For Black History Month, we’d like to take the opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of our friends in the Customer Success (CS) space, who are making waves and establishing themselves as powerful leaders and change agents. Without further ado, here are four Black voices in CS who you should know.

1. Jasmine Reynolds, Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Appfire Flow

Jasmine Reynolds began her career in pharmaceutical and medical device sales, where she spent nearly a decade honing her skills in relationship management and strategic growth. Over the past 20 years, she has dedicated herself to the world of Customer Success and Customer Experience. Throughout her journey, Reynolds has prioritized building meaningful connections, driving value for her customers, and approaching every opportunity with intention. She takes pride in the path she has carved out for herself—one built on hard work, continuous learning, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. Reynolds advises,  “The only person who will truly take your career seriously is you. What you invest in your career is exactly what you’ll get out of it.”

Currently, Reynolds serves as an Enterprise Customer Success Manager at Appfire Flow, where she leverages data-driven insights to help customers achieve their goals and unlock the full potential of their investments. Her work is fueled by a deep passion for superior customer experiences and creating scalable strategies that drive results.

“As a Black female professional, Black History Month holds profound significance for me,” says Reynolds. “It is a time to honor the legacy, resilience, and contributions of the African-American community, a legacy that has paved the way for professionals like me to thrive. This month is not just about reflection; it’s about celebration. It’s about recognizing the brilliance, strength, and innovation that our community brings to every field. I take immense pride in being part of this legacy and hope to inspire others to pursue their dreams unapologetically.”

Advice for Younger Professionals

When asked what advice she has for people still establishing their careers, Reynolds shared the following:

“Own your journey. Invest in your growth, seek out mentors, and never wait for opportunities to be handed to you. Be intentional, be bold, and remember that every challenge is a chance to build your strength. The business world will recognize your value when you do.”

2. Samuel J. Cummings III, CEO at Dataplant and Director of Education at Gen AI Works

Samuel J. Cummings III has built his career at the intersection of AI, Customer Success, and education. His journey took off as a data scientist at Gainsight, where he became fascinated by predictive modeling and its capacity to transform Customer Success strategies. Driven by a passion for making data actionable, Cummings advanced through the ranks in Customer Success, working diligently to bridge the gap between raw analytics and meaningful human experiences. From his early days at Gainsight to his achievements on LinkedIn’s Customer Success team—where he was honored with the Inspire Award—his mission has been to empower professionals with the tools and knowledge necessary to leverage AI effectively.

Currently, Cummings serves as the CEO of Dataplant and the Director of Education at Gen AI Works, focusing on democratizing AI education and enabling businesses to utilize data ethically and strategically. At Gen AI Works, he leads initiatives that help millions of professionals worldwide understand and apply AI in their industries, developing resources, courses, and strategic programs that enhance accessibility to this transformative technology.

Additionally, he is the Co-Founder of Dataplant, an Agentic AI platform that employs predictive analytics to aid businesses in proactively driving revenue through hyper-personalized customer interactions. The mission of Dataplant is to bridge the gap between data and human connection, ensuring that businesses can lead with empathy in an increasingly digital world.

“For me, Black History Month is a time of reflection and celebration—a reminder that triumph over adversity and dedication to innovation, leadership, and resilience are woven into the history of this country,” says Cummings. “I stand on the shoulders of pioneers like Katherine Johnson, Dr. Clarence ‘Skip’ Ellis, and countless others whose contributions to data science and AI often went unrecognized. As a Black professional in AI and Customer Success who has had to overcome my own odds to rise to leadership roles multiple times, I see it as my responsibility to never forget that my floor is the ceiling for those who come after me. Thus, in tech and beyond, those of us who have achieved any success must continue to rise further, while opening doors for others, ensuring that the next generation has the tools, mentorship, and opportunities they deserve.”

