Two Lanes, One Truth: The Post-Sale Fix
On February 12, 2026, KnowBe4 appointed Kelly Morgan, former CCO at Docusign, as Chief Customer Officer.
The role owns the full post-sale lifecycle: Customer Success, Customer Support, Managed Services, and Professional Services, reporting to the CEO.
This isn’t leadership news.
It’s a signal that post-sale is becoming the control plane for how retention gets executed, not just how customers get supported.
When companies consolidate these functions, it's usually for one reason: they're done with renewal surprises that show up 30 days too late.
Why This Org Design Keeps Showing Up
A unified post-sale leader is an executive attempt to fix three expensive problems:
Handoff gaps
Tickets, projects, QBRs, and renewals all live in different systems and different heads.Outcome ambiguity
Customers hear “value,” teams report activity, and nobody can point to proof.Forecast unreliability
The renewal looks fine until it suddenly doesn’t.
A CCO structure can absolutely solve this.
But only if you do one thing first.
The Trap That Makes It Worse
Most teams respond to this structure by trying to “merge Support and Success.”
That’s how you break renewals.
Here’s what happens:
CS becomes an escalation desk
Support gets pulled into “strategy calls”
Services becomes the dumping ground
Renewals get later and noisier
Why? Because Support is built for speed (triage, SLAs, time-to-stable), and Success is built for change (adoption, stakeholders, value proof).
When you blend the motions, neither team can execute their actual job.
The Model That Scales
Two Lanes
Lane 1: Support (Speed)
Restore service, remove blockers, reduce time-to-stable.
Lane 2: Success (Change)
Drive adoption, align stakeholders, prove outcomes, and control renewal timing.
One Truth
A single source that defines:
What was bought
What “done” means
What risk looks like
Who owns the next step
What the timeline is (especially renewal timing)
If you do not build the Truth layer, you get three versions of the customer inside your company. That is where churn risk hides.
Example: Support closes a ticket marked “resolved.” But Truth still says “customer hasn't adopted the core workflow.” CS shows up to the QBR blind, renewal forecast says green, and 45 days later, you're in a save motion.
What You Can Do This Week
If your org is moving toward “one post-sale leader” or you already live in it, do this in 30 minutes:
Write the two lanes on one page
Support is speed. Success is change. Services is delivery. No blending.Pick 3 routing triggers
Rules that force the right lane to own the next step.Create one Customer Truth doc
One link that gets updated after every exec call, escalation, renewal talk, or scope change.
That alone will reduce noise.
The part that makes it reliable is the templates and cadence.
If you blend motions, you blend accountability. That’s where renewals go to die.
Trust breaks first. Churn follows. No bot fixes a broken handoff.
Post-Sale Control Plane: Executive Scoreboard (CS Café Edition)
Below is the full implementation kit:
Download: Executive Scoreboard Workbook (Excel) (link is in the paid section)
The 1-page Post-Sale Charter (who owns what, no blending)
The Support ↔ CS Trigger Library (handoff rules that stop chaos)
The Customer Truth Template (single source that prevents blind QBRs)
The 1-slide Exec Update Format (proof, risks, and asks)
The 30-day Rollout Plan (week-by-week setup)
If you’re a paid subscriber, keep reading.