Dec 14, 2025
My answer to this question is shaped by where my career began.
I get asked this a lot when I talk to SaaS leaders. I started out as a Technical Support Engineer, and later went on to lead global support teams at Oracle before I entered the relatively new world of CS back then. It’s where I learned how customers really behave, how products break in the real world, and how much trust is built (or lost) in moments of friction.
Because of that background, I naturally gravitate towards Support.
In many of the SaaS scale-ups I’ve worked in since, I’ve often been responsible for both Support and Customer Success -sometimes by design, sometimes by necessity.
And that’s why my answer to this question isn’t black and white.
Why this question keeps coming up in SaaS
As SaaS companies scale, leaders often ask:
Should Support and Customer Success sit under one function?
Would this improve the customer experience?
Or are we risking dilution of both?
The question usually arises when:
Customers feel passed between teams
CS teams are overwhelmed by reactive work
Support volumes increase rapidly
Leadership wants clearer ownership of the customer experience
On paper, combining Support and CS feels logical.
In practice, it’s more complex.
The advantages of Support sitting within Customer Success
Having come from Support myself, I can see very real benefits.
1. You get closer to real customer pain
Support is where the truth lives.
Tickets reveal:
Product friction
Product gaps
Misaligned expectations
When Support sits within CS, those insights surface faster and feed directly into retention and risk conversations.
2. Customers experience continuity
From a customer perspective, fewer handovers usually mean:
Less repetition
More context
Faster trust
This is especially valuable in complex, enterprise, or high-touch environments.
3. It works well in earlier-stage or scaling SaaS
In scale-ups, flexibility matters.
A combined model can:
Reduce silos
Improve responsiveness
Create a more joined-up experience
I’ve seen this work particularly well when teams are small and expectations are clearly set.
The drawbacks (where it often goes wrong)
This is where experience really matters.
1. Support and CS are fundamentally different disciplines
Support is:
Reactive
Ticket-based
Volume-driven
Customer Success is:
Proactive
Relationship-led
Outcome-focused
When these are blended without structure, both functions lose clarity.
2. CS becomes reactive by default
One of the biggest risks I see is CSMs slowly becoming support agents.
When CS spends too much time:
Chasing tickets
Managing escalations
Unblocking issues
Strategic conversations like value creation, renewal planning, and growth get left behind.
3. Metrics and incentives get confused
Support teams are often measured on:
Response times
Resolution times
Ticket backlogs
CS teams are measured on:
Retention
NRR
Customer outcomes
Without clear separation, priorities blur and performance suffers.
When combining Support and CS can work
In my experience, this model works only when there is clarity and leadership intent.
1. Roles and responsibilities are explicit
Customers should clearly understand:
When they’re interacting with Support
When they’re working with their CSM
Internally, boundaries must be well defined.
2. Support is closely aligned, but not overloaded with CS goals
Support should:
Surface risk
Share insights
Feed product feedback
But not be held accountable for retention or NRR targets.
3. CS is actively protected
This is critical.
CS teams need:
Space to be proactive
Capacity to lead renewal and value conversations
Leadership support to say “no” when needed
Without this, CS becomes reactive by default - regardless of the org structure.
My honest view
Because my career started in Support, I have huge respect for it.
Support is where customer trust is won or lost. Its the window of the customer experience and so important because they are contacting you when they are vulnerable and how to engage at this point shapes their whole view of the company.
But combining Support and Customer Success only works when:
The decision is intentional
The structure is clear
The differences between the roles are respected
Alignment is powerful. Confusion is costly.
Let’s discuss
This is one of those topics where context matters
If you’re:
Debating whether Support should sit within CS
Seeing CS teams overwhelmed by reactive work