Advice for Younger Professionals

When asked what advice he has for younger professionals, Cummings shared the following:

“Don’t let others’ words define you. The best opportunities don’t come from waiting your turn—they come from showing up prepared, sharing your insights, and taking the initiative. In tech, and especially in AI, the landscape is constantly evolving. Stay curious, keep learning, and don’t be afraid to create your own table when fighting for a seat at one is proven futile.”

3. Mariah Bayne, Founder of Authentically You Coaching and Host of Growing the Middle

Mariah Bayne began her career in traditional insurance before making a bold transition into the tech industry, ultimately rising to the role of Director of Customer Success and Operations, where she led teams responsible for over $500 million in revenue. Hailing from a family with a strong tradition in law enforcement, stepping into the tech field was an entirely new path for her. Lacking a built-in network or industry connections, Bayne had to learn everything from the ground up. While there were numerous learning curves along the way, each experience helped shape her approach to growth and leadership. Having excelled in her career, she is now committed to passing on her knowledge to help others navigate their own transitions with confidence and clarity.

As the Founder of Authentically You Coaching and the host of the podcast Growing the Middle, Bayne shines a spotlight on individuals making an impact in roles that are essential to a company’s success, particularly during the often-overlooked middle stages of life and career. Through real stories and honest conversations, she aims to redefine what growth and success truly look like.

In addition, Bayne serves as the Senior Director of Placement at re:WORK TRAINING, where she collaborates with companies to source and place BDRs, SDRs, and CSMs into their organizations at no cost. In exchange, she asks that partner companies invest in candidates by mentoring, coaching, or leading workshops (with all materials provided) that equip them with the skills needed to succeed. This model not only provides companies with access to untapped talent, but also fosters a culture of giving back and professional development.

“I believe coaching shouldn’t start at the executive level—it should be accessible long before that,” says Bayne. “At Authentically You Coaching, I focus on affordable coaching services for professionals in the middle of their careers—those looking to grow, transition, or gain clarity on their next steps. Through skill articulation, goal alignment, and actionable career strategies, I help clients bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be.”

Bayne continues, “By stepping out of my comfort zone and embracing the lessons of often being the ‘first’ and ‘only,’ I’m committed to reaching out and sharing what I’ve learned. My goal is to ensure that opportunities for others are endless—but more importantly, that their journey is supported. This is my commitment to honoring Black history every day—by creating pathways for others, fostering inclusive growth, and ensuring that our collective legacy shapes the future.”

Advice for Younger Professionals

When asked what advice she has for younger professionals, Bayne shared the following:

“Success isn’t about chasing titles or prestige. It’s about aligning your skills, values, and passions to create a career that truly fulfills you.”

She also shared, “I spent a lot of time learning to use my voice and understanding the power of leaning into my authenticity. The moment I stopped trying to fit in and started owning my unique strengths, everything changed.”

4. Davielle Shorter, Customer Marketing Manager at Gainsight

Davielle Shorter began her professional journey in high school, participating in the school’s Business Academy Program during her senior year, which featured a business-based curriculum and a half-day offsite business internship. This program jumpstarted her career by providing job experience even before she started college. Fast forward to 11 years later, she worked for the government at a scientific research laboratory as an Executive Assistant, while witnessing the rapid growth of Silicon Valley and the emergence of tech companies as a Bay Area native. After realizing that in her 20s she had attended more retirement parties than weddings, Shorter decided it was time for a change of environment. Intrigued by the perks and benefits of working in tech, she initially thought that she needed to be a computer scientist or programmer to land a job.

One day, she searched for “best places to work in tech” and came across a list of companies. While clicking through various websites, she stumbled upon Gainsight and was captivated by the intriguing job title of “Office Vibes Manager.” Recognizing that this was the opportunity she had been looking for, she applied and was brought in for an interview eight years ago.

As the Office Vibes Manager and Executive Assistant to the Chief Customer Officer at the time, Shorter worked in the Redwood City office—where nearly every Gainsight employee started their journey. She had the unique privilege of greeting every new Gainster on their first day, allowing her to form numerous meaningful connections over the years. Her initial role exposed her to many areas of the business and prompted her to explore how she could grow within the company and advance her tech career.

