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I CS Ops, and So Can You!


kendra_mcclanahan
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Inspired by Pulse, I’m revisiting a document I created exactly a year ago but completely overthought so I avoided posting it 😅

As a member of Gainsight's Customer Operations team, I've been asked numerous times about how we manage our team's operations, including administering our Gainsight and Zendesk instances, enabling our CSM and Support teammates on internal processes, and implementing strategic programs for our customers. While I’ve had many one-off conversations, I’ve struggled to pull together all of the details to share more holistically. This is me holding myself accountable (hopefully).  I'm planning to write a series of posts that will hopefully provide insights into the key processes that we’ve built at Gainsight that I hope are helpful!

Here’s an overview of what I’m planning - what else would you like to see/learn?

  1. Sprint Planning: Discover how we allocate our team's time between strategic initiatives and run-the-business operations. I'll share how we use a planning board in Monday.com to streamline our process and ensure optimal results.
  2. Steering Committees: Find out how we gather input from leadership and ensure transparency and accountability. I'll provide an outline of our steer co deck, and how we maintain alignment with our strategic goals.
  3. Quarterly Retrospective: Embracing our values of Shoshin and Stay Thirsty, we consistently seek opportunities for growth and improvement. Explore how we embrace a culture of learning and adaptability through our retrospective process.
  4. Managing Incoming Requests: We leverage Halp, a specialized tool that enables us to categorize and prioritize requests based on their type, to streamline our workflow management system. Witness firsthand how we optimize our operations.
  5. Team Structure: Gain insights into how we divide our team, including specific responsibilities and driving collaboration. 
  6. Measuring Success: See the key metrics we track to evaluate our team's performance and witness how we hold ourselves accountable to ensure continuous improvement.

I'm always interested in learning from others. I’d love for you to share your experiences and best practices, whether they align with our practices at Gainsight or diverge from them.

Please feel free to reach out or leave a comment below.

6 replies

revathimenon
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  • Gainsight Community Manager
  • 592 replies
  • May 18, 2023

Thank you for kickstarting this really helpful thread @kendra_mcclanahan 🙌🏼

Looking forward to more from this series 🙂


Jef Vanlaer
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  • Helper ⭐️⭐️
  • 187 replies
  • May 19, 2023

Very much looking forward to this series, @kendra_mcclanahan. Suggestion for an addition: I firmly believe that a CS Ops team should not only be reactive to input from steering committees and incoming requests, but also prescriptively suggest and implement improvements based on data and workflow analysis. It would be interesting to also touch on how this is done and how to balance it with incoming requests.


kendra_mcclanahan
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  • Author
  • Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️
  • 80 replies
  • May 22, 2023

@Jef Vanlaer absolutely! That’s a fantastic topic and I will add to our list - I love bottoms up innovation!


revathimenon
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  • Gainsight Community Manager
  • 592 replies
  • September 12, 2023

AnnieMo
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  • Contributor ⭐️
  • 2 replies
  • October 24, 2023

@kendra_mcclanahan I was hoping to get more information with respect to your Steering Committees and the cadence of these business rhythms. Are you able to share an overview of these planning/meetings? Thanks!


kendra_mcclanahan
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  • Author
  • Gainsight Employee ⭐️⭐️
  • 80 replies
  • October 26, 2023
AnnieMo wrote:

@kendra_mcclanahan I was hoping to get more information with respect to your Steering Committees and the cadence of these business rhythms. Are you able to share an overview of these planning/meetings? Thanks!

Absolutely! I’m working on the draft of that post now and will be sure to share with you!


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