Multi-version support in playbook email tasks and email Assist

Hello @stephanienardone, thank you for your post. We’re glad to hear that you are extending Gainsight to your CSMs that manage international accounts. Looping in our Product Manager to take a look at this and suggest what best can be done here. 

Hello  @stephanienardone 
We have this in our Email assist roadmap, only limitation would be you can only select and send one version from email assist as opposed to JO.

Hi @chethana ,
would you have an update on this? We are facing similar challenges in making email comms with customers more efficient with Gainsight, but having to readjust templates just for language does not really help with that :). Thanks!

I would also love an update on this feature @chethana ! It’s very useful that you can now select different versions from within Gainsight Assist, but not being able to do so within a Playbook Task is still a big pain point for us as a multi-language company. Thanks!

Hi @chethana, 

I saw that we can do this in email assist but not in the task. This is affecting us a lot since we now have lots of onbaording managers worldwide with high touch customers and they need to be able to talk in their specific language. 

They can use email assist as a workaround but it’s a fair amount of extra work and they need to remember where to do this even if they have the task. 

Ideally, the email would take the version that matches the language of the participant, this way it forces people to update the language of the contact to the correct one if it’s wrong. 

Cross posting from https://communities.gainsight.com/ideas/variant-email-templates-in-email-assist-3089/index3.html?postid=44444#post44444:

Hey Gainsight,

We’re in the process of overhauling our email templates just now, and as part of our “engage the customer on their terms” initiative, our CSMs are translating email content for their region/language.

The thought was that, each email template would contain a version for each language and, if used in a playbook the CSM would then choose the template variant before previewing and sending to the customer.  I now understand this isn’t possible; email versions can be identified in JO via criteria, and a CSM can select the email template version required when sending an ad-hoc email, but not if the template is used as an email template as part of a playbook.

I ask myself ok, so this isn’t possible, what are the options? 

1. The language needs to be defined in the CTA rule; requiring multiple email templates, multiple playbooks and multiple rule actions.
2. The playbook task must be a task only (not an email task), requiring the CSM to send an ad-hoc email, and selecting the correct email version before previewing and sending.

Option 1 is horrible from an admin perspective; it requires the number of email templates to increase by a factor of n, where n is the number of languages templates have translations for, the same for playbooks and rule actions.  Email template and playbook assets become more burdensome to manage given their volume, and rules (I assume) take longer to process give the factor of n rule actions added to identify which language playbook/template/CTA version would need to be created.  Additionally, what happens when an additional language is supported? Instead of adding a version to each existing email template, a new template, playbook and rule action would need to be created.  Total madness.

Option 2 is horrible from the perspective of the CSM; if the majority of customers (and therefore customer communications) are in English, having CSMs read the CS Task, then have to manually add an ad-hoc email to the playbook, etc, etc is a bad experience for end-users.

Even a halfway solution (playbooks/CTA rule actions distinguishing between English/non-English) isn’t palatable for the admin experience, and would still provide a poor experience for end-users where English isn’t the primary language in their territory.

If email versions are supported in JO and ad-hoc emails, 1000% they should be supported in playbook tasks.  Am I understanding this wrongly?  If the need for email versioning was large enough for Gainsight to develop and release for JO and ad-hoc emails, surely a 360 solution should be developed so email versioning can be adopted throughout the whole product?

@ssamarth @mpatra

#productparity

@revathimenon, can we get some eyes on this? 👀

This is (yet) another #productparity issue. If we can use email versions in a couple areas (JO, email assist), it doesn’t make sense why versions wouldn’t be enabled in ALL areas. Especially since dynamic content blocks in email templates is still not available (this 4yo “open” idea).

This is a big issue because:

• Increases the number of templates needed (directly tied to the number of languages used)
• Increases amount of options in template list which increases likelihood of human error
• Increases the complexity of logic in the task (ex: if participant’s preferred language is not set)

I’m sure there are other issues I’m not thinking of here.

Update:
(@Stuart, thanks for sharing the SIX-YEAR-OLD PARKED idea above that I’d already voted on)

How exactly is this parked with so many upvotes (94 as of now) and comments that it was on the roadmap and planned for a 2022 release at one point?

How are we expected to scale our digital CS programs, especially with international customers and CSMs, when email versions won’t work in playbooks?

@revathimenon Following up on this to see if you can get us an update on this functionality request?

Hey @dayn.johnson & @zach_davis - sorry i missed this. On it!

​@revathimenon  Any update on this functionality request?

Hi ​@manharwalia 

Sorry, nothing yet.

I’ve raised this internally again for an update.

Tagging ​@AshutoshSingh 

We have acknowledged the ask ​@manharwalia. We will not be able to pick it up this year because of the priority for CTA Enhancements planned. But will keep you posted on any updates planned.

Thank you

Preethi

135 votes and 7 years between the two is wild and disappointing to see that yet again, is not being picked up and prioritized. Or rather, dropped in priority after multiple other attempts to prioritize it. 

Not being able to select variants in Email Assist (but somehow can through the Gainsight plugin??) makes for unnecessary admin work and just increases the tech debt with the increased assets to support the use cases.

Email template versions need so much work.

Example:

Just ran into this issue because someone asked me about using multiple versions in a playbook, and I assumed wrongly that the feature would be available after all this time and the revamps of cockpit and email templates.  I too noticed that it works in Gainsight Assist and Email Assist, but didn’t think to check playbooks since it seemed logical that they would all work the same.

Now, I have to create 2 separate tasks instead of just one, and that’s just more administrative work for the CSMs as well. 

How is this still an issue after all this time?

Crossposting here from this post (since it’s parked).

Even if multiple variants work in Gainsight Assist, if I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think it did.

Example screenshots below. 

I created four templates for our account teams to use in Gainsight Assist to promote conference registration, based on region and public vs. private sector.

Based on the second image, my eye does not go to the version selection box. Because there are critical differences in these templates, I want our account team to easily be able to apply the correct template, hence I need to create four templates when one should work in theory.

I would expect to see a larger callout prior to the template being applied if there are multiple versions, requiring the user to select their chosen template before even having the option to apply a template to their email.