2016 is just around the corner — and that means it’s time to set your business New Year’s resolution for 2016. But why settle for one generic goal like reducing churn or raising upsell? Why not resolve to make 2016 the year your organization invests in your customers as a major business driver?
18. Customer Success is Transformational
1. Acquire the Best Customers
2. Engage & Deliver Value Quickly
3. Expand Their Investment
4. Mobilize your Advocates
5. Retain & Renew Customers
51. “Green” Customers = CSM version of “SQL”:
• Objectively valuable: No one can contest the achievement.
• A discrete unit: It’s clear when the achievement is complete.
• Measurable: We can create a Gainsight dashboard to track our
achievements.
• Frequently achieved: We can recognize our achievements week-to-
week.
• Attributable to the CSM: No one can contest that the CSM is
primarily responsible.
#4: Invest in Data - “Green” Customers
54. Customers that move from Red/Yellow to Green/Lime in our Habits
Scorecard Measure
• Green: At least x% of licensed users are daily active users of
Cockpit
• Lime: At least y% of licensed users are daily active users (of any
part of the product)
• Yellow: Some usage, but not daily actives
• Red: No usage of Gainsight in the last week
#4: Invest in Data - “Green” Customers
63. Premium +
Premium
Standard
#8: Assign Value to High-Touch CS
Client Strategy Manager
4 EBRs / year
Onsite Strategy Workshop
Change Management
Customer Success Manager
2 EBRs / year
Strategy Session
Best Practices Workshops
Pooled CS
1 EBR / year
Strategy Webinar
Content
64. #9: Develop a Repeatable Methodology
Predictable Revenue Predictable Value Delivery
Sales Development team Customer Success team
New Business ARR Renewal ARR
SQLs Green Adoption
67. Responsibilities Sales Operations CS Operations
Data
Reporting • Share sales results and forecasts • Share renewals/upsell results, forecasts
Analysis • Analyze leading indicators for sales • Analyze leading indicators for renewals and upsell
Processes
Engagement process
• Determine timing and content of meetings to
optimize conversion
• Determine touchpoints for CSMs to drive adoption
and NPS
External communication • Coordinate with marketing • Manage 1:M communications
Risk management • Provide visibility to at-risk deals • Detect early warning signs for at-risk customers
Opp. identification • Identify top accounts • Identify top customers for upsell
X-functional coordination
• Coordinate processes across teams to help
meet sales objectives
• Coordinate processes across teams to help deliver
on customer needs
People
Team structure
• Manage AE territories, account segments
and forecast hiring needs
• Tier customers, assign to CSMs, re-distribute load
and forecast hiring
Compensation • Determine structure and quotas • Determine metrics and targets
Enablement • Create collateral and data for AEs • Provide collateral and data for CSMs
Systems Technology • Implement and manage tools for sales • Implement and manage tools for CSMs
#10: Invest in Customer Success Operations
86. Burning questions:
• Why do we segment customers? What are the objectives, design principles?
• How do our customers segment and structure their engagement models?
• How do companies use one-to-many engagement models at scale?
• How does Gainsight segment their customers?
• How do you implement a segmented engagement model?
Segmented engagement models
1
2
3
4
5
87. Objectives and Design Principles
In order to execute at scale, segmentation is critical to deliver what each type of customer needs
in a manner that’s scalable for the company.
Customer Needs
Value to company
• What do our customers need in order to be successful?
• Are there themes across these groups?
• What is the value of each type of customer to us?
• How can we affordably serve each segment?
1
88. Segmenting the customer base is essential to understanding the key breakpoints in your customer contact and CSM
coverage model strategy. The below charts show the segmentation strategy most commonly deployed within the
industry.
