# CSM + TAM rules of engagement - Handbook

Some accounts have both a CSM and a TAM. The point is depth: two people sharing the load so each can focus on what they're best at, and the customer gets a better experience than one person stretched across everything.

Both roles have a real relationship with the customer. Both are in the Slack channel. Both know what's happening on the account. The difference is *focus*, not ownership.

The customer should never have to figure out who to contact. They reach out to either person, and PostHog sorts it out internally.

## What each role focuses on

### CSM

-   Operational health and [health score](/handbook/cs-and-onboarding/health-tracking.md) monitoring
-   Support escalation and follow-through
-   Credit usage optimization
-   Onboarding, training, getting new users set up
-   Renewal process end-to-end
-   Day-to-day responsiveness
-   Health of the technical implementation
-   Surface cross-sell signals from product usage and conversations to TAM

### TAM

-   Cross-sell strategy and execution
-   Credit discount negotiation and deal structuring for new credit purchases, invoicing
-   Use case discovery, mapping products to problems
-   Multi-threading into new teams and stakeholders
-   Account planning (quarterly in Vitally)
-   Stakeholder management

### Both

-   General customer questions (whoever sees it first)
-   Implementation reviews
-   Retention. TAMs are not off the hook here. Understanding health and usage is a prerequisite for cross-selling, not work that gets delegated.

## What good looks like

-   Customer reaches out to either person and gets a fast, informed response. They never think about who to contact.
-   Both go deeper on their focus area than either could alone
-   Customer knows both people, trusts both, feels like they have a team
-   Neither person is surprised by what the other communicated
-   Both are visible in Slack, not just when they need something
-   Both are aligned on the current state of the customer, risks, opportunities and what their counterpart is working on.
-   TAM and CSM alignment on the account happens in public, not DMs

## What bad looks like

-   Customer gets told "that's not my area, let me get \[other person\]"
-   Customer only hears from the TAM when PostHog wants to sell something
-   Customer gets asked "how are things going?" by both people in the same week
-   CSM discusses pricing without knowing the TAM had a deal in play
-   TAM sends a cross-sell email without knowing the customer filed 3 support tickets yesterday
-   Neither person responds because each assumed the other would
-   TAM checks out on health because "the CSM handles that now"
-   Customer has to explain the same thing twice

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