Bridging the Gap Between Sales Enablement and Customer Success
- Avner Baruch
- Oct 5
- 4 min read
(A.K.A. How to Turn the “Voice of the Customer” Into Your Competitive Advantage)
Most organizations face the same invisible wall — a disconnect between Marketing and Sales. It’s not about bad intentions; it’s about different mindsets, approaches, workflows, and expectations.
The classic argument over lead quality is just a symptom. Sales claims the leads aren’t good enough while Marketing insists the problem lies in sales skills, maintaining momentum and following up. If this sounds familiar, you probably heard that one too - there’s no such thing as a bad lead — only a mishandled one.
While these two teams argue over messaging, sequences, and ICPs, most companies miss the fastest and most impactful path to improve conversion and shorten sales cycles: the Voice of the Customer (VoC).
This is where Sales Enablement plays its most strategic role — as the orchestrator of the entire GTM ecosystem: Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success (CS).
Enablement leaders are the conductors ensuring that collaboration flows smoothly, knowledge is shared, and the customer’s reality drives every decision.
Let's explore that approach in detail, shall we?
Part 1: Building the Bridge Between Sales and Customer Success
Customer Success teams sit on a goldmine of insights — usage patterns, renewal trends, reasons for churn — but in most organizations, this data stays locked inside CS tools.
When it comes to sales, information usually flows in one direction: from Sales → to CS, and even then, only partially. Deal details, basic contacts, maybe some notes — that’s about it.
Sound familiar? Perfect. That’s the problem we need to solve.
To truly scale, information must move both ways — seamlessly and continuously.
Sales teams must share not just what was sold, but how the deal evolved: what objections arose, what problems were solved, and which success metrics were promised.
Why? Because the same technical or expectation challenges that appeared during sales will reappear during onboarding. When the CS team knows in advance what roadblocks to expect, they can prepare accordingly — improving customer experience and shortening time-to-value.
The reverse is equally important. CS insights from renewals, escalations, or feature adoption trends can dramatically improve how sellers qualify and position deals. Without that feedback loop, organizations risk repeating the same mistakes — promising what can’t be delivered or missing critical renewal signals.
Unfortunately, many companies make it worse by managing Sales and CS in different platforms (e.g., Salesforce for Sales, Gainsight for CS). Because of license limitations, teams can’t access each other’s systems — creating silos that delay responses and distort customer reality.
The fix isn’t necessarily a new tool or more licenses— it’s a shared process: consistent data fields, mutual visibility, and recurring syncs around the customer lifecycle. The goal is simple: operational excellence through a single, unified view of the customer journey. When all teams “fly in formation,” alignment becomes the default — not an exception.
Part 2: Connecting Marketing, Sales, and CS
True GTM alignment begins from day one — during onboarding. Most companies run separate bootcamps for each department: one for Sales, one for CS, one for Marketing. But that’s a huge mistake.
The most effective organizations start with a joint foundation: everyone learns the same competitive landscape, customer pain points, and value messaging. Only after building that shared baseline do they split into role-specific training paths.
Bringing everyone into the same space builds empathy, shared context, and trust. It breaks down cultural silos before they even form — and establishes relationships that later accelerate collaboration.
From there, alignment becomes a habit through structured routines:
Quarterly Voice of the Customer Review
Analyze renewal, upsell, and ticket review conversations.
Identify repeating patterns: Why do customers buy? Stay? Leave?
Capture verbatim customer quotes (via Gong or similar tools).
Share those insights with Marketing to refine messaging and campaigns.
Cross-Functional GTM Roundtable
A quarterly session bringing together Marketing, CS, and Enablement leaders to review the Top 10 Customer Insights — and translate each into action: new campaigns, updated sales plays, or adjusted onboarding flows.
CS Sales Training
Empower CS reps to speak the same “sales language”. Consistency in tone, messaging, jargon and value articulation ensures a unified customer experience across all touchpoints.
Turning Customer Success Into a Growth Engine
Success stories are often owned by Marketing, yet the data and stories themselves come from CS. Sales Enablement can play a powerful role here — turning raw data into field-ready stories that sellers can use tomorrow.
Forget the polished, SEO-optimized case study.
The most effective customer stories are authentic, short, and relatable. They speak from the customer’s voice, not corporate jargon — and they drive action.
When Enablement and CS are aligned, your organization stops reacting to problems. Instead, you start predicting them. You become proactive, not responsive — and that’s where transformation happens.
Final Thoughts
Sales Enablement and Customer Success are two sides of the same mission: help customers succeed — and tell their story so the next one can follow.
The tighter these two functions collaborate, the faster organizations learn, the more precisely they replicate success, and the stronger their growth engine becomes.
That’s the real power of multipliers inside a GTM organization (or program...). That’s what turns Enablement from a supporting role into a strategic force.
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