Customer Base Segmentation Strategy
2 Tiers 20%
3 Tiers 56%
4 Tiers 18%
> 4 Tiers 7%
Tier
Allocation
75%of
respondents tier their
customer base as
part of their contact
strategy
Key segmentation considerations:
• Expected annual customer touch points per
segment
• Target net renewal rate performance for each
segment
• Potential revenue or expansion customers in
low-$ segments
• Expected cost-of-sale % per segment
• Avg. contract size per segment / segment
volumes
• Areas for efficiency gain
23%
30%
47%
Other / Combo
ARR $
Customer ## of customers
Revenue
Other / combo
Source: Gainsight customer success benchmark report, 2015
2
89. 1:Many Tactics
3%
61%
29%
3% 3%
Weekly Monthly Quarterly Bi-annually Annually
CSM Email Marketing Cadence
5%
15%
33%
47%
50%
52%
65%
Other
None
User Groups
Events
Online Community
CSM Email Marketing
Webinars
Deploying a robust one-to-many strategy is key not only to drive new sales by efficiently expanding your market
reach, but to drive product adoption and customer retention. The below charts show the most popular strategies
being deployed today.
Source: Gainsight customer success benchmark report, 2015
3
90. Gainsight Customer Segmentation
We carved out 3 segments based on revenue (ARR) and whether or not a customer represents a
strategic relationship.
Strategic Enterprise / Mid-market SMB
Overview
Present a major upsell opportunity
or help us open up a market for a
new use case for Gainsight
Customer above a certain ARR
threshold that are not strategic
Customers below a certain ARR
threshold that are not strategic
Customer
Needs
• Need guidance in shaping the
evolution of their CS
organizations
• Want us to support the change
management effort
• Already experts in growing their
team, but need guidance in
executing their CS strategy
within Gainsight
• Starting to build their CS teams
and want to digest all the
information they can get on best
practices
Value to
Gainsight
• Highest potential ARR customers
• Huge expansion potential
• High retention rates
• Strong brand value
• Significant ARR & high retention
rates
• Fast sales cycle
• High advocacy rate
• Substantial product feedback
4
91. Implementing a Segmentation for Your
Customer Base
Five considerations for implementation:
1. Ensure consistency in messaging from marketing sales CSM
2. Limit “transitions” across segments (ideally, never)
3. When transitions are necessary, emphasize benefits of how the new model matches specific
needs of the customer
4. Consider bundled prices for CSM support
5. Encourage innovation: How can we scale every touch point?
5
94. Demonstrate the value you deliver
to your customers to promote
adoption, advocacy, and growth
DEMONSTRATE
Value
5 Pillars of Customer Success
Build a consistent, effective customer
journey through one-to-many strategies
and high-impact, timely one-on-one
interactions
OPERATIONALIZE
Customer Lifecycle
Build a world-class organization by
measuring impact and improving
cross-functional coordination
ENABLE
Cross-functional Visibility
Make it easy to spot and act on
opportunities for growth and candidates
for advocacy
DRIVE
Expansion & Advocacy
Proactively identify signs of
customer risk and collaborate
cross-functionally to address
issues
MANAGE
Customer Risk
95. Demonstrate the value you deliver
to your customers to promote
adoption, advocacy, and growth
DEMONSTRATE
Value
5 Pillars of Customer Success
Build a consistent, effective customer
journey through one-to-many strategies
and high-impact, timely one-on-one
interactions
OPERATIONALIZE
Customer Lifecycle
Build a world-class organization by
measuring impact and improving
cross-functional coordination
ENABLE
Cross-functional Visibility
Make it easy to spot and act on
opportunities for growth and candidates
for advocacy
DRIVE
Expansion & Advocacy
Proactively identify signs of
customer risk and collaborate
cross-functionally to address
issues
MANAGE
Customer Risk
Today’s example
97. Designing Your Lifecycle Strategy
• What are your customer lifecycle stages?
• How will lifecycle touches vary by customer segment?
• What types of 1:many communication (emails, blogs, webinars) will be most
effective with each segment?
1) OPERATIONALIZE
CUSTOMER LIFECYLE
98. DEMONSTRATE
Value
5 Pillars of Customer Success
OPERATIONALIZE
Customer Lifecycle
ENABLE
Cross-functional Visibility
DRIVE
Expansion & Advocacy
MANAGE
Customer Risk
Today’s example