Enable Gainsight CS Timeline Data Integration with Staircase AI

Woah. Timeline data is crucial. We don’t use Staircase, but given that “If it’s not in Gainsight, it didn’t happen” could technically be written as “If it’s not in [the] Gainsight [Timeline], it didn’t happen” – this feels like a big oversight.

Given our current data privacy protocols, I’d think we (and probably a lot of other Gainsight customers who do business with companies that are very concerned about their data) would be far more likely to use Staircase if we could choose which data was factored into it.

Pretty sure we were told it was, so big updoot if true 

This has also been a hurdle for us in adoption of Staircase as well.  We also load NPS Survey Responses and CSAT Survey Responses to Timeline, so integrating Timeline data into Staircase would also add in that customer verbatim info to the AI processes as well.  We also have team members tracking items to Timeline who we don’t ingest their emails for security purposes, so the integration would give us that as well.

This is a HUGE gap. All of our CSM inputs are put into Timeline... Omitting this data from Staircase is a major loss in human-centric content.

100%! Like ​@dayn.johnson said “if it’s not on Timeline, it didn’t happen”. This is absolutely true at our org. It’s a shame and frankly, a significant oversight that this major source of critical customer data is not considered. 

I really would have expected this to be a major call out during the sales, or at latest onboarding stage. Clarity and transparency are essential to avoid customer issues- this was a big miss. 

This was not called out in our demo of Staircase directly. Timeline data is crucial. I would also add, having the ability to select what gets included by Activity Type or otherwise, would be something that would be useful to include.  

Dayn beat me to it! We repeat that ad nauseam. So much that is the description of one of our Slack channels
 

As mentioned, many Timeline activities don't originate from synced emails or come from addresses not connected to Staircase. For example, an account could appear "dark" despite clear C-level interactions in its Timeline, solely because that individual's email isn't ingested. This is a crucial miss.

hi, we’re not Gainsight Timeline users, so can’t comment on that piece…...but FWIW, we do use the Timeline in Staircase and have found it pretty powerful and zero work for the CSM (I manage 13 CSM’s, so it’s great to not have to worry about who logged what - SC just picks up what’s actually happened….if things are sync’d of course)

some learnings/observations on my end:

• SC’s Insights, Topics, Lifecycle events are wonderfully insightful (they’ll pick up what you configure and plot it on a timeline for the customer)
  • learning: zero in on key customer outcomes, the lifecycle moments that matter, and the activities that NEED to happen to achieve those - this is what we want to track. (we try to iterate quickly on what we track because, if it’s perceived as noise, CSM’s quickly lose trust)
• sync’ing, sync’ing….I wish I had a silver-bullet answer on this one...learnings on my end
  • I’m told the domain sync is the ‘easy button’ - but, my CTO won’t go for it!...so….
  • I’ve invited/added all customer facing peeps into SC (we can pick up all their activity)
  • slack channels: we have a bunch of customers who work with us over slack - you’ve gotta add those channels manually, but it’s only a one-time effort per customer - easy to add to your onboarding process, and/or your enablement process when a CSM gets notified that a customer is ‘dark’ because you’re not picking up slack activity
  • additional domains: M&A on the customer end - some enablement there, CSM’s should flag that a customer’s got an additional email domain to be added/tracked

Thanks ​@CharlieFerrao, that is great to hear and I really appreciate you sharing those details. 

While the Lifecycle Timeline in Staircase is great, it unfortunately doesn’t offer the full value we would gain from CS Timeline integration. Our CSMs and other team members frequently log critical updates to the CS Timeline, many of which document async interactions that are not captured via the Staircase meeting or email integrations. This can include but is not limited to in-person meeting notes, general CSM updates, details about risk and expansion, goals, strategic planning notes, and more. Without the CS Timeline integration, Staircase is missing out on all of these valuable insights. This can lead to inaccuracies in the issues and insights presented by Staircase as a result of Staircase's inability to consider all relevant information.

It would be fantastic if Staircase integrated with the CS Timeline and facilitated the flow of this information into the Staircase Lifecycle Timeline. However, without this necessary integration, and lacking the ability to manually log these updates in Staircase, this is not currently possible. 

This has delayed our widespread roll out of Staircase and compromised our confidence in the reliability of insights generated from this tool. 

Also very weird considering every single Gainsight AI feature seems to *only* look at Timeline - or close enough, to the point where I almost wonder where they’re going with any other feature (see later comments on this thread if you have some time to kill: 

) - so it’s a very odd choice that on the one hand, Timeline is the only thing that matters, but on the other, a huge blind spot.