CSM + TAM rules of engagement

Some accounts have both a CSM and a TAM. The point is depth: two people sharing the load so each can focus on what they're best at, and the customer gets a better experience than one person stretched across everything.

Both roles have a real relationship with the customer. Both are in the Slack channel. Both know what's happening on the account. The difference is _focus_, not ownership.

The customer should never have to figure out who to contact. They reach out to either person, and PostHog sorts it out internally.

What each role focuses on

CSM

• Operational health and health score monitoring
• Support escalation and follow-through
• Credit usage optimization
• Onboarding, training, getting new users set up
• Renewal process end-to-end
• Day-to-day responsiveness
• Health of the technical implementation
• Surface cross-sell signals from product usage and conversations to TAM

TAM

• Cross-sell strategy and execution
• Credit discount negotiation and deal structuring for new credit purchases, invoicing
• Use case discovery, mapping products to problems
• Multi-threading into new teams and stakeholders
• Account planning (quarterly in Vitally)
• Stakeholder management

Both

• General customer questions (whoever sees it first)
• Implementation reviews
• Retention. TAMs are not off the hook here. Understanding health and usage is a prerequisite for cross-selling, not work that gets delegated.

What good looks like

• Customer reaches out to either person and gets a fast, informed response. They never think about who to contact.
• Both go deeper on their focus area than either could alone
• Customer knows both people, trusts both, feels like they have a team
• Neither person is surprised by what the other communicated
• Both are visible in Slack, not just when they need something
• Both are aligned on the current state of the customer, risks, opportunities and what their counterpart is working on.
• TAM and CSM alignment on the account happens in public, not DMs

What bad looks like

• Customer gets told "that's not my area, let me get [other person]"
• Customer only hears from the TAM when PostHog wants to sell something
• Customer gets asked "how are things going?" by both people in the same week
• CSM discusses pricing without knowing the TAM had a deal in play
• TAM sends a cross-sell email without knowing the customer filed 3 support tickets yesterday
• Neither person responds because each assumed the other would
• TAM checks out on health because "the CSM handles that now"
• Customer has to explain the same thing twice