Customer Success

Chapter 8

Law 4: Relentlessly Monitor and Manage Customer Health

Author: Dan Steinman, Chief Customer Officer, Gainsight

Relevance

Executive Summary

Customer health is at the heart of customer success. It not only informs but also drives appropriate action when used properly. It is to customer success what the sales pipeline is to a sales VP—the predictor of future customer behavior. Good customer health equates to a high chance of renewal and upsell. Poor customer health means a lower chance of renewal and upsell. So just as sales VPs manage through their pipeline, customer success teams must manage through customer health.

Given that retention is life or death for a recurring revenue business, monitoring and managing customer health is a core activity for customer success teams: it must be done and done well—and relentlessly.

The title of this law is one of those phrases with which you can play an old word game—read it aloud four times, emphasizing a different word or phrase each time:

• Relentlessly monitor and manage customer health.
• Relentlessly monitor and manage customer health.
• Relentlessly monitor and manage customer health.
• Relentlessly monitor and manage customer health.

Each and every idea in this phrase is equally valuable if you are to execute on an aggressive customer success vision. Let's set the stage first and then come back to analyze each piece independently. ...