Customer Success Playbook

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---
name: customer-success-playbook
description: Design onboarding sequences, build customer health scores, analyze churn risk, and plan account expansion. Use when creating CS playbooks, building health scoring models, diagnosing at-risk accounts, or designing renewal strategies.
tags: [customer-success, churn, onboarding, retention]
---

# Customer Success Playbook

Comprehensive framework for customer lifecycle management — from onboarding through expansion and renewal. Build health scores, predict churn, design intervention playbooks, and maximize net revenue retention.

## Use this skill when

- Designing customer onboarding sequences (30/60/90-day plans)
- Building or refining a customer health scoring model
- Diagnosing at-risk accounts and designing intervention playbooks
- Planning account expansion (upsell/cross-sell motions)
- Structuring Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs)
- Analyzing churn patterns and leading indicators
- Designing renewal processes

## Do not use this skill when

- Handling individual support tickets (use `customer-service-ticket-resolution`)
- Building support knowledge base articles (use `customer-service-knowledge-base`)
- Analyzing support metrics only (use `customer-service-support-metrics`)
- Designing the product itself based on user research (use product skills)

## Instructions

1. **Define lifecycle stages** for your customer base.
2. **Build the health score model** using the composite scoring framework.
3. **Design onboarding playbook** with time-to-first-value (TTFV) milestones.
4. **Set up churn early warning system** with trigger-based interventions.
5. **Create expansion playbook** with signal identification and motion templates.
6. **Structure QBR cadence** using the QBR template.

---

## Customer Lifecycle Stages

| Stage | Duration | Key Objective | Primary Metric |
|-------|----------|--------------|----------------|
| **Onboarding** | Day 0-30 | Achieve first value milestone | Time-to-First-Value (TTFV) |
| **Adoption** | Day 30-90 | Embed into daily workflow | DAU/WAU ratio, feature breadth |
| **Value Realization** | Day 90-180 | Prove ROI to stakeholders | ROI documented, NPS score |
| **Expansion** | Day 180+ | Grow usage and spend | Expansion revenue, seat growth |
| **Renewal** | 90 days before renewal | Secure renewal commitment | Renewal rate, multi-year conversion |
| **At-Risk** | Any time | Prevent churn | Health score recovery, save rate |
| **Churned** | Post-cancellation | Learn and potentially win back | Churn reason analysis, win-back rate |

---

## Customer Health Score Model

Composite score from 6 dimensions, weighted by predictive power:

| Dimension | Weight | Inputs | Score (0-10) | Weighted |
|-----------|--------|--------|-------------|----------|
| **Product Usage** | 25% | DAU/WAU ratio, session duration, core feature adoption | | |
| **Feature Adoption** | 20% | % of purchased features actively used, depth of integration | | |
| **Support Health** | 15% | Ticket volume trend, CSAT on tickets, escalation frequency | | |
| **Engagement** | 15% | Executive sponsor activity, QBR attendance, community participation | | |
| **Billing Health** | 15% | Payment on time, no disputes, contract value trend | | |
| **Sentiment** | 10% | NPS/CSAT score, qualitative feedback, renewal intent signals | | |
| **Total** | 100% | | | **/100** |

**Health Bands:**
| Band | Score | Action | Cadence |
|------|-------|--------|---------|
| Healthy | 75-100 | Expansion focus | Monthly check-in |
| Neutral | 50-74 | Monitor closely | Bi-weekly check-in |
| At-Risk | 25-49 | Intervention playbook | Weekly check-in |
| Critical | 0-24 | Executive escalation | Daily engagement |

---

## Onboarding Playbook (30/60/90)

### Day 0-7: Kickoff & Setup
- [ ] Welcome email with named CSM introduction
- [ ] Kickoff call: confirm goals, success criteria, stakeholders
- [ ] Technical setup: SSO, integrations, data migration
- [ ] Admin training session
- [ ] Define Time-to-First-Value (TTFV) milestone

### Day 7-30: First Value
- [ ] User training (role-based, not feature-based)
- [ ] **TTFV milestone achieved** — user completes core workflow
- [ ] Adoption check: >50% of licensed users active
- [ ] Feedback survey: onboarding experience (1-5 scale)
- [ ] Escalate blockers to product/engineering if TTFV not met

### Day 30-60: Habit Formation
- [ ] Usage review: identify power users and laggards
- [ ] Second training wave for advanced features
- [ ] Introduce community/self-serve resources
- [ ] Champion identification — who is advocating internally?
- [ ] Check: DAU/WAU ratio >30%

### Day 60-90: Value Confirmation
- [ ] First QBR or business review
- [ ] ROI documentation: quantified value delivered
- [ ] Executive sponsor briefing with ROI data
- [ ] Transition from onboarding to steady-state CS
- [ ] NPS survey
- [ ] Onboarding complete: health score baselined

