The Sales-to-CSM Handoff is your customers' first impression of their Customer Success team. Understand the best ways to use Gainsight to manage this process from your Sales to your Post-Sales team.

1. Sales-to-CSM Handoffs
Chris Beaven, Manager of Customer Success

2. Setting the Stage
"The customer was upset during our kick-off
because we asked them the same questions that
the sales team had asked them before close.”
Knowledge Transfer Process in Customer Success Management
By Allison Pickens | VP Customer Success & Business Operations
April 22, 2015 | Posted in Best Practices, Gainsight on Gainsight
http://www.gainsight.com/2015/04/22/knowledge-transfer-process-in-customer-success-management/

3. Contract
Signature
Seasoned
Customer
AdoptionOnboarding
When Should You Have a Handoff?
C U S T O M E R
S U C C E S S
S A L E S
Closed
Won
ContractProposal

4. Operationalizing the Handoff
Example New Customer Playbook

5. Review Contract, Opportunity & SOW

6. Review Contract, Opportunity & SOW

7. Tag in C360 as “Shared Investors”

8. Tag in C360 as “Shared Investors”

9. Create Premier Deliverables Success Plan

10. Create Premier Deliverable Success Plan

11. Add Customer to InsideView Watchlist

12. Set Up Sponsor Tracking & Core Contacts

13. Managing Your Core Contacts
Set up Sponsor
Tracking for core
contacts
Create a related
list for Core
Contacts

14. Hold Internal Sales-to-CSM Handoff

15. Who Should Attend?
• Account Executive
• Solution Consultant
• For Premier/Premier+
Sales Post-Sales
• Customer Success Manager
• Project Manager
• Solution Architect
• If assigned
• Dedicated Support Rep
• Optional

16. Include a Link to your Handover Template

17. Understanding Your Customer
COMPANY
• Company Overview (who are they? what do they do)?
ORG STRUCTURE
• What does their org structure look like? (current structure? opportunity for expansion)?
KEY CONTACTS
• Decision Maker
• Adoption Champion(s)
• Gainsight Admin
• Personalities? Politics? Key things each key stakeholder is personally looking for/ wants to
get out of product?
• Where are the key stakeholders geographically located – any time zone issues for
meetings?
OTHER STAKEHOLDERS
• Contract Signer (if different than Decision Maker)
• Business Unit Heads (if different than Adoption Champions)
• SFDC Admin (if different than Gainsight Admin)
• Data Experts
• Key pilot users/CSMs/Subject Matter Experts
• Important team leads/managers of CSMs

18. Understanding the Sale
EXPECTATIONS/ OUTLINE FOR SUCCESS
• Why did they buy product? What are the team’s key objectives in using the product?
• Any key features of interest?
• What (tools) were they using before?
• How will the team measure success with your solution?
• What are their expectations around implementation timeline, etc.?
RISKS
• Any potential risks to be aware of?
• Was the sell competitive?
• Did they have any hesitations about signing?
• Would anything cause them to stop working with us?
CONTRACT DETAILS
• Anything unique to contract that we should know about?

19. Use Attributes to Capture Key Info

20. Conduct Customer Strategy Session

21. ©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
We don’t have a consistent way
to track customers’ goals
throughout their lifecycle
We don’t have a scalable way
to show customers how they
use our product/service
We are seeing churn due to
customers not seeing ROI or
business value
We need to give management
visibility into CSM efforts and
impact
We need a way to report on
retention, upsell, and churn
We need a way to forecast
retention, upsell, and churn
We don’t know which accounts
are at risk, and which we can
impact or de-prioritize`
We are seeing churn due to low
adoption
We are seeing churn due to low-
value adoption (e.g. not using
new or advanced features)
We are seeing churn due to
functionality gaps in the product
We are seeing churn due to
product stability or quality issues
We are seeing churn due to
poor customer satisfaction
We are seeing churn due to loss
of our key customer champion
We are seeing churn due to
customer service issues
Our field reps and execs are
sometimes blindsided by
customer risks
Our sales reps and account
managers are sometimes
blindsided by customer risks
during a sales cycle
We don’t have a consistent view
of customer health across our
company
We don’t know what’s driving
risk and success in our
customer base
Need a way to track customer
relationships across complex
customers, multiple products
We have accounts we can’t
touch with manual outreach but
need proactive attention
We are seeing customer
satisfaction issues due to poor
hand-offs from sales to CSM
We spend too much time
preparing for Executive
Business Reviews
CSMs have too many repetitive
interactions with customers
It takes customer-facing team
members too long to prepare
for customer meetings
We need to increase the ratio
of accounts a CSM can handle
to make CSM more cost
effective
We don’t know which
customers to use as references
and in marketing activities
We have no way to track our
sponsors as they go to new
companies in a scalable way
We don’t know which
customers are trending toward
needing more capacity
It’s too manual for us to spot
customer overages
We don’t know how to turn
happy customers into
advocates
OPERATIONALIZE
Customer Lifecycle
MANAGE
Customer Risk
DRIVE
Expansion & Advocacy
ENABLE
Cross-functional
Visibility
DEMONSTRATE
Value
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Conduct Customer Strategy Session

22. Post Notes to Chatter

23. Build Customer Success Plan

24. Build Customer Success Plan

25. Child-like Joy
©2015 Gainsight. All Rights Reserved.
Q & A