Deep-dive into how Gainsight planned and built the SMB model into their CSM team. See how we approached, planned and implemented the right strategy and processes to engage with SMB tier customers.

1. Gainsight on Gainsight:
How to Model and Build an SMB Team
12 | 2 | 2015

2. Presenter Introductions
Sonam Dabholkar
Manager, SMB Customer
Success Team
Chelsea Taylor
CSM

3. When deciding to segment your customers…
• What’s the ARR that each of your CSMs should manage?
• Do you sell to companies of different sizes and stages of maturity?
• How do you handle customers with complex implementations?
• How do you manage customers that have new use cases for your
product?
• How do you manage customers with huge up-sell potential?
• How do you manage high-profile customers (huge logos)?
• What do your customers need from you in order to be successful?
• Do your CSMs have different levels of engagement with each of their
customers?
• Which ones are they higher touch with, and which are they lower touch with?
Are there any patterns?

4. When deciding to create an SMB CSM team…
• How will your CSMs engage with your SMB customers? How will this
differ from how they engage with customers in other segments?
• Ideas: 1:many webinars or workshops, best practices content, attending
events, engaging with the community of your customers
• How will the SMB experience be unique / different from the other
segments’ experiences? How will this be positioned in the sales cycle?
• Is it possible for your customers to be successful with your product
through a lower touch engagement?
• Is it possible for your customers to be 100% self sufficient (post-
implementation)?
• What are the metrics you’ll track to ensure the success of your SMB
customers?

5. How we segmented our customers
We carved out 3 segments based on CSM/Support plan purchased and
whether or not a customer represents a strategic relationship.
Strategic Enterprise / Mid-market SMB
Overview
Present a major upsell opportunity or
help us open up a market for a new
use case for Gainsight; likely
purchased Premier+ CSM/Support
Plan
Customers that purchased
Premier CSM/Support plan, and
are not strategic
Customers that purchased
Standard CSM/Support plan, and
are not strategic
Customer
Needs
• Need guidance in shaping the
evolution of their CS
organizations
• Want us to support the change
management effort
• Already experts in growing
their team, but need guidance
in executing their CS strategy
within Gainsight
• Starting to build their CS teams
and want to digest all the
information they can get on
best practices
Value to
Gainsight
• Highest potential ARR customers
• Huge expansion potential
• High retention rates
• Strong brand value
• Significant ARR & high
retention rates
• Fast sales cycle
• High advocacy rate
• Can be self-sufficient, with the
right lower touch support
• Forces us to innovate internally
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

6. Goal for segmentation
We aim to achieve net CSM fully-loaded cost / revenue = 15% or less
Factors that affect this number:
• ARR / account
• # of accounts / CSM
• Cost / CSM, including overhead
• Pricing for post-sales, i.e. charging for CSM/Support plan
For the SMB Customer Success team to achieve the 15% metric, we:
• Identify upsell opportunities, to achieve higher ARR / account
• Increase the # of accounts / CSM, by leveraging a lower touch engagement model,
using 1:many programs, and introducing specialization among team members
• Lower the Cost / CSM by hiring junior team members
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

7. Building a pooled CSM team to manage SMBs
Questions to consider:
• How do you want to structure your pooled team? What kinds of backgrounds do you
want to hire for the team, and what will their roles be?
• How do you want to engage and communicate with pooled customers? (send an
email to a shared address? file a Zendesk ticket? post to an online forum?)
• How do you resolve CTAs from pooled customers? Who on the team has ownership
of each CTA and how do they get alerted to the CTA?
• What 1:many programs can you develop to proactively engage with your SMB
customers in a scalable way?
• How do you enable your SMB customers to become more self-sufficient?

8. Our pooled team structure
Specialist 1 Specialist 2 Specialist 3
Lifecycle events Strategy session webinars and
office hours (2x/month)
Train the Trainer webinars
for rollout 1 and 2
(2x/month)
1:many email
communications via CoPilot
Risks Product Risk
Bugs Risk
Support Risk
Readiness Risk
Opt Out Risk
Implem. Risk
Company Risk
Sentiment Risk
Habits Risk
GS Features Cockpit
Report Builder
Dashboards / Views
C360 incl Scorecard,
Success Plans,
Relationships
NPS
Surveys
CoPilot
GS Best Practice
Process Areas
Risk Management
Customer Insights
Expansion / Advocacy
Management
Lifecycle Management
Operations Management
All customers that purchase the Standard CSM/Support plan are managed by our
Team of CS Specialists
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

