…and should CS leaders report to them?

Everyone wants to report to the CEO, be on the executive committee, and “have a seat at the table.” But, if you’re a customer success leader reporting to the chief revenue officer, you might already have the seat and the influence you need.

Let’s dive in…

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First, some basics. What exactly is a chief revenue officer (CRO)?

According to McKinsey…

By this definition, the vision of the CRO role isn’t simply a tier promotion from VP, Sales. It’s a top-level executive responsible for the company’s overall growth strategy. The CRO unifies sales, marketing, and customer success into a cohesive go-to-market team responsible for driving all revenue generation across the business.

In most companies this includes identifying new growth opportunities, developing market partnerships, and leading multi-functional teams. All aligned toward growth. Besides overseeing sales, marketing, partnerships, and (increasingly) customer success, true CROs also influence product strategy and corporate development plans (M&A).

Sometimes the CRO is hiding in plain sight under a different title. Chief commercial officer, chief growth officer, chief customer officer, or even chief customer experience officer [1] to name a few.

In early-stage companies the CEO is chief revenue officer with strong heads of sales, marketing, and customer success supporting them.

But as the company grows, and depending on the CEO’s level of involvement in product development, M&A, fundraising, and external evangelism, they may need help driving the growth of the business. This is where having an experienced senior leader comes into play.

To me, President is a better descriptor for such an expansive role.

Unfortunately, like many titles in SaaS, CRO is thrown around too liberally, often bestowed upon the most senior sales leader in the business (especially in earlier stage companies where inflated titles often compensate for lower salaries). However, companies that care about role clarity often use chief sales officer or S/VP, Sales instead.

While we see more marketing and customer success executives rising to top executive roles in SaaS, commercial experience is the common thread. Yamini Rangan, the CEO of Hubspot, was a chief customer officer. But a deeper review of her background reveals extensive time spent in general management, sales, and operations before becoming CCO and eventually CEO.

Few CEOs and boards will risk putting an executive in charge of growth strategy without meaningful prior experience and results in sales.

So, how does this relate to customer success?

Recent studies indicate that nearly 40% of customer success teams now sit in the CRO’s organization. I can anecdotally confirm that this is true based on the conversations I’m having with other SaaS execs.

Some see this as an affront to customer-centricity which it can be if the CRO is only focused on a quarterly bookings number. And the reality is that reporting customer success into sales doesn’t make a VP, Sales into a chief revenue officer any more than steering a yacht makes you its captain.

But in the right situation and structure, this can bring the customer journey and customer experience into the mainstream for the business. It recognizes that SaaS companies must optimize for both sales and customer lifetime value.

Most people who read this newsletter are in the customer success camp and likely on track to become a chief customer officer. If you find yourself in a situation where you now report to a CRO or are considering a role where that may be the case, I’d encourage you to abstract the structure and titles from the responsibilities and consider the following questions:

Is the CRO role tasked with marketing, partnerships, and customer experience in addition to sales, i.e., full-stack go to market responsibility?

Is the CRO role responsible for the company’s end-to-end growth strategy?

Does the person in the role have a balanced mindset around growth and retention?

What influence have they had on product development to support the company’s growth strategy?

Are they an experienced business leader you can learn something from?

What you’re really trying to figure out is this…

Is the CRO really a just a head of sales on steroids? Or are they an experienced business executive tasked with, and rewarded for, the overall growth of the business.

Many success leaders are skeptical about the consolidation of customer success under the CRO. But it might just be the best chance for customer success to thrive in your company right now.

Do you report to a a CRO? If so, I’d love it if you’d hit reply and tell me what’s working and what’s not.

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p.s. I’ve been asked some interesting questions lately about the role of chief revenue officers and chief customer officers. There’s much to learn and define here, but I decided to start by defining the CRO role.

Next week, more on when companies need CCOs and CROs and how their responsibilities intermingle.

[1] More common in B2C companies.

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