After four years, she transitioned to the Customer Success Operations team and eventually assumed her current position as Customer Marketing Manager, where she oversees the advocacy program. In this role, Shorter leverages both her operational knowledge and her passion for relationship-building, which she cultivated during her early days at Gainsight. Every step of her journey, from greeting new hires to amplifying customer voices, has been guided by a commitment to fostering genuine connections and driving meaningful change within the company.

Shorter says, “I learned about Black history from my family because schools didn’t really teach it. Realizing this made me see the bigger picture that there’s a lack of representation and inclusivity in so many areas of life. It’s what drove me to push for more Black voices and inclusion in tech, where it’s really needed and is why I am proud to be one of the founding members of the BIPOC TRG at Gainsight.”

Advice for Younger Professionals

When asked what advice she has for younger professionals, Shorter shared the following:

“What I would tell young professionals is that your identity is an asset, not a barrier. Embrace it, and let it guide you in creating pathways not just for your success, but for all who will follow.”

Gainsight’s Commitment to DEI

Given the evolving landscape, now seems like a good time to re-establish that at Gainsight, our commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion remains unwavering and intentional. DEI is something we’re committed to rooting in action rather than just words. We will continue to celebrate cultural events, support initiatives, and engage our Teammate Resource Groups (TRGs). Inclusion is, and will continue to be, fundamental to our mission and values—full stop.

Learn more about our BIPOC Teammate Resource Group and other TRGs here.

The post Celebrating Black Voices in Customer Success With Gainsight appeared first on Gainsight Software.

I disagree.

Take this question I asked a customer in a CS kickoff call: “Can you walk me through the business outcomes you hope to achieve with our product?”

Or worse: “Just confirming, did you buy the standard or … the premium package?”

I wasn’t incompetent. It’s just that our Sales-to-CS handoff was broken.

CS wasn’t looped into deals before closed, CRM notes were threadbare, and there was no Gainsight. My entire prep was the 25 minutes I got with the rep the day of the kickoff.

Granted, this was a nightmare of a handoff that we eventually fixed. But, it’s not that uncommon for CS teams to be unhappy with handoffs.

A bad handoff leads to a bad CS kickoff, where the customer quickly realizes that promises made won’t be kept. The post-sales journey starts in a hole, and it takes exceptional CS execution to dig out–let alone build a happy, long-term customer.

In this post, I’ll walk through three things you can do right now to fix your handoff process.

Loop CSMs Into Deals Before Close

Great sales reps don’t just close deals; they set customers up for long-term success. One of the best ways to do that? Involve CS early.

You don’t need a full one-on-one meeting before a contract is signed.

Even a simple ten-minute introduction on a sales call helps establish trust and sets expectations.

Better yet, have Customer Success Managers (CSMs) shadow multiple calls.

It’s not just about giving the customer good vibes—it forces pre- and post-sales teams to align on pain points, goals, and stakeholders before the deal closes. That alignment makes all the difference in the handoff and post-sales customer experience.

Gainsight Timeline: The Ultimate Alignment Tool

Gainsight Timeline is a structured activity-tracking tool that allows reps and CSMs to log and view customer interactions in one place.

Pair it with the Gainsight Salesforce Connector, and now you’re pulling in CRM notes, emails, and sales activities automatically. That means when the deal closes, CSMs have a full customer picture, not just scraps of information.

And the benefits don’t stop at the initial handoff. Timeline keeps knowledge intact even through internal CS transitions.

HeySam: The Call Intelligence Platform

But what if you weren’t looped into the deal at all? And the CRM notes pulled into Timeline are, well … useless?

Luckily, HeySam, the AI Sales Copilot solves that problem—with the power of AI.

Sam transcribes sales calls and extracts key insights—customer pain points, desired outcomes, timeline, and stakeholders—just like a rep would. But unlike a rep who may forget to document this knowledge, Sam never forgets.

Instead of chasing sales reps for information, CSMs can simply ask Sam to fill in their handoff spreadsheet. In seconds, they’ll have everything they need, without the usual back-and-forth.

