I don't even know where to begin. There is so much that is wrong right now in CS. We have a fairly new VP who has come in and done her best to restructure, to make this team strategic, but there is only so much one person can do when the CEO doesn't see value in the team she was hired to lead. I'm not even sure he sees value in the overall CSM function (because he doesn't understand it), but I think he knows enough to know what we had before wasn't working which is why he hired her, but things have just gotten worse. I had hoped they would get better with an experienced executive in the mix.
The perceived lack of value is something that stems from CEO to all other areas of the company, and impacts us because Sales sees us as nothing more than simple robots who should be running jobs campaigns perfectly. The reality is that we have too many clients to run all of the campaigns effectively, especially when things outside of running campaigns keep falling on our plates. They really pile things on the CS team.. it is all designed to take things off Sales's plate, but the crazy thing is that Account Managers continue to do the CSM job and don't to what it is they need to do, which is dig into accounts and expand relationships and dollars.
Sales leadership sees us as little more than glorified admins - thus sales treats us as such, and we feel demoralized and totally undervalued. Our AM counterparts push the admin stuff of the job onto us, but won't let go of the strategic stuff that we're now supposed to be doing. They aren't hitting their quotas (as you can see in all of these other reviews) but if the Account Managers would stop doing CSM work and focus on selling and expanding their existing client base, they might actually do that. But Sales Leadership doesn't trust the CSM team to be strategic and handle the day to day for the accounts, and the sales reps certainly don't.
The best example I can give is the Sales Alerts that go out. These are the most demeaning thing to me and the rest of the CSM team. We are barely mentioned other than to indicate who the CSM on the account is .. and it's not always that we deserve a mention, but even when we did something, it's barely recognized when the manager sends it out. Even worse, when others reply all to this email, it's always "great job Account Manager", never, "good job TEAM", or anything to mention that the AM couldn't have done it with out the CSM. Something that is supposed to be a celebration of success - OUR success as a team - ends up demoralizing and showing me that I am not valued over and over and over again. It's insulting and I don't even look at the alerts anymore because I don't want to feel like that anymore.
Because of this lack of perceived value, we are all underpaid. This is a Glassdoor theme though, as we aren't known for paying top dollar. The equity is supposed to balance that, but no one on the CS team has enough equity to mean anything. Again, we aren't valued. We are supposed to be taking more and more things off of Sale's plate so that they can achieve their sales goals - but we aren't compensated for this. We have quotas, but the amount of money we are paid in comparison to the AM team is borderline insulting. CS at Glassdoor is thought of as a cost center, not as a function that both saves & brings in revenue, and this is felt by our team daily.
People in the CS org are leaving left and right, people who have been through all of it and people who have built it. They're gone. Morale is so low right now and I don't like coming to work anymore. I am not alone. What keeps me coming back is the company mission and the people I work with, those that I'm in the trenches with, I want to see it work with them. I want this to turn around at Glassdoor.
