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Share Insights and Best Practices

A place for sharing of cutting-edge best practices and real-world examples

  • 33 Topics
  • 110 Replies
33 Topics
Jef Vanlaer
Jef VanlaerHelper ⭐️⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Implementing Value Networks to ensure multi-threading

As a CS Ops Manager at TrendMiner for the past 5 years, I’m always looking for ways to help our Customer Success team scale more effectively through better processes, systems, and data. Recently, we tackled a common challenge in CS: single-threading.Got questions or thoughts on this? Feel free to drop a comment or send me a message. Happy to chat more about it!The challengeIt happens a lot more than you’d like as a CSM: your main contact changes roles or leaves the company and the customer goes dark. The solution? Multi-threading: making sure you have regular touchpoints with multiple stakeholders, so you are not dependent on a single individual.But how do you ensure this is consistently done for every customer? What tools can you provide to your CSMs to get more insight into the breadth of their outreach?Introducing the Value Network, a practical tool implemented in Gainsight CS that accomplishes exactly that…What is a Value Network?A Value Network is an overview of all customer conta

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alizee
jason_metzler
jason_metzlerHelper ⭐️⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Building Killswitches into Gainsight Rules: A Safety Infrastructure Guide

Yes, this post was created with AI, but I checked its work. Based on our implementation, here's a comprehensive guide on how to build robust killswitches into your Gainsight rules to prevent data disasters and massive CTA creation incidents. 🎯 Why Killswitches MatterImagine waking up to find your rule created 2,000 CTAs overnight because of bad data, or worse - your health scores were incorrectly set to zero because a data source failed. Killswitches are your safety net, providing automated circuit breakers that stop rules when unexpected conditions are detected. 🛠️ Two Main Killswitch Patterns1. Volume-Based: Preventing CTA ExplosionsUse Case: Risk CTA creation that depends on external data sourcesImplementation:Count the number of CTAs that would be created by your rule If count exceeds a reasonable threshold (e.g., 100 CTAs), abort the rule Send Slack notification to alert your teamSetup Steps:Add a Transform step to count the number of CTA records Include a Slack notification act

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romihache
sarahmiracle
sarahmiracleVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Tracking user adoption of Gainsight

If you’re looking to analyze the usage of Gainsight among your users, there are a few ways that this can be accomplished, and I wanted to share how we went about tackling this problem.Ultimately, we didn’t use the GS Asset Tracking object for our use case. We were less interested in the reports/dashboards being used, and more interested in the results we were expecting to see (the outputs, like Timeline activities and CTA movement).  Business Impact: As a member of CS Ops, CS Leadership, & CS Systems, I want to understand how our users are adopting Gainsight and adhering to their expected usage of the platform.Description: Build a dashboard that outlines key indicators of adoption/usage:Log in frequency Logging activities to Timeline Acting upon created CTAs Updating CSM Sentiment in health scorecardThe dashboard answers questions such as… Logins Who are the top users based on logins? Top 10 Users This Month User Login History object, Count of Login Time and MAX of Login Time

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KimStocks
spencer_engel
spencer_engelExpert ⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Gainsight Sandbox Best Practices

Hi everyone -  I recently crowdsourced the Gainsight Admin community to ask for some best practices regarding best practices for managing a Gainsight sandbox. I got some helpful thoughts, and along with an assist from ChatGPT, came up with the following 8 best practices. By all means, do not consider this a final list! I’d love to hear what I missed or if anything needs to be tweaked. We’re all constantly learning here 😃. 1. Use Sandbox for Testing Only Only use Sandbox for:  Testing new rules, playbooks, layouts, and configurations  Training new admins or CSMs  QA before deploying to production  Never test in production if the change has risk — even small changes (e.g., to Rules or Permissions) can cascade widely. If we absolutely must test in production (due to data limitations in Sandbox, for example), then test on a Company record that is only meant for testing. 2. Establish a Promotion Process Have a clearly documented change control process: Develop and test in sandbox.  Use a