Sam doesn’t replace collaboration with the pre-sales team. It augments it. With a base layer of knowledge already in place, CS teams can focus on higher-level conversations that drive customer success.

Conclusion

Getting the Sales-to-CS handoff right is one of the highest-leverage ways to improve the customer experience. I hope these three tactics will help you level up your handoff game.

Learn More

Ready to explore more content? Check out, CSQLs: Creating an Integrated Journey from Sales to CS and Back Again.

The post Aligning Your Sales-to-CS Handoff in the Age of AI appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Teams are managing more customers, with higher expectations (internally or externally), and tighter budgets—yet no extra hands to keep up. Meanwhile, the pressure to be faster, stay ahead of risks, and prove value keeps climbing.

The key to making smarter, more proactive decisions? Immediate access to a 360° view of customer data. Unfortunately, that data isn’t always readily available to the people who need it most.

For frontline CSMs who use Gainsight daily, the insights are at their fingertips. But for other cross-functional teams and executives—and even some CS team members who don’t log in regularly— accessing the data can require extra steps that slow them down, create inefficiencies, and open the door to churn.

That’s where a solution like Gainsight’s AI Agent for Slack can make a huge impact.

Changing How and Where Teams Work

Post-sales teams live in Gainsight, but they work in Slack, too. It’s where conversations happen, decisions are made, and updates keep teams on the same page.

But too often, accessing customer data takes longer than it should. Teams waste time switching tools, pulling reports, or waiting on others to surface the insights they need.

Gainsight’s Slack agent knocks down these roadblocks and ensures the right people—whether they log into Gainsight every day or not—can access the information and best practices they need to power their workflows.

Here’s what that looks like in action:

• Instant access to customer insights: No more switching tabs or diving into dashboards. Just ask Gainsight in Slack for ARR, renewals, risks, adoption trends, and more.
• Better team collaboration: Drop updates into shared Slack channels so CS, Sales, Product, and leadership teams can stay on the same page.
• Proactive decision-making: Spot risks and opportunities before they become last-minute scrambles.
  Effortless follow-ups: Draft emails, meeting recaps, and EBR content in seconds.
• Best practices, on demand: Get strategies for onboarding, renewals, and customer growth. Plus, ask about Gainsight features and functionality to power your workflows.

Whether it’s a CSM prepping for a renewal call, a Sales rep needing account context, someone on the Product team member checking adoption trends, or a CEO looking to understand the health of a key customer, Gainsight’s AI Agent delivers the right insights to them, when and where they need them.

“This is a major milestone for Gainsight, bringing AI-powered customer insights directly into workstreams,” said Chuck Ganapathi, President and COO at Gainsight. “Now, customer insights are more accessible than ever, enabling faster, more informed decision-making. By transforming how teams access and engage with customer insights, we ensure alignment across all functions, empowering them to drive better customer outcomes.”

AI Is Reshaping How Companies Leverage Customer Insights

For years, customer-facing teams have relied on manual processes, gut instinct, and scattered data to manage customer relationships and drive retention. But as the role has become more strategic, technical, and revenue-driven, these old ways aren’t cutting it.

That’s why AI adoption is taking off. According to Gainsight’s 2024 CS Index Report, 52% of CS teams are already using AI to more accurately predict churn, automate time-consuming tasks, streamline workflows that disrupt collaboration, and uncover trends in customer behavior to drive more personalized, high-impact engagement.

The best part? We’re just getting started.

With teams stretched to the max, AI is stepping up—freeing up time, surfacing insights faster, and reducing the need for constant context switching between multiple tools.

And that’s what we have to remember: AI isn’t here to replace teams. It’s here to empower them with the data, insights, and efficiencies they need to succeed, which is exactly what our new AI Agent in Slack does.

Ready to see it in action? Check out Gainsight for Slack here.

