How have your CS orgs established/maintained a solid relationship with Product?

At my old company (Procore), I was a part of the Strategic Product Consultant team, which operated as the bridge between CS and Product. A few of our key responsibilities were:

Being an extension of Product Managers in our knowledge of the roadmap
Consulting on GTM strategies
Monitoring customer feedback in UserVoice
Educating CS and clients on upcoming/new releases
CS resource as industry and product experts

Just curious about this group's experience and if this role is being utilized elsewhere!

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Comments

Gretchen Hustad

It is challenging because the reporting structure is really important, but so is the person in the leadership role. While I don't generally think CS should align to the CRO, in my case, he was the best leader for my team and the most focused on positive client (and employee) outcomes at all stages of the process.

Dan Maldonado

I hear you, Gretchen! We had the same reporting structure for CS and Product at my previous company. Now that I'm at an early stage startup, looking to have the right structure/relationship from the beginning!

Gretchen Hustad

I haven't worked at a company that had that type of team, but I love the idea. I've had both really great and really terrible experiences with Product teams. I do think, per @Jennifer Dole's comment, the reporting structure can make a huge difference in how the teams relate to each other. In the worst case I was in, CS reported to the CRO and Product to the CTO and we were always at odds. There was a lot of "my baby isn't ugly", if you know what I mean, and it was difficult to get them to listen openly to the feedback we were getting from our customer base. In this case, the Support team also reported to the CTO, so we developed a communication strategy where much of our feedback was routed through Support as it was received more openly that way. It was not efficient, in within 3 months of my departure, the entire CS team turned over due to the strain.

Dan Maldonado

Love that title!

Jennifer Dole

Client Success and Product both report into the Chief Experience Officer - she is constantly thinking about both teams!