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victoria_peeker_barry
sarahmasterton-brown
sarahmasterton-brownHelper ⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Driving the Community agenda at company events

Hey Community-ersAbout a year ago I posted here asking how you promote community at events.2 weeks ago, my company www.mews.com hosted it’s annual hospitality conference. I wanted to share this here as we did 2 things differently this time around with some great results so thought I’d share here. Hopefully this is somewhat inspiring!!:  Community Drinks Event (Pre-Conference): We hosted an exclusive rooftop event for customers already in town the evening before the main conference. We had support staff managing logistics so I could focus on mingling. I budgeted for a live DJ and a magician which added a special touch. The evening was hosted in a beautiful waterside rooftop venue in the sun which certainly helped with the strong turnout. As a result, I was able to have some great conversation about the community with my customers, get new customers signed up to the community and got some verbal commitments for community-exclusive success story interviews - one of my key targets in 2025.

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victoria_peeker_barry
heather_hansen
heather_hansenVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Using JO to send Internal Emails

Ever wish your team(s) could get vital Gainsight information without having to constantly log in? You're not alone! At Acquia, we've found that using Gainsight's internal email features has transformed how we communicate and collaborate. I'm excited to share some examples of how we do this and how you can too.Improved Response TimeFor our teams with occasional Gainsight tasks, we’ve built out notifications to prompt action from those teams.Example 1: Our CSMs create CSQLs (Customer Success Qualified Leads) via a CTA that they then assign to the Account Manager to work.  Account Managers tend to operate mostly in Salesforce, so it’s not always top of mind for them to go work CTAs.  To solve this problem, we’ve created two internal emails that they can use to complete the process of updating and tagging the CTAs appropriately. (One that fires a few days following the creation of the CTA, and then, another that fires a few days later if no action has still been completed)Both emails conta

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heather_hansen
Carol_Keyes
Carol_KeyesHelper ⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Automating Self-Adoption Assessments & Scorecard Updates

Introduction:Hey everyone! I'm excited to share our journey in automating our end-to-end process for self-adoption assessments and scorecard updates. This initiative has significantly improved our efficiency and accuracy, and I believe our learnings can help you too! We've streamlined everything from survey delivery to scorecard updates, and I'm going to walk you through how we did it.Our Automated Process: An OverviewOur automated process has several key steps:Survey Creation and Delivery: We kick things off by creating and delivering surveys to our customers. Survey Completion: Once the customer completes the survey, the process moves forward. Backend Data Management: This is where we handle the data behind the scenes. Manual Intervention (as needed): For our high-touch customers, we've built in a step for manual intervention to ensure accuracy. Automation Engine: The rules and logic that drive the automation. Scorecard Updates: Finally, updating the scorecards within Relationship 36

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romihache
aaronhatton
aaronhattonHelper ⭐️⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Onboarding Gainsight CS – How We Maximized Our Greenfield Deployment

Implementing Gainsight CS from scratch is both an exciting and complex challenge. At PVcase, a leading solar energy software provider, we had the unique opportunity to deploy Gainsight CS in a greenfield environment, meaning we had no existing customer success platform to migrate from. This offered both freedom and responsibility so that we could design the system exactly as we needed, but we also had to ensure it met our business needs from day one, exceeding the expectations of many in our teams.We’re about 4 months in from full deployment, and so  I wanted to create a quick post that walks through our approach to a successful deployment, the challenges we overcame, and lessons learned that could help others in a similar situation. Understanding Our Starting Point: A True Greenfield DeploymentAs an ex-Gainsight employee, I was tasked with leading this deployment. PVcase had no prior CS tool, meaning our processes were mostly manual, siloed across teams, and we as a company lacked a c

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matthew_lind
romihache
romihacheVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Reports and Dashboards: How to manage data access by Persona/Role