The post Gainsight’s AI Agent in Slack: Bringing Customer Insights to the Conversations That Matter appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Ah, the renewal stage. Like a perfectly crafted rom-com, renewals are all about keeping the spark alive and showing your customers that you’re their true love. With Gainsight’s Digital Customer Success (DCS) offerings, you can scale your charm, deliver delightful value, and secure those renewals without breaking a sweat (or an SLA). Let’s dive into some heartwarming strategies that will help your customers swipe right every time.

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1. Create Segment-Specific Digital Renewal Journeys

Not all relationships are the same, so why treat them like they are? Tailoring automated renewal paths for account segments based on size, tier, and value ensures the chemistry is just right.

• For Enterprise Customers: Start the courtship early! Engage them 8–9 months before renewal with touchpoints that add a personal flair.
• For SMB Customers: Keep it sweet and simple with a smoothed-out 3-month process.

Think of it as matchmaking at scale: Renewals require delivering the right message at the right time for the right audience.

2. Implement Predictive Renewal Scoring

What’s better than a crystal ball? Data, of course!

With today’s advances in AI for CS, you can use machine learning to predict renewal likelihood based on usage and engagement trends.

With a “renewal likelihood score” in your back pocket, you can determine which accounts need a little extra love and which ones can glide through with digital touchpoints.

And let’s not forget about Staircase AI, which will further increase renewal accuracy by providing real-time insights on customer health, flagging churn risks and expansion opportunities well ahead of renewal time.

It’s like being a psychic, but cooler (and much more accurate).

3. Build Automated Milestone Celebration Campaigns

Everyone loves a little confetti! Celebrate your customers’ achievements every step of the way—not just at renewal time.

Send an “OMG, you did it!” email when they hit a significant usage milestone or achieve a vital business goal. These little customer journey moments of truth mean more than you might think—they reinforce why you’re their favorite partner in this journey. And it ensures they don’t feel like their achievements are going unnoticed. Think of it as leaving your customers Valentine’s cards all year long.

4. Design a Digital Executive Sponsorship Program

Busy executives can be like elusive crushes. Keep them engaged with quarterly video QBRs/EBRs, ROI dashboards, and industry benchmarks.

It’s like sending them a highlight reel of all the amazing ways you’ve made their lives easier—because who doesn’t love a good highlight reel?

5. Deploy In-Product Renewal Engagement

Don’t rely solely on email—it’s like sending a love letter via carrier pigeon in today’s digital world. Use in-app notifications and banners instead.

Add countdown timers, usage summaries, and one-click renewal links. It’s renewal on autopilot, with a lovely touch of convenience.

6. Create a Year-Round Customer Marketing Automation Program

Keep the love alive by sharing your thoughts all year long! Send out success stories, product updates, and industry insights.

You’re not just a partner; you’re the friend who knows just when to text them the perfect meme—or business advice, in this case.

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7. Implement Digital Stakeholder Mapping Tools

Stakeholders come and go—don’t let their departures derail your renewal plans. Use tools to monitor changes, track LinkedIn, and get alerts about key contacts. For example, Gainsight has a feature called People Maps, which provides a graphical view of the hierarchy in an organization. Using this hierarchy, you can visualize the reporting structure, which in turn helps you contact the right people. As stakeholders change, using company intel and People Maps helps you keep track of who reports to whom, so you always know the decision-makers.

Pro tip: Always know who controls the purse strings. Appealing to key stakeholders with buying power is essential to curbing the risk of surprise churn.

8. Build Self-Service Renewal Options

For smaller accounts or DIY enthusiasts, offer self-service renewal paths via a customer portal.

You’ll get bonus points for adding incentives, like a discount for early renewals. After all, who doesn’t love a good deal—especially when it feels like finding a secret stash of chocolate?

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9. Design Digital QBR Alternatives

Busy customers can feel overwhelmed. Instead of lengthy meetings, create automated emails or videos in place of QBRs filled with personalized usage data, ROI calculations, and benchmarks.

Think of it as their renewal cheat sheet—short, sweet, and too good to ignore.

