Introduction
Understanding customer priorities, pain points, and long-term business goals is key to identifying expansion opportunities. Engaging customers in strategic discussions helps CS teams uncover growth areas while aligning expansion efforts with customer objectives. This article outlines how to conduct meaningful customer conversations that surface expansion potential.
Step 1: Leverage Customer Goals to Identify Expansion Potential
Aligning expansion opportunities with customer objectives increases adoption success.
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Review documented customer goals: Use Success Plans to track business priorities, pain points, and unmet needs.
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Assess product adoption trends: Identify gaps in feature usage and potential cross-sell opportunities using Dashboards.
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Evaluate customer feedback and NPS insights: Analyze Surveys and NPS data to uncover recurring requests that indicate expansion demand.
Step 2: Conduct Strategic Expansion Conversations
Customer strategy discussions help align expansion opportunities with real business needs.
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Incorporate expansion into QBRs and EBRs: Use structured Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) to discuss how additional products or features can drive customer value.
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Use Timeline to document expansion signals: Capture expansion-related discussions in Timeline to ensure visibility across teams.
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Position expansion as a value-driven solution: Instead of focusing on upselling, frame expansions as ways to solve customer challenges and optimize ROI.
Step 3: Align Expansion Strategy with Customer Success Planning
Translating strategy discussions into action ensures measurable impact.
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Update Success Plans with expansion-related milestones: Define clear growth objectives and measurable KPIs in Success Plans.
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Set up automated expansion alerts: Configure CTAs to notify CS teams when customers reach engagement thresholds that signal expansion potential.
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Ensure Sales-CS alignment on customer-driven expansion opportunities: Share customer strategy insights in joint planning meetings to refine account growth strategies.
What’s Next
Identifying expansion potential through strategic discussions is only valuable if followed by data-backed decision-making. The next article will cover how to analyze closed expansion deals to refine and optimize future strategies.
Explore More
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Pulse Video: Should Customer Success Own Expansion Revenue? The Answer? It Depends.
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Blog: How to Unlock Millions of Dollars in Expansion Using Customer Data
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Guide: Net Retention + Expansion: Your Customer Success Revenue Partners
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Research Report: The Customer Expansion Report: Identifying Untapped Opportunities