Alright, so this is all about controlling who gets to see what in your reports and dashboards. We're gonna talk about two main things: sharing groups and folder permissions.Quick Rundown:Part 1: Sharing Groups - Making Teams: Basically, you can create your own teams of people to share stuff with. These teams can update automatically based on certain info (dynamic) or you can just pick the members yourself (static). I’m using a simple example here: CS Managers>CS Leads>CSMs. Part 2: Folder Permissions - Locking Down Folders: You can also control who can even open and see the dashboards within specific folders. Whatever rules you set on a main folder automatically apply to all the folders inside it. Each folder is shared with the right team of people (that sharing group we talked about)Part 1: Create your sharing groupsGo to data permissions → sharing groups. For this example, I have 3 groups that follow this hierarchy:CS Managers  CS Leads    CSMsAccessing Sharing GroupsThe great

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romihache
dayn.johnson
dayn.johnsonVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Starting Out as a JO Admin: Planning for Your First Few JOs

Summary:Summary: This article provides a comprehensive guide to planning, launching, and managing Gainsight Journey Orchestrator (JO) programs, emphasizing thorough planning, testing, and communication. It should take approximately 10-15 minutes to read thoroughly.Missed the previous posts in this JO-focused series? This article follows these previous posts:Understanding Journey Orchestrator: Yes, it’s important enough to have its OWN admin! Diving Deep: My Role as a Gainsight JO AdminMain text:Getting started: a good plan is essentialAs you plan your first few JOs, it’s best to start simple. The fewer steps and the less complex the source, the greater the likelihood of a successful launch, and the lower the risk of errors. Look for the low-hanging fruit, especially where automations can result in a big win for you and your team. Speaking of your team, include your stakeholders from the beginning — all of them. Ask questions. Skipping this crucial step is a surefire way to experience u

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romihache
dayn.johnson
dayn.johnsonVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Understanding Journey Orchestrator: Yes, it's important enough to have its OWN admin!

Summary: This article provides an overview of Gainsight Journey Orchestrator (JO), its benefits, and the crucial role of a JO-focused administrator. It also shares insights on approaching communications within this platform, drawing from practical experience. 1. What is Journey Orchestrator (JO), and Why Should You Care?Gainsight Journey Orchestrator is a powerful tool within Gainsight that empowers customer success teams to automate and personalize communication programs. This platform enables scalable engagement with customers, leading to increased efficiency and improved outcomes. Key features and benefits include:Automated Communication Sequences: Streamlining outreach efforts. Scalable, Personalized Experiences: Tailoring interactions to individual customer needs. Integration with Gainsight: Seamlessly working within the existing Gainsight ecosystem. Data-Driven Insights: Utilizing data to inform and optimize communication strategies.* Note – this information on point 1 was source

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dayn.johnson
dayn.johnson
dayn.johnsonVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Diving Deep: My Role as a Gainsight JO Admin

Summary: This article explores the nuances of my role as a Gainsight Journey Orchestrator (JO) administrator, distinguishing it from a broader Gainsight CS Ops admin position and highlighting the skills, challenges, and future evolution of this critical function. Missed the first article in this series? View it here. 1. My Role vs. a "Whole Gainsight" CS Ops AdminMy role is more focused than that of a general Gainsight CS Ops admin. While a CS Ops admin handles a wide range of tasks, including data design, reporting, and surveys, I primarily concentrate on:JO-Specific Tasks: Email template creation, content creation for journeys, troubleshooting, and testing within the JO platform Data and Integration: Working with data designs, reports, and dashboards as they relate to JO programs, and coordinating with marketing counterparts on external communication flowsAt the core, I specialize in the communication aspects of Gainsight, ensuring effective and targeted customer engagement through j

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dayn.johnson
J
John TContributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Gainsight PX Engagement Tracker

