Introduction

After building a strong base of customer advocates and leveraging them for various purposes such as success stories, speaking opportunities, sales references, and customer requests, it's crucial to measure and track the impact of these advocacy programs on overall customer health. Incorporating advocacy activities into health scoring provides a comprehensive view of customer engagement and helps in making data-driven decisions to enhance customer success. This article will explore strategies for integrating advocacy into health scoring, building on our previous discussions about creating and utilizing customer advocates.

Why does this matter?

Incorporating advocacy into health scoring is essential for several reasons:

• Holistic customer view: Provides a more complete picture of customer health by including advocacy activities.

• Data-driven insights: Enables better decision-making by tracking the influence of advocacy on customer success.

• Proactive risk management: Helps identify potential risks and opportunities by monitoring advocacy trends within health scores.

How to get started

Step 1: Define advocacy Metrics

1. Identify key advocacy activities: Determine the activities that reflect strong advocacy, such as participation in success stories, references, and speaking opportunities.

2. Set measurement criteria: Establish clear criteria and thresholds for measuring these activities within your health scoring system.

3. Integrate with existing metrics: Combine advocacy metrics with other health score components to create a comprehensive health evaluation.

Step 2: Configure health scorecards

1. Customize scorecard layouts: Set up your scorecards to include advocacy metrics, ensuring they are visible and easily accessible.

2. Assign weightage: Determine the appropriate weightage for advocacy activities within the overall health score to reflect their importance accurately.

3. Automate score updates: Use automation tools to update health scores based on advocacy activities and other metrics in real-time.

Step 3: Track and analyze advocacy impact

1. Monitor health Trends: Regularly review health scores to monitor the impact of advocacy activities on customer engagement and success.

2. Identify patterns: Look for patterns and correlations between advocacy activities and changes in health scores to gain insights into their effectiveness.

3. Adjust strategies: Use these insights to adjust your advocacy and customer success strategies, ensuring continuous improvement.

Gainsight features you'll need

• Scorecards: To integrate advocacy metrics into overall customer health evaluations.

• Rules Engine: To automate health score updates based on advocacy activities.

• Dashboards: For visualizing health trends and the impact of advocacy.

• Timeline: To track and document advocacy activities and their influence on health scores.

What’s next?

Now that advocacy is integrated into your health scoring system, you can gain deeper insights into customer engagement and overall health. This data-driven approach will help you make informed decisions to enhance customer success and retention. As you continue to refine your advocacy programs, explore additional strategies to maximize their impact on your business outcomes.

Further reading and inspiration

• Blog: How We Drive Advocacy at Gainsight

• Community Blog: Health Scores Construct