10. Implement Usage-Based Renewal Recommendations

Leverage data to recommend the perfect renewal package. Whether it’s optimizing licenses or upsizing tiers, make them feel like Goldilocks: “This one’s just right.”

Renewals don’t have to feel like a second date where no one knows who’s picking up the check. With Gainsight’s Digital CS solutions, you can make the process efficient, engaging, and surprisingly delightful. Your customers will stay for the value—and the smiles are just a loving bonus!

Learn more about Customer Success at Gainsight to ensure all your renewals are love-at-first-sight moments.

The post Finding the Perfect Match: Love at First Renewal with Digital Customer Success appeared first on Gainsight Software.

That’s exactly why we acquired Staircase AI. Too many companies jump into a CSP before they’re ready, struggling under complex workflows when they just need to get a handle on customer risk. The reality? Risk doesn’t wait. By the time companies realize they need a CSP, it’s too late—customers have already started walking out the door.

Building an AI-powered customer intelligence platform isn’t something you hack together overnight. It took the Staircase AI team three and a half years to perfect, with a vision that never wavered: deliver powerful customer insights without burdening teams with extra work. And beyond the tech itself, Staircase AI stands apart because of the core product principles that make it a must-have in today’s SaaS world.

The first time Revenue and CS leaders see it in action, the reaction is almost always:

Wait… HOW did it know that?
OMG, I need this.
I can’t imagine running my team without it.

So what makes it so jaw-droppingly essential? In this blog, we’ll take you behind the scenes of how co-founders Ori Entis and Lior Harel built Staircase AI and the few core principles they had in mind:

Zero User Input: AI That Works for You

From day one, Staircase AI was built on a non-negotiable principle: zero user input. Because the moment you ask teams to manually log interactions or input data? Adoption plummets.

Instead, Staircase AI runs quietly in the background, automatically analyzing customer interactions across emails, meetings, and support tickets. No extra steps. No behavior changes. Just real-time intelligence, effortlessly.

The result? A customer intelligence platform that captures the complete picture of how customers use a product and how they engage, communicate, and make decisions.

Instant Value: Insights on Day One

Speed matters. Staircase AI eliminates the long onboarding cycles and heavy manual data entry that plague many customer intelligence tools. Every unanswered risk signal could be another customer lost.

Instead of waiting weeks (or even months) to realize value, Staircase AI gets to work as soon as you connect it. By integrating directly with communication channels like email, Slack, CRM, and more, it instantly surfaces risks, opportunities, and patterns hidden in customer interactions.

This frictionless approach mirrors what’s happening in customer support, where self-service tools are transforming efficiency. Discover how automation is reshaping customer interactions in our blog: Cost-Effective Customer Support: How Self-Service Reduces Operational Costs.

Work Where You Already Are

Nobody wants another tool cluttering their workflow. That’s why Staircase AI doesn’t force users into yet another dashboard. It delivers insights where you already work.

Whether your team lives in Slack, email, your CRM, or a CSP like Gainsight, Staircase AI meets them there. No extra logins. No new dashboards to check.

Your benefit: No change management headaches means you can maximize adoption and minimize disruption, ensuring teams actually use the incoming customer intel.

Security & Ethical AI: Built Right from the Start

AI that operates with zero input and delivers real-time insights? It has to be secure.

Staircase AI prioritized security, privacy, and ethical AI from day one. The team pursued SOC 2 compliance before hiring its first engineer, embedding security into its foundation rather than treating it as an afterthought. Here’s how Staircase AI ensures security, fairness, and compliance at every level:

• AI models are trained on carefully curated data for accuracy & fairness.
• All communication data is rigorously cleaned and filtered, removing disclaimers, automated messages, and irrelevant content.
• Staircase AI analyzes customer sentiment and engagement while respecting user privacy, making it a trusted solution for companies navigating the AI era.

And now, we’re taking it even further.

At Gainsight, we know that security is something you need to invest in and improve continuously. We’re thrilled to announce that Staircase AI has achieved the ISO/IEC 42001 certification, the first international standard for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Management Systems.