Greetings fellow Gainsight PX Admins.I was asked to create a visual tool that would allow us to view the Engagements.We typically have nearly 100 Engagements running at any given time.We wanted to be able to view which Engagements are currently running and others that are scheduled to run within the next 12 months.I used a Google Sheet to create the “Gainsight PX Engagement Tracker”.I’m sharing it here for anyone else that might have a similar need.Here is the link to the “Gainsight PX Engagement Tracker” Google Sheet:https://bit.ly/3Xm6FrFHere is the link to the YouTube video that demos the “Gainsight PX Engagement Tracker”   All the best,John Tomczak

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J
RebekahS916
RebekahS916Contributor ⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
10 Reasons Why ROI is More Than Just a Number

Hello Gainsight Community! I wanted to share some thoughts on the value of ROI as we work with our clients on a daily basis.  I would love to hear your thoughts or experiences around this topic.  Please see the article I published below: ROI, the big 3 letter acronym we love to use in the business world.  Return on Investment is the underlying theme when it comes to providing a product or service.  Before a concept can become a reality the question of ROI is addressed.  What is in it for the customer?  How will the customer realize enough value to buy and stay with your product?  How will ROI be measured and shared with customers?  These are all important questions when it comes to gaining new customers and retaining current customers. As a Customer Success Manager, you have many responsibilities and tasks to complete each day.  There are executive business reviews to conduct, escalations to be resolved, documentation to update, cadence calls to prepare for, and many other to-dos on yo

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revathimenon
sarahmiracle
sarahmiracleVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Create a lookup to current scores of scorecard MEASURES from Company (not just Overall Score)

Have you ever heard this from the business?Can you add the CSM Sentiment score to the My Portfolio widget on GS Home? Can you add the Product Usage score to this renewal opportunities report? Can you add the CSM Sentiment comments to the current quarter renewals report?Seeing scorecard data in non-scorecard object based reports is a very common request, but not a straight forward thing to build in Gainsight! I wanted to share how I accomplished this for us at Amplitude and how we’ve been able to incorporate scorecard throughout our Gainsight reporting as a result.Step 1: Create a custom low volume object to hold your score detailsI called mine “Current Score by Measure” It includes fields for Score (# data type), Label (String), Comments (String), and Last Modified (Date) of all the scorecard measures we have There’s also a Company GSID field to hold the account ID of the current score by measure dataStep 2: Create a rule to load to your Current Score by Measure object Fetch current sc

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jrich
dayn.johnson
dayn.johnsonVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Dynamic JO logic flow (avoiding null email failures and dropped participants)

@keith_mattes suggested publicizing this, so here goes:I’m building out a new dynamic JO program with three different variants after the evaluate step… one to send a “logic failure notification” in the “else if” branch. Because… ain’t nobody got time for dropped participants. Even on internal-only programs.Also because of the new case expression issue with no custom mapping (string to email) available. The evaluate step is essentially:no null account reps, send and CC account team at least one null rep, send to our team to forward logic fails, send to our team to forwardCurious if anyone else has ways they deal with dropped participants (without manually checking).  

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heather_hansen
sarahmiracle
sarahmiracleVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Summarizing open risk CTAs at a Company level (or anything else that has multiple records per Company to be summarized in a multi select)

If you use CTAs for managing and reporting on risk, you might get requests like this from the business:Can you add the open risks to [XYZ] report?How can I see a summary of the open risks on the account from the [company level] report? How do you report on risks using objects not sourced from Call to Action?Here’s how we accomplished this using a multi-select field! Step 0: Add your new multi-select field to Company objectOurs is called “Open Risks” Step 1: Create a custom object that will be your “flattened object”I titled mine “Flattened Object for Open Risks.” The purpose of this object is hold one record per company with each “open risk” being its own column. The dataset columns will be each of your risk types.Be sure to include a string field called “Null value.” You’ll use this later when creating the multi-select. Step 2: Create a rule to load to your flattened objectTo get data in your new custom flattened object, create a rule to fetch from Call to Action.First, fetch from the

