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· Ryan Bullard

Account Management Is Making a Comeback

account managementcustomer successexpansion revenueNRR

Account Management is quietly making a comeback in SaaS.

I’m seeing more companies with all three roles:

  • Sales reps focused on new logos
  • CSMs focused on adoption, customer outcomes and retention
  • Account Managers focused on growing the customer

There’s a reason for it.

Customer Success Absorbed a Job That Wasn’t Its Own

Over the last 15 years, Customer Success exploded as a function, which I, thankfully, was able to be a part of. In a lot of companies, the assumption became that the CSM should own the customer after the sale, including retention and eventually expansion.

But those are not necessarily the same job.

The qualities that make someone a great CSM are often centered around advocacy, trust, problem solving and helping the customer succeed.

Then we ask that same person to turn around and say, “Great. Now can I have another $100,000?”

That changes the relationship.

The Pendulum Is Swinging Back

There’s now some interesting data showing the pendulum swinging back.

ChurnZero found that Account Management ownership of expansion revenue increased from 20% in 2022 to 32% in 2025. Over the same period, CS ownership dropped from 42% to 37%.

So we’re increasingly landing on a division of labor that makes intuitive sense:

  • Sales: acquire the customer
  • CS: make the customer successful and protect the relationship
  • AM: commercially grow the account

The Software Hasn’t Caught Up With the Org Chart

We’ve built an enormous Sales Tech ecosystem around acquiring new customers.

We’ve built an enormous Customer Success ecosystem around adoption, health, support and retention.

But Account Managers sit somewhere in the middle.

So they end up trying to turn CRMs, CS platforms, intent tools, spreadsheets and account plans into a system for managing expansion.

And increasingly, I’m hearing the same problems:

  • “I have too many accounts to deeply understand what’s happening in all of them.”
  • “I can’t easily see where the white space is or which customers have a reason to buy right now.”
  • “The data I need sits in too many different systems to be effective.”

That becomes especially important when NRR matters as much as new logo growth.

Growing an Existing Customer Is Its Own Job

The AM shouldn’t have to behave like an AE working out of a CRM or a CSM working out of a health-score dashboard.

Growing an existing customer is its own job. It deserves its own operating system.