It’s Time to Rethink Go-to-Market: From Silos to Value Threads
By Kristen Hayer
For decades, tech companies have structured their go to market functions in a similar way. Marketing drives awareness. Sales runs the commercial process. Customer Success takes over post-sale. Support resolves issues. Professional Services implements solutions. Each team has a stage, a role, and metrics.
This model is familiar. It aligns neatly with job descriptions, tools, and reporting structures. However, it is increasingly clear that this approach limits what companies deliver for customers.
Customers do not experience brand journeys in stages. They do not know where one team ends and another begins. What they experience is a journey. When the people they interact with change at every step and the story resets each time they move forward, the result is confusion and frustration.
This structure may make sense internally, but it does not serve the customer. Over time, it reinforces fragmentation and undermines business results.
Siloed Roles Limit Customer Experience and Growth
When teams are organized around linear stage ownership, customer knowledge becomes fragmented. Each group develops its own tools, terminology, and view of the customer. This creates inefficiencies, duplicate efforts, and missed opportunities.
According to McKinsey, companies that lead in customer experience achieve more than twice the revenue growth of their peers. That kind of growth comes from creating seamless, consistent experiences that span internal functions and align to customer goals, and not just internal structures. This kind of alignment does not happen through handoffs and isolated metrics. It requires rethinking how teams contribute value across the entire customer lifecycle.
From Functional Handoffs to Value Engagement
Rather than limiting teams to their traditional roles at specific stages, we should focus on the unique value each function brings to the customer. These value propositions are relevant throughout the entire relationship.
Here are some examples:
Sales could help existing customers navigate complex buying decisions and explore investment options.
Customer Success could prove ongoing value during the sales cycle and ensure business goals stay front and center through the sales cycle and going forward.
Support could provide accurate, timely responses that build trust during the sales cycle and pilot projects.
Professional services teams could help structure proof of concept projects that support both customer decision-making and selling outcomes.
Marketing could communicate compelling reasons for change and help frame solutions clearly throughout the customer lifecycle.
These strengths are useful before, during, and after the sale. When companies allow teams to engage based on value rather than role, the customer experience becomes more cohesive, responsive, and outcome-focused.
Why Role-Centric Thinking Falls Short
Traditional go-to-market design puts a premium on ownership and handoffs. While that can create clarity, it often discourages collaboration. Teams stay in their lanes. Metrics stay focused on departmental performance. The result is a lack of continuity for the customer.
This approach also limits team development. When CSMs never engage pre-sale, they miss context that could strengthen onboarding and long-term planning. When sales reps disengage after close, they lose visibility into which types of customers are most successful and why.
Organizing around internal processes may feel efficient, but it prevents us from creating an optimal customer experience.
How to Shift Toward a Value-Based Model
This is not about rewriting job descriptions or reorganizing teams overnight. It starts with rethinking how we define success and how we structure collaboration.
Identify the value each team delivers to the customer, not just internally.
Map that value across the entire lifecycle—from initial interest to renewal or exit.
Build KPIs that reflect shared outcomes instead of isolated activity.
Encourage participation from multiple teams at key customer milestones.
Give teams the tools and context they need to collaborate effectively.
Reinforce customer outcomes, not just internal performance, in your culture and communication.
These shifts create a customer experience that is aligned, intentional, and focused on results.
Conclusion
The traditional go-to-market structure may have worked in a different era, but today’s customers expect more. They want consistency, clarity, and value at every step of the journey.
To deliver that, we need to think beyond roles and handoffs. We need to design around the strengths each team brings and plug those strengths in where they have the most impact.
It is time to move from siloed teams to value threads that run through the entire customer experience. The companies that make this shift will build stronger relationships, deliver better outcomes, and drive more meaningful growth.
The Success League is a customer success consulting firm that offers a training series called CSM Value. Available in two formats, with a live instructor and on-demand, this course helps you find ways to focus on customer ROI. Learn more about this and our other offerings at TheSuccessLeague.io.
Kristen Hayer - Kristen founded The Success League in 2015 and currently serves as the company's CEO. Over the past 25 years Kristen has been a success, sales, and marketing executive, primarily working with scaling tech companies, and leading several award-winning customer success teams. She has written over 100 articles on customer success, and is the host of 3 podcasts about the field. Kristen has served as a judge for the Customer Success Excellence awards, and is on the board of several early-stage tech companies. She received her MBA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and now lives in San Francisco.
