We are about to roll out Success Plans to our CS org and there's understandably some reservations from our CSMs because they're being asked to do more work without much reward.
Does anyone have any real-life stories from their CS teams where they realized some tangible ROI/reward from having to do success plans with their customers?
Most of our CSMs don't care for Success Plans.
I totally get that, Nick.
Is there perhaps a Gainsight employee who could weigh in here as well?
+2Hi Nick, what are some things that your CSMs don't like about Success Plans? Also, how many customers on average do your CSMs manage in their porfolio?
+2Hi Jen,
As with most record keeping and organization systems, on the front end there can be little perceived benefit by the person doing data entry, but the real benefits come with increased organization, collaboration, reporting and achieving outcomes.
Success plans help teams stay organized and aligned around key objectives for that client's success in a way that allows different teams and even the customer themselves understand the progress toward the goals. It helps ensure that things don't fall through the cracks and gives managers the tools to understand what has been identified as driving success for each customer and which success efforts are on track and which might be falling behind.
Additionally, Success Plans provide insights into how effective that success plan was on impacting revenue events like renewal or upsell.
Here's a webinar on how our CSMs use Success Plans: https://vimeo.com/160185494
And some info on how Success Plans fit into our Prescriptive Success Planning Element: https://www.gainsight.com/elements/success-planning/
Hope this helps.
As with most record keeping and organization systems, on the front end there can be little perceived benefit by the person doing data entry, but the real benefits come with increased organization, collaboration, reporting and achieving outcomes.
Success plans help teams stay organized and aligned around key objectives for that client's success in a way that allows different teams and even the customer themselves understand the progress toward the goals. It helps ensure that things don't fall through the cracks and gives managers the tools to understand what has been identified as driving success for each customer and which success efforts are on track and which might be falling behind.
Additionally, Success Plans provide insights into how effective that success plan was on impacting revenue events like renewal or upsell.
Here's a webinar on how our CSMs use Success Plans: https://vimeo.com/160185494
And some info on how Success Plans fit into our Prescriptive Success Planning Element: https://www.gainsight.com/elements/success-planning/
Hope this helps.
VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
Hey Dan,
Most our CSMs have north of 150 accounts, some quite a bit more.
Problems they cite are:
1) Manual creation and closing of SP
2) Want to be able to close them automatically after expiration (even though we have SPs for every customer, we have hierarchy issues which don't make them necessary for every customer.)
3) Want to be able to automatically set SPs to 'Active'
Most our CSMs have north of 150 accounts, some quite a bit more.
Problems they cite are:
1) Manual creation and closing of SP
2) Want to be able to close them automatically after expiration (even though we have SPs for every customer, we have hierarchy issues which don't make them necessary for every customer.)
3) Want to be able to automatically set SPs to 'Active'
+2Hi Nick, I can understand where they are coming from. 150+ accounts is a LOT to manage!
One suggestion that might help is that you can create success plans using rules. Here's How: https://support.gainsight.com/Product_Documentation/CTAS_Tasks_and_Playbooks/Admin_Configuration/13_...
You can even set the status to active within the rule.
And if you are able to define your hierarchy rules using data, then you could only create the success plans for customers that would require them.
Your CSMs would still have to manually execute on the success plan actions and close them out, but the rules based approach can help get templatized success plans activated with little CSM effort.
Hope this helps!
One suggestion that might help is that you can create success plans using rules. Here's How: https://support.gainsight.com/Product_Documentation/CTAS_Tasks_and_Playbooks/Admin_Configuration/13_...
You can even set the status to active within the rule.
And if you are able to define your hierarchy rules using data, then you could only create the success plans for customers that would require them.
Your CSMs would still have to manually execute on the success plan actions and close them out, but the rules based approach can help get templatized success plans activated with little CSM effort.
Hope this helps!
VP of Customer Success at Forcepoint
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