ISO/IEC 42001 sets a global benchmark for responsible AI governance, ensuring fairness, transparency, and risk management. This certification reinforces Gainsight’s commitment to developing AI solutions that businesses can trust—secure, ethical, and built for long-term success.

The reality: Every SaaS company sits on a goldmine of customer interactions. But without a structured approach to AI governance, those insights can introduce more risk than reward. ISO 42001 ensures AI operates transparently and responsibly, turning uncertainty into confidence. With this certification, Staircase AI delivers intelligence with built-in guardrails, protecting both companies and their customers.

Built for Trust, Speed, and Actionable Insights

Without adding complexity, Staircase AI eliminates blind spots, cuts manual effort, and surfaces real-time customer insights by staying true to its founding principles:

• Zero input: Adoption stays high.
• Instant value: Impact is immediate.
• Seamless integration: Teams don’t have to change how they work.
• Security-first AI: Businesses can trust the insights they rely on.

Staircase AI is also SOC 2 Type II compliant and certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (DPF), UK Extension to the DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF, ensuring compliance with the highest standards of security and privacy.

Learn more about Gainsight’s AI Data Security and Privacy at https://www.gainsight.com/security/ai/.

Made for Executives

AI-driven customer intelligence should be effortless, integrated and trustworthy. It should also be consumable by everyone from your front line to your C-suite.

Staircase AI is built for executives who need instant, decision-ready insights, not just more data. It surfaces early churn risks, engagement trends, and revenue opportunities in a way that’s clear and ready to action. Get the blueprint for how Gainsight’s CEO uses Staircase AI to act on churn before it happens.

The post The Ethics & Intelligence Behind Staircase AI appeared first on Gainsight Software.

One of the most impactful ways to impress your customers, and increase their lifetime value, is how you invest in your customer education program. To be competitive, you must go beyond the standard training offerings and invest in more sophisticated tech built to keep customers engaged and successful.

But to make that happen, the tech must have the right features, including some you might not even know you need.

Beyond the Basics: Personalize CE Content and Meet Your Customers Where They Are

When was the last time you bought something and read through the training manual before you started using it? If we’re honest, our answers are all the same: Never. We’re excited about this new product and we assume we’ll figure out all the important stuff by jumping in.

Your customers have the same instincts. They want to jump in and learn just enough to do their jobs, without wasting time on irrelevant or outdated content. Learning paths do that, but the typical ones often fall short in delivering truly personalized experiences. That’s where adaptive learning comes in.

What Is Adaptive Learning?

Adaptive learning is a smarter way to guide your customers to success with your product. How? By adjusting courses and learning paths dynamically based on your customers’ roles and unique challenges.

Take it one step further by teaming up with the product experience experts on your team to offer short instructional content at the exact moment your customer needs it to expand their use of your product. You can even use the product itself to show users the next best step while they’re in the product. How cool is that? Not into in-app notifications? No worries. You can also map just-in-time learning to key moments in the customer journey, especially during onboarding.

Whatever tactics you use, remember to meet learners where they are in their journey and keep your educational content fresh and up to date. The more personalized the learning experience is for customers, the higher your retention rate and adoption rate will be. It can even prime you for expansion, as customers discover new features and invite more end users to the product.

Incorporate the Community Into the Learning Experience

Sometimes we learn best from the people who speak our language, not necessarily the people who know the most about a topic. It’s the reason communities bring so much value to companies across verticals.

So, instead of keeping learning isolated in courses and certifications, find ways to introduce new customers to your existing community as they move through courses and learning paths. Reward existing customers for their engagement with new users. You can do this through leaderboards, badges, and recognition in community spaces, for example.

You can even offer perks for active participants. Establishing those relationships helps alleviate the volume of support tickets or questions from new customers. More importantly, it brings new customers closer and provides value to customers right away. These are small changes that really add up when it comes time to discuss renewals or expansion.

