Introduction
Defining lifecycle stages is only the first step in creating a structured customer journey. To keep customers moving smoothly from onboarding to renewal, it’s essential to set clear transition criteria for each stage. Transition criteria ensure that customers are progressing based on meaningful engagement or milestones, allowing your team to focus on the right actions at the right time. This article will guide you in defining and automating transition criteria within Gainsight CS, ensuring each customer advances at a pace that aligns with their success.
Step 1: Define Specific Milestones for Each Stage Transition
Establishing measurable milestones is key to creating effective transition criteria. By identifying clear goals for each stage, you can determine when a customer is ready to progress to the next phase.
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Onboarding to Adoption: The transition from onboarding to adoption should be based on completion of key setup tasks, such as product configuration, initial training sessions, or feature activations. Use Success Plans to outline these tasks and track their completion, ensuring that customers are ready to fully engage with the product.
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Adoption to Renewal: The criteria for moving a customer to the renewal stage might include regular feature usage, reaching a certain health score threshold, or achieving ROI. Use Adoption Explorer to track adoption patterns and verify that customers are seeing consistent value.
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At Risk: A customer may enter the At Risk stage if their usage or engagement declines significantly. Scorecards can help you monitor health indicators, such as usage frequency and engagement scores, and signal when intervention is needed.
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Renewal to Churned: For customers who choose not to renew, this transition is typically based on their decision to discontinue the product. Once a customer is identified as churned, conduct a post-churn analysis using Surveys to understand the reasons behind their departure.
Step 2: Automate Transitions with Rules Engine
Automating transitions using Gainsight’s Rules Engine allows your team to focus on delivering value rather than manually tracking every customer’s progression.
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Create Rules for Milestone Completion: Use the Rules Engine to define conditions for each stage transition. For example, create a rule that automatically advances customers to the Adoption stage once they complete all onboarding tasks in their Success Plan.
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Set Usage-Based Triggers: Define rules that move customers to the next stage based on specific usage patterns. For instance, a rule could promote customers to the Renewal stage once they achieve a predefined level of feature usage tracked by Adoption Explorer.
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Automate Alerts for Non-Progression: If customers are not advancing as expected, configure alerts to notify your team. This allows CSMs to proactively engage with customers who may be stuck in a particular stage. For instance, set up CTAs when customers remain in the Onboarding stage beyond a typical timeline, signalling the need for additional support.
Step 3: Adjust Transition Criteria Based on Customer Segment
Different customer segments may require tailored transition criteria to reflect their unique engagement patterns and expectations.
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Segment by Customer Size: For Enterprise accounts, which often have more complex onboarding processes, consider extending the time in the Onboarding stage to accommodate their needs. Conversely, smaller SMB accounts may require simpler criteria to keep them moving forward. Use Data Designer to analyze and customize transition rules for each segment.
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Adjust for Engagement Levels: High-engagement customers may move through stages faster, while low-engagement customers might need additional milestones before progressing. Set differentiated thresholds in Scorecards to account for varying levels of engagement.
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Customize for Lifecycle Stage: For customers in growth or expansion phases, consider adding more detailed adoption milestones before moving to renewal. Adoption Explorer can help monitor these specific milestones based on each customer’s usage trajectory.
Next Steps for Success
With automated transition criteria in place, you can now focus on monitoring these transitions and refining them based on performance data. As customers progress smoothly through each lifecycle stage, your team can ensure that engagement remains high and intervention occurs when necessary.
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