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benwanlessmenlo
alizee
alizeeVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Gainsight Community Guide to Fallback Senders​

​Hey all,Across a customer base, it’s quite common to not have a designated customer success advisor for each and every single account.It’s equally common to need to engage with your entire customer base at once through digital CS and lately I’ve seen various posts relating to challenges in Dynamic JO when it comes to generating fallback senders for several reasons:We no longer need to map our source fields to a “sender email” field in Dynamic JO, We can’t generate case statement fields as an email data type, A program can only have one calculated source (query, data designer) since we no longer need to map fields  The good news is that the changes brought about by Dynamic JO in that regard haven’t hindered our ability to reliably generate fallback senders. If anything, they’ve “forced” us down a more efficient, reliable and sustainable route (or so I think 😊).So I thought I’d share our approach to:Handling fallback senders in Dynamic JO (which also works in Advanced😊) and CTAs assig

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alizee
matthew_lind
matthew_lindVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
Gainsight CS Admin: Commonly Used Links: Import Bookmarks to Chrome

For my Gainsight CS Admin friends, I’ve compiled a list of frequently-visited pages within the CS platform. This helps me quickly navigate to any part of the instance via Chrome Bookmark. Each Gainsight instance has a unique URL, but the navigation within an instance is common. Thus, you can quickly build a set of Bookmarks for yourself for your own instance by taking the following steps.Copy and paste the below HTML into a Text Editor. Not Google Drive, not Chrome, not Apple Notes, but something akin to BBEdit. You've got to open the raw text so you can edit the HTML tags rather than have the HTML actually display. Run a "Find and Replace" on yourinstancenamehere and replace with...you guessed it...your instance name. EU tenants, include the .eu portion of the URL. Save the file as an HTML file. In Google Chrome, use Chrome menu > Import Bookmarks and Settings (That's the MacOS path; Windows folks...you're on your own). Navigate to your saved HTML file and import.You’ll end up with

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revathimenon
revathimenon
revathimenonGainsight Community Manager
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
DCS Scoops w/ Alizée Levavasseur: Best practices for contact data management in DCS - P2

Hello all,Here’s Part 2 of the Contact Data Management Best Practices from our community friend @alizee 🔥  3. Legal compliance for data processing:Establish a legal basis for processing data, particularly for individuals who opt out. Sync information from CRM to Gainsight for streamlined compliance. More in-depth details in the video  4. Use data for informed decisions:Identify individuals with outdated or invalid email addresses. Set up automation for detecting hard bounces and rejected emails. Notify stakeholders and identify replacements promptly with automation. Bonus Tip: Leverage Out of Office messages effectively - watch at 00:33 seconds To end this on a quote from Alizee that I truly LOVED: “Don’t be scared to start even if your data is not perfect. As you do more Digital CS, it’s really going to help you clean your contact data.” If you’ve got any further questions, she’s all ears in the comments section! 

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zdsiegert
revathimenon
revathimenonGainsight Community Manager
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
DCS Scoops w/ Alizée Levavasseur: Best practices for contact data management in DCS - P1

Hi everyone,I’m thrilled for this series to kick off again for this year with a member who has been an unstoppable force in our community here, helping community members so much that she even holds a record for it @alizee 🔥Her expertise shines through as she delves into best practices for contact data management in digital segments. Let’s get into the nitty gritty details… What are some of the best practices?  Initial Customer Data Cleanup: Ensure uniformity in capitalization or lowercases Avoid  mixing last names and first names. Leverage email IDs to locate first and last names. Eliminate the use of awkward greetings like 'Hi Last Name' to foster positive customer relations.  Guiding customer journeys:  Those who have SaaS probably has personas already identified into their platform For others or those with intermediaries, use job titles as a preliminary identification method. Adjust strategies based on initial engagements.  👉🏽 Best practices continued in Part 2 here! 👈🏽