**TTFV Targets by Segment:**
| Segment | TTFV Target | Definition of "First Value" |
|---------|-------------|----------------------------|
| Self-Serve / SMB | <24 hours | User completes core action |
| Mid-Market | <14 days | Team workflow operational |
| Enterprise | <30 days | Department-level adoption |

---

## Churn Risk Framework

### Leading Indicators (Early Warning Signals)

| Signal | Severity | Detection Method |
|--------|----------|-----------------|
| Login frequency drops >30% WoW | High | Product analytics |
| Executive sponsor leaves company | Critical | LinkedIn monitoring, CRM update |
| Support ticket volume spikes 3x | High | Support system alerts |
| NPS score drops below 6 | Medium | Survey results |
| Payment failure / dispute | High | Billing system alerts |
| Feature adoption plateaus at <30% | Medium | Usage analytics |
| No engagement with CSM for 30+ days | Medium | CRM activity tracking |
| Competitor evaluation signals | Critical | Sales intel, community mentions |

### Intervention Playbooks

**Yellow (Score 25-49):**
1. CSM schedules immediate check-in call
2. Usage analysis — identify specific drop-off points
3. Offer re-training or implementation support
4. Create 30-day recovery plan with milestones
5. Escalate to CS Manager if no improvement in 2 weeks

**Red (Score 0-24):**
1. CS Manager or VP CS takes over account
2. Executive-to-executive outreach within 48 hours
3. Offer concessions if appropriate (contract flexibility, free services)
4. Create weekly recovery cadence
5. If save fails, conduct structured exit interview for churn analysis

---

## Expansion Planning

### Expansion Signals

| Signal | Motion | Timing |
|--------|--------|--------|
| Usage hitting >80% of limits | **Upsell** (higher tier) | When 70% capacity reached |
| Team requesting adjacent features | **Cross-sell** (add-on module) | During QBR or feature request |
| New department asking for access | **Land & expand** (new business unit) | When internal referral surfaces |
| Multi-year renewal discussion | **Upsell** (commitment discount) | 90 days before renewal |
| Champion promoted to exec role | **Strategic expand** | Within 30 days of role change |

### QBR Structure

```markdown
## Quarterly Business Review — [Customer] — Q[X] [Year]

### 1. Value Delivered (15 min)
- Key metrics achieved vs. goals
- ROI quantification
- Success stories / wins

### 2. Product Roadmap Alignment (10 min)
- Upcoming features relevant to customer
- Customer feedback incorporated into roadmap

### 3. Usage & Adoption Review (10 min)
- Health score trend
- Adoption metrics by team/department
- Areas for improvement

### 4. Strategic Planning (15 min)
- Customer's upcoming priorities
- How we can support their goals
- Expansion opportunities

### 5. Action Items (10 min)
- Owner + deadline for each item
- Next QBR date
```

---

## Output Template: At-Risk Account Brief

```markdown
# At-Risk Account Brief — [Customer Name]

**Health Score:** [X]/100 (Band: [Critical/At-Risk])
**ARR:** $[X] | **Contract Renewal:** [Date]
**CSM:** [Name] | **Escalation Owner:** [Name]

## Risk Summary
- **Primary risk factor:** [description]
- **Duration of decline:** [X weeks/months]
- **Churn probability:** [High/Medium] based on [data points]

## Timeline of Decline
| Date | Event | Health Impact |
|------|-------|--------------|
| | | |

## Intervention Plan
| Action | Owner | Deadline | Status |
|--------|-------|----------|--------|
| | | | |

## Save / Loss Outcome
- **Outcome:** [Saved / Churned / Downgraded]
- **Root cause:** [...]
- **Lesson learned:** [...]
```

---

## Common Mistakes

- **Reactive CS** — only engaging when churn signals appear instead of proactive lifecycle management
- **Vanity health scores** — scores that feel good but don't actually predict churn (validate with historical data)
- **Ignoring TTFV** — if customers don't get value in the first 30 days, they rarely recover
- **One-size-fits-all onboarding** — SMB, mid-market, and enterprise need fundamentally different approaches
- **CSM as support escalation** — CS should be strategic, not a secondary support channel
- **No executive sponsor relationship** — if your champion leaves and you have no exec relationship, the account is at risk

---

## Additional Resources

- Related skills: `revenue-operations` (NRR alignment), `analytics-tracking` (instrumentation for health scoring)
- Gainsight — CS operations best practices
- Lincoln Murphy — customer success methodology

<!-- Source: .faos/custom/skills/business/customer-success-playbook/SKILL.md -->