9. Hiring for the pooled team
• Who should you hire to manage your SMB accounts?
• What is the ideal background and qualifications/skills required for this role?
SAMPLE JOB POSTING: Gainsight Customer Success Associate

10. Operationalizing the pooled model in Gainsight
• We use a shared mailbox to manage customer success-related questions /
requests from customers
• Soon we will be moving to Zendesk to manage customer requests; longer term,
we are exploring how to use Gainsight for this use case
• We use Cockpit as an “inbox” for CTAs
• CTAs get assigned to an alias (“Gainsight Customer Success”) and our
Specialists check Cockpit daily and re-assign CTAs to themselves based on their
area of ownership
• Customers are able to log support tickets by emailing
support@gainsight.com, for technical help, questions, or problems
• Customers are also able to post product enhancement requests, questions,
and ideas to the Gainsight Community (community.gainsight.com)
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

11. The pooled team’s Cockpit “Inbox”
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

12. Designing a lifecycle strategy for SMBs
• Will your SMB customers follow the same lifecycle stages as your other
customers?
• What kinds of lifecycle touches will you have for your SMB customers and how
will they differ from your other segments?
• What types of
1:many
communication
(emails, blogs,
webinars) will be
most effective with
your SMB
customers?

13. Sample lifecycle CTAs for SMBs
CTA for new customer Strategy Session Webinar:
CTA for “Train the Trainer” Webinar for Rollout 2:
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

14. Empowering SMBs to be self sufficient
What 1:many forums and outreaches can you employ to
deliver useful content to your SMB customers in a scalable way?
Gainsight Go / Support Website 1:many Office Hours for Admins
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

15. ©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
Gainsight’s Risk Management Process
Support Company Sentiment Habits
Exec Owner Director of Support VP Customer Success VP Customer Success VP Customer Success
Definition
What volume of open
support tickets does the
customer have, and
what’s their priority and
duration?
Is there a change at the
company that will affect the
customer’s use of
Gainsight?
Is the customer generally
happy? (e.g. NPS)
Is the customer using
our product in a
significant, sticky way?
Readiness Implementation Product Bugs
Exec Owner VP Sales VP Services VP Product VP Engineering
Definition
Was the customer
ready to purchase
Gainsight?
Is the implementation
project plan on track?
Does the customer
require a product
enhancement?
Does the customer have a
high volume / priority of
bugs open?
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

16. Designing risk management playbooks for SMBs
Company Risk Playbook: Sentiment Risk Playbook:
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

17. Gainsight’s Internal Escalation Process
Team Leader
Rest of Team
+ Allison
Other
departments
• Flagged CTAs, when you @-mention the team leader
• 1:1s: Can cover all CTAs
• Friday CSM team meeting: Flagged CTAs for Habits, Sentiment, Company, Renewal,
Opt-out
• Monday Leadership meeting: Flagged CTAs (Red Scorecards) for all categories, for
customers > ARR threshold
• Other departments to review all Flagged CTAs in real time + CSM should @-mention the
right person on your Chatter update
• Manual Product risk: fill out "product feature request" form to provide info to product team
Allison
• When team leader asks Allison for help with a Flagged CTA, especially when:
• Renewal is at risk (within 90 days) or pending Opt-Out
• Yellow/Red Habits (need better strategy for using Gainsight)
• Loss of exec sponsor (type of Company Risk)
Who can
provide help… …in which situations
Services /
Support
• Wednesday Support Risk meeting: Flagged Support Risk CTAs
• Friday Launch Risk meeting: Flagged Launch Risk CTAs
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

18. Team metrics to drive success
What are the metrics you’ll track to ensure the success of your
SMB customers and your team members?
• Habits/Adoption target:
• Measures if the customer is using your product in a healthy, sticky way
• What will your habits target look like for SMB customers?
• How will the target differ from your other customer segments?
• Retention target:
• What will your target retention rate be for your SMB segment?
• How will the target differ from your other customer segments?
• Other team targets could include:
• # of advocacy events that customers complete (sales reference calls, case
studies, speaking events)

19. Dashboards for SMB CSM team management
What dashboards and reports
should you create to manage your
SMB team members and your SMB
customers?
GAINSIGHT EXAMPLE

20. Questions?