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revathimenon
dayn.johnson
dayn.johnsonVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Advanced JO hack to get a conditional evaluate step before an email (like in new dynamic JO)

Advanced JO hack (if you want to use a conditional wait step before a program action) for anyone who hasn’t experimented with it: Running a “no action” API call on the recipient’s email address is a (wonky) way to get that new dynamic JO evaluate step between when the audience is brought in and when the first email is sent. I’ve done some CSV testing (sent to myself), and the logic checks out. Hope this helps anyone who’s waiting for the new dynamic JO to get a bit more mature before adopting it! Some screenshots for illustration ⬇ JO configuration Overview of the program logic ​​​​API configuration (mapping email to the recipient email) External Action - Custom Connector configuration Payload configuration (email)Headers configuration (will need your tenant ID and shared secret)Fields configuration (email string) 

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revathimenon
revathimenon
revathimenonGainsight Community Manager
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
WorkTango’s Digital Journey: Cracking the Code (Part 2)

Hi everyone,As promised, we are back to the 2nd part of this series and things just keep getting more interesting chatting with @dre.heffington, @Laura Rexford & @barbnitke . Let’s dive right in!⭐ICYMI - Part 1 Recently, you also introduced a Digital CSM role in your Digital journey. What inspired the decision? What are some key skills of a Digital CSM that’s important? “ Quantity or managing to scale was the major reason for the decision.” All companies face the issue of limited staffing and resources, so we tend to have to make a pivot to ensure we continue to create exceptional experiences for all multitudes of customers. Effectively managing at scale through digital channels is crucial in achieving this goal. It also works well since it aligns with the kind of experience the customer wants. Customers do the majority of their work digitally - how they purchase, researching on their own, looking for partners who can deliver. That doesn’t change once they become a customer. “It’s

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revathimenon
sarahmiracle
sarahmiracleVIP ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
posted in Share Insights and Best Practices
Create a field history tracking object using Real Time Rules

I wanted to share how we track key field changes on the Company object using Real Time Rules. This is a common use case that is easy to implement once you get comfortable with Real Time Rule functionality!Step 1: Create your History Tracking ObjectWe use a custom object to hold information for our key field changes. We titled it “Company History Tracking.” It has the following fields:Old Value New Value Field Company (GSID lookup) and the other system-generated fieldsStep 2: Create your Real Time RuleReal Time Rules can be used to track field level changes on limited objects (called “Topics”). For this example, we’ll use the “Company” topic to track field level changes from Company in real-time.Step 3: Choose your event (what do you want to track that changes?)After choosing your “Topic” (Company), choose your “Event.” This is the change that occurs that will trigger the rule. There are some OOTB options for you, but if you’re looking to do multiple changes at once, use a “Custom Updat

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jparker
revathimenon
revathimenonGainsight Community Manager
published in Share Insights and Best Practices
DCS Scoops w/ Zack Siegert: Key KPIs to assess overall success of DCS programs

Hi everyone,I’m thrilled to share what I've been cooking up with someone who I remember very vividly as a person who is wholeheartedly always ready to give back to the community, at any opportunity.Remember when he swooped in to support our Beginner Admins in Training with this brilliant tip? I'm talking about @zdsiegert , the Senior Manager of Digital Customer Success at AuditBoard & he's revealing some crucial KPIs for assessing the success of any Digital Success program.   How to get there?Align DCS metrics/KPIs to the KPIs of CS & the Business - it’s a winning formula! View it from a Leading Indicators to Lagging Outcomes - (Example programs at 00:19 )  Engagement data to Adoption/Health Data to Revenue Data - evaluate this over time Perform Cohort Analysis - Perform this on those who have engaged in a particular program & those who haven’t, in order to show impact back to business.To quench our curiosity further, Zack’s shared a fascinating example of how they aced 1:M

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revathimenon

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