Why Am I Not Talking to the People Who Decide?

Stakeholder mapping in customer success means listing the people whose agreement the account needs after the signature, and what each of them needs before they move. There are four to find. Whoever controls the budget at renewal, the managers whose teams have to work differently, the people who control the systems, and the users whose daily habits decide whether the product gets used. Your friendly contact may be one of them, or none of them.

You've had two quarters of good calls with the same contact. Then the renewal questions come from people you've never met.

How Do I Find Out Who Decides in a Customer Account?

Watch behavior, and check it against titles second. Thomas Bonoma made the point in a Harvard Business Review article first published in 1982. A purchase runs through several roles, including initiators, gatekeepers, influencers, deciders, buyers, and users. Bonoma's advice was to notice who talks about the decision, who defers to whom, and who controls what everyone else gets to see.

In an account you already own, the same signs show up in meetings and email. Watch whose name comes up when your contact says they need to check with someone, who gets copied on anything about money, and whose calendar a meeting waits for.

Why Do the People Who Bought Stop Meeting after the Contract Is Signed?

Before the signature, the buyer's company assembles a group to make the decision. After the signature, that group has done its job and breaks up. The sponsor moves on, procurement closes the file, and IT hands off to whoever runs the system.

The account still needs the same kinds of agreement, now for different things. Paying again, changing how teams work, keeping the integration running, and using the product every day. The CSM inherits the account at the moment the group that bought it stops meeting.

Who Controls the Budget at Renewal?

Who it is. The person who can keep paying for the product or cut it. Sometimes the original sponsor. Sometimes a finance or procurement owner who appears late in the renewal.

What their no looks like. A request for a discount, a shorter term, or fewer seats, framed as a routine budget review.

How to find them. Ask your contact who signs off on renewals of this size, and who asked about software spend in the last budget cycle.

What they need before they move. The cost of going without the product, stated in the number they report on.

Who Manages the Team That Has to Change?

Who it is. The managers whose teams were supposed to work differently once the product arrived.

What their no looks like. Agreement in meetings and no time set aside for their team to switch. The rollout slips behind whatever else their team is measured on this quarter.

How to find them. Look at which teams the product touches, then ask who runs each one.

What they need before they move. An honest estimate of how much slower their team will be while learning, for how long, and who will cover the gap.

Who Controls the Systems?

Who it is. The people who own integration, security, and data for the account.

What their no looks like. A requirement you hadn't heard of, raised after the rest of the account has signed off, or an integration that stays on their backlog.

How to find them. The security review from the sale names some of them. So does the ticket history with your support team.

What they need before they move. Their requirements answered in writing before they have to ask.

Which Users Decide Whether the Product Gets Used?

Who it is. The people who will use the product every day, and especially the ones the rest of their team copies.

What their no looks like. Nobody records it. It shows up in the usage report two months later.

How to find them. Ask the managers of the teams using the product who their people go to with questions about how the work gets done. Tracy Ann Sykes, Viswanath Venkatesh, and Sanjay Gosain followed employees in one business unit for three months after a new system arrived (MIS Quarterly, 2009). Employees' help ties with coworkers, including ties to coworkers with system knowledge, predicted their use of the system beyond what their own beliefs about it predicted.

What they need before they move. One clear task to start with, and word from their own manager that a slow start is expected. Train the coworkers others go to for help before the rest of the team starts.

What Should I Take from the AE at Handoff?

The AE met some of these people during the sale. Before the account is yours, ask for every name that appeared in the deal and what role each played. Ask who raised objections and what they were, who joined the security review, and who signed. Ask which of them the AE never met.

GitLab's public handbook starts the handoff before the signature. Its process for moving accounts from pre-sales to post-sales introduces the CSM to the customer's decision makers near the end of the technical evaluation or at the proposal stage, while the pre-sales team still has regular contact. The handbook's reason is that these business counterparts aren't usually involved in later recurring calls. If your company allows it, ask to join the last calls before the contract is signed.

GitLab's internal account team meeting before the transition also covers the customer's reasons for purchasing, the business outcomes they defined, and the known risks and obstacles to adoption. Ask the AE for those. Write the reasons for purchase next to the budget owner's name, and the adoption risks next to the team managers they touch.

The AE's map will be built for a purchase. Yours is built for a rollout and a renewal. Start from theirs, and mark each person as budget, team manager, systems, or daily use.

How Does the Map Change the Kickoff?

A kickoff built from the map has the team managers in it, and it covers what each of them needs. The dip in output, how long it lasts, and who covers the gap. The systems owner gets their requirements answered before the meeting. Daily users come in through their managers, with a small first task.

Gartner's 2023 survey of buyers involved in renewal decisions found widespread regret about software purchases. Gartner traced it to how the people making the decision worked together, including spread-out decisions, disputes over funding, and poor internal communication. A renewal depends on whether those people can agree again. A CSM who maps them at kickoff is working on that from the first week.

Write the four roles for your largest account and put a name next to each. Where a line is blank, that is the person the account is still waiting on, and the first introduction to ask your contact for.

References & Related Reading

• Major Sales: Who Really Does the Buying?, Thomas V. Bonoma, Harvard Business Review, 1982 (reprinted 2006).
• Gartner Survey Reveals 60% of Technology Buyers Involved in Renewal Decisions Regret Nearly Every Purchase They Make, Gartner press release, 2023.
• Model of Acceptance with Peer Support: A Social Network Perspective to Understand Employees' System Use, Tracy Ann Sykes, Viswanath Venkatesh, and Sanjay Gosain, MIS Quarterly, 2009.
• Transitioning Accounts from Pre-Sales to Post-Sales, GitLab Handbook, current page.
• The New Sales Imperative, Nick Toman, Brent Adamson, and Cristina Gomez, Harvard Business Review, 2017.
• Forrester's 2026 Buyer Insights, Forrester, 2026 (press release).