How to Stop the War Between Sales and CS

What if I told you I could stop the war between sales and CS?

You know the one. Sales is rolling in gold like Scrooge McDuck and CS is literally sitting in a dumpster fire. Sales thinks CS makes excuses. CS thinks sales doesn't care. Not my problem vibes all around.

I've been on both sides of this. And I can tell you the tension is real, but it's also fixable.

The problem isn't the people. It's the design.

The Story That Changed How I Think About This

I'll never forget one customer my team inherited. SaaS company, PR industry. Half the required fields were empty. The exec was never part of the sales conversation. The rep couldn't, and honestly wouldn't, get us what we needed.

We spent weeks resetting expectations. Onboarding stalled. The product never really took off for them. We got one renewal before they churned at 24 months.

For context, at that company it took 15 to 16 months before a customer was profitable. Leaving at 24 months didn't exactly yield the upside we needed.

Shocking. Frustrating.

That was a design problem. And as leaders, we let that happen.

The sales to CS handoff gets blamed constantly, but here's the reframe I want you to take away: there is no handoff. There is only an information transfer at a revenue transaction. And when that transfer breaks down, everyone loses.

Here's What We Need to Do

1. CS Must Have a Seat at the ICP Table

If CS isn't involved in defining the ideal customer profile, you are setting your team up to inherit customers they can't serve well. Use the data you have. Tell the story of what good looks like and what doesn't. Bring churn data, expansion data, and time to value metrics into the conversation. Get sales and marketing aligned before more of the wrong deals start closing.

2. Define Your Information Tiers

Not all information is created equal. Here's how I break it down:

Qualifying information is what sales needs to close the deal.

Required information is what CS needs to deliver on it.

Helpful information is context and color that anyone can add at any time.

The first two must be captured before the transaction closes. Full stop. If the deal moves fast and some helpful information gets captured later, that's fine. What's not fine is arriving at the transaction with gaps in qualifying or required information.

3. Build Governance and Accountability at the Leadership Level

This is where most organizations drop the ball. They build a process and assume it will run itself. It won't.

Leadership must own the infrastructure, the enablement, and the reporting. If there is no visibility across the org, there is no accountability. And if there is no accountability, you don't have a process. You have a suggestion.

Someone at the leadership level needs to be watching this, reporting on it, and holding the team to it consistently.

4. Align Incentives Around Quality, Not Just Quantity

Quotas built purely around closing deals will produce exactly that. Closed deals. Some of which will churn at 24 months before they were ever profitable.

Build compensation and quota structures that reward good behavior and reflect the quality of what's coming in, not just the volume. If sales is only incentivized to close, they will close. Full stop. Leadership has to make quality part of the equation.

5. Let Tools, Systems, and AI Do the Work

Stop asking your sales team to fill out 1000 fields or complete a 10-page document. That work can and should be offloaded to AI. The technology exists to capture, synthesize, and surface the right information automatically.

Use meetings for context and alignment only. Everything else should already be captured, synthesized, and shared before anyone gets on a call. If your team is relying on a 30-minute handoff call to transfer critical information, you are one no-show away from a gap.

6. Socialize What's Working and Call Out What's Not

This one is cultural. Create an environment where the goal is alignment, not blame. Celebrate the wins when a great customer comes through with full context and strong exec alignment. Address the gaps when they happen without pointing fingers.

Both teams are on the same side. The sooner we lead like that, the sooner the war ends.

The Bottom Line

Stop placing blame. Stop being the victim. The war between sales and CS only continues if we let it. And honestly, we've been letting it go on way too long.

This is a leadership problem with a leadership solution. Build the right systems, define the right information, govern the process, and align the incentives. The rest will follow.

What else is causing this to break down in your org? I'd love to hear what you're seeing.