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Securing budget for new Customer Success technology can be one of the most challenging aspects of a CS leader’s role. You need to show how these investments will deliver long-term value, drive growth, and enhance efficiency.
During a recent CS Angel Pay It Forward webinar, I had the privilege of sharing the virtual stage with Marie Lunney, Director of Scaled CS at Bynder, and Karl Mosgofian, CIO at Gainsight. Each of us have varying experiences with different tech stacks at different sized companies. Together, we discussed how CS leaders can ensure their tech budget gets approved, focusing on strategic approaches that tie tech investments to business outcomes, align teams, and maximize ROI.
Here are the top three recommendations from our conversation:
1. Multi-Threading
One of the most effective strategies for securing approval is multi-threading- engaging stakeholders across different departments. It’s crucial to approach budget approval as a cross-functional effort, not just a “CS-only” issue. In my experience, getting buy-in from leaders in departments like product, marketing, finance or sales ensures that the proposal is seen as a strategic investment rather than a departmental request.
At DrFirst, with our recent purchase of UpdateAI a call recording tool that seamlessly integrates across our customer journey, we saw success by involving key stakeholders in Sales from the outset. We asked a lot of open-ended questions to uncover ways where we could align the solution we were proposing with their problems. Every single salesperson who tried it out, loves it because it solves a pain point for them whereby they no longer have to worry about updating call notes and can instead focus on listening to the customer and building relationships leading to more sales. We didn’t rely on just one advocate, but involved multiple voices across the org.
Marie emphasized a similar approach at Bynder, where she’s currently aligning the impact of new tech proof of concepts across the business using a solutions selling approach. For example, most customers turn to Google or chat to find answers about your product. Marie is exploring tech to provide a similar search experience directly within her knowledge base and product. This solution will also benefit CSMs and internal staff who need the same efficient search functionality. By doing this, you can make a compelling case for the investment and ensure that everyone understands the long-term value of the tech.
Karl emphasized the importance of starting this multi-threading approach early, ensuring that you have enough time to build enough support and host enough meetings with other stakeholders.
2. Align to Top-Line Business Objectives
It’s not enough to justify tech investments solely on the operational efficiencies they bring to the CS team. The key to securing budget approval is to show how the technology will drive business outcomes, such as increasing revenue growth, improving customer retention, or boosting lifetime value.
For example, when I presented the case for a new CSP at DrFirst, I focused on demonstrating how the tool aligned with our top-line business objectives. This meant showing how it could help reduce costs by consolidating systems and improving the Customer to CSM ratio which is key to enabling our top line growth. By tying our proposal to growth objectives, we were able to show how the tech would contribute to revenue impact, rather than just improving internal processes.
Karl, who’s experienced in managing tech investments at Gainsight, shared a similar perspective, emphasizing that it’s essential to show how the tech will tie into revenue and customer outcomes, not just internal efficiencies. Karl gave the example that CIOs and CFOs like to save money but they really like to grow money on the top line, so they’re much more excited about revenue metrics than cost savings.
3. Align to Future Revenue
While demonstrating immediate ROI is important, it’s equally crucial to show how your tech investment will scale with future revenue growth. This is where focusing on long-term scalability becomes essential. When considering a new tech stack, leadership needs to understand how it will support growth over the next several years, not just the next quarter.
Marie reinforced this by discussing how Bynder’s CS tech investments were chosen based on their scalability and ability to handle future revenue growth. By showing how the tools would continue to provide value as the company expanded, Marie demonstrated how investing in the right technology could pay off in the long run.
One of the challenges many CS leaders face when advocating for tech budgets is recovering from a bad tech experience. If previous investments haven’t delivered as expected, it can be tough to justify further spending. However, recovery is possible with a thoughtful approach.
Marie offered some great advice when it comes to recovering from a bad tech experience: run a Proof of Concept (POC). This allows you to test the technology in a limited scope and evaluate its potential to meet your needs. In addition, analyzing the root cause of a previous failure—whether it was poor implementation, inadequate training, or vendor misalignment—can help avoid repeating the same mistakes. In cases where we’ve experienced tech failures at DrFirst, we’ve found that including the vendor in the evaluation process has been crucial. Engaging with the existing vendor enables two potential outcomes 1) the existing vendor might surprise you and provide a path to turning around the existing implementation which will save you time and money, or 2) the incumbent vendor fails but you now have data to support your case for a replacement.
Karl shared his experience at Gainsight, where they learned valuable lessons from past tech deployments and refined their evaluation processes. He stressed that transparency and a clear understanding of the issues with previous tech investments are essential for ensuring success in future implementations.
A word on AI in CS Tech
AI is playing an increasingly important role in CS tech, but it’s essential to remember that AI should enhance, not replace, human connections. AI should be used to automate routine tasks, provide data insights, and personalize the customer experience, but it should never replace the human touch that’s vital to customer success.
At DrFirst, we’ve seen how AI-powered tools have allowed us to automate repetitive tasks, such as basic customer queries or sentiment analysis. This has freed up our team to focus on higher-value customer interactions, where empathy and strategy are key. However, it’s important to emphasize that AI isn’t there to replace human interaction but to improve how we deliver that interaction.
Karl agreed, noting that AI should be viewed as an augmentation tool, not a replacement for the human element of customer success. By focusing on how AI can empower CS teams to deliver better, more personalized service, you can make a compelling case for its inclusion in your tech stack.
Final Thoughts
Securing budget for CS tech isn’t just about having the right tools—it’s about making a strategic case for those tools and showing how they will drive long-term business value. By following the three key recommendations of multi-threading, aligning your tech investments to top-line business objectives, and demonstrating how your tools will scale with future revenue, you can significantly increase your chances of getting approval.
I hope these insights will help you as you plan your CS tech strategy. And remember—by continuously measuring the value of your tools, recovering from past tech failures, and integrating AI in a way that enhances human interaction, you can secure the budget for a tech stack that drives long-term success for your customers and your team.
Thank you to Marie and Karl for their invaluable perspectives and for paying it forward. Click on the registration link to listen back to the full recording.