Map Customer Education Core Customer Success KPIs

Once you’ve established integration between customer communities and customer education, it’s time to establish KPIs in the broader customer success strategy, which you can do by tracking and evaluating the following metrics in your Customer Success Platform:

• Course Enrollments and Learning Progress:  These KPIs track the percentage of users who register for and complete training courses or modules. A high course enrollment rate, accompanied by learning progress in and completion of those courses, signifies that the training is engaging and accessible. Alternatively, a low rate in these areas may indicate barriers to participation.
• Certificate Achievements: As you gamify your training programs, users will rack up certificates and achievements. Track these as an indicator of learner engagement and course effectiveness.
• Training Events: If you host one-to-many training events, like webinars, track attendance to indicate interest and engagement.

Bottom line? A strong customer education program is just the start. To really move the needle, you need an LMS that connects with your CSP, so your team has real-time learning data at their fingertips to drive smarter, more strategic customer conversations.

Upgrade Your Customer Education With Gainsight

Going beyond the basic customer education motions is critical to meet users where they are (the product), serve content that is actually digestible in whatever free time your customers have (almost none), and ensure success through tracking the right KPIs (cross-functionally!).

This year, invest in your customers’ engagement, product adoption, and success by stepping up your customer education efforts. Learn how Gainsight Customer Education can help you deliver smarter, more effective training that actually moves the needle.

The post Beyond Basics: LMS Features You Didn’t Know You Needed appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Despite major advancements in AI security, including the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) developing the first global standard designed specifically for AI management systems, the news of DeepSeek’s leaky database was sobering. It reminded the entire world: While ubiquitous, all Gen AI platforms are far from the same when it comes to the safety of your data.

What Happened: The DeepSeek Leak

DeepSeek splashed onto the Gen AI market recently, disrupting the U.S. tech industry by offering an open-source model, unlike the major U.S. players. The problem? Security.

According to TechRadar, cybersecurity researchers at Wiz discovered within minutes that DeepSeek’s database was vulnerable to attack. The leaky database allowed for total operation control takeover. “An attacker could extract passwords, chat logs, and more,” TechRadar reports.

What AI Security Means for CS Professionals

AI is here to stay. But not all AI companies out there are doing their due diligence. We recently surveyed a wide variety of Customer Success professionals to gauge how AI has impacted their work, and it’s clear that AI has irrevocably changed the way we do business—and the AI revolution is still only getting started.

Let’s take a look at our recent research on barriers to adoption for AI in CS, and why it’s more important than ever to build trust in the security of your AI vendors.

Barriers to AI Adoption in CS

According to our recent study, The Customer Success Index 2024 (CS Index), AI isn’t a trend; it’s a top priority for companies big and small across industry lines. Teams at every level—whether in leadership, operations, or customer-facing roles— know they need the power of AI to create a competitive customer experience. However, like all of us new to AI, CS leaders also have concerns:

• Will this replace me?
• Can I trust it?
• How will it change the way I work?

Lack of internal expertise, integration complexities, and data privacy concerns are key barriers that we uncovered in the CS Index. Addressing these concerns will be essential to reaping the full potential of AI for CS in 2025.

In truth, AI won’t be nearly as powerful without your team’s trust and adoption, especially frontline teams of Customer Success Managers (CSMs). Their buy-in will make the biggest difference in the impact AI can have on your bottom line.

To help foster that trust, we’ve developed three priorities to set up your CS team to succeed with AI this year. Here’s everything you need to do to build trust between CS teams and AI in 2025:

1. Adopt AI With Strategic Purpose

In the SaaS world, we can be guilty of adopting new tech just for the sake of it. We’re excited by what’s possible, and we want to try it all. Sometimes, that can lead to teams adopting new tools just to give them up in a few months. For this reason, it’s understandable that some CS teams would feel hesitant about adopting AI.  Companies, especially the leadership team, must approach AI with clear, strategic intent. That starts by pulling CS team members into the conversation to answer the following questions:

• Which tasks can and should be automated?
• Which tasks are time-consuming but necessary?
• