Empowering Customer Success as a Revenue Engine: How to Get Executive Buy-In and Drive Strategic Growth

After my recent article, I had a great follow-up conversation where two key questions came up:

1. How do you get executive buy-in that Customer Success is a revenue function?

2. By doing this, are we just putting a number on our customer relationships?

Both are fair and thoughtful questions. They touch on operational realities and the mindset shift that’s needed.

Here’s the thing: finance already has a number on the customer relationship. They’re tracking Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). So, whether we say it out loud or not, the math is already happening behind the scenes.

So, how do we shift executive thinking?

It starts by understanding the process. A go-to-market (GTM) strategy outlines how you introduce a new product or service, pricing, distribution, sales, and marketing. After months of effort, you move into customer acquisition mode, close the deal… and hand the customer off to CS for “post-sales” activities.

I know, I’m skipping over the complexity of selling, revenue operations, and pipeline management. That’s a whole other conversation. But let’s stay focused.

Once that deal is signed, Customer Success is expected to step in and ensure onboarding, adoption, advocacy, and ideally, future growth. Sounds great on paper. But this is often where the breakdown begins.

Here’s the reality:

The customer may not have been a great fit to begin with. Expectations might be misaligned. Product-market fit could be off. Maybe onboarding wasn’t scoped properly. Maybe services weren’t included in the deal. Maybe the Sales-to-CS handoff was rushed.

And now? The CS team is stuck firefighting instead of driving adoption, value realization, and expansion.

It’s not that the team can’t handle it—the issue is that they weren’t brought in early enough to prevent it.

I’m not saying you won’t face moments that pull you from proactive to reactive. You will. But if your foundation doesn’t include alignment, accountability, and an execution strategy across teams, you will miss growth opportunities.

Too often, CS isn’t viewed as part of the revenue engine. And when that happens, companies miss critical levers for long-term success. This isn’t just about keeping customers happy. It’s about aligning early, building momentum, and creating clear paths to value.

Executives are focused on revenue, retention, expansion, and growth. So ask yourself: Who spends the most time with the customer after the sale?

No offense to Sales, but once the deal is closed, they’re off hunting the next one. Based on most comp plans and org structures, they’re not the ones managing long-term outcomes. CS is.

This is the “Why” behind the GrowthLoop Continuum Methodology.

GrowthLoop gives companies a framework to adapt to real-world conditions. It’s built for iteration. It enables faster progress—but more importantly, it ensures teams move together.

It gives structure for:

• Cross-functional alignment

• Clear outcome ownership

• Asking the right questions

• Tracking what counts

What does GrowthLoop do for you?

• It helps you shift from reactive to proactive.

• It gives CS a seat at the table from the start.

• It gives your entire organization a way to rally around shared goals.

And honestly, it’s not hard to have these conversations if you clearly define the value CS brings when included early and consistently.

We’ve got to stop treating CS like a support function. It’s a growth function.

If we want to win, we have to stop thinking in silos.

Growth is a team sport.

Customer Success deserves to be on the field, not just on the sidelines, getting called in as a special team.

🚀 Ready to align your teams and activate Customer Success as a true growth engine?

Let’s talk about how the GrowthLoop Continuum can help you scale sustainably, without losing the human touch.

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