timeline, and stakeholders—just like a rep would. But unlike a rep who may forget to document this knowledge, Sam never forgets.
Instead of chasing sales reps for information, CSMs can simply ask Sam to fill in their handoff spreadsheet. In seconds, they’ll have everything they need, without the usual back-and-forth.
Sam doesn’t replace collaboration with the pre-sales team. It augments it. With a base layer of knowledge already in place, CS teams can focus on higher-level conversations that drive customer success.
Conclusion
Getting the Sales-to-CS handoff right is one of the highest-leverage ways to improve the customer experience. I hope these three tactics will help you level up your handoff game.
Learn More
Ready to explore more content? Check out, CSQLs: Creating an Integrated Journey from Sales to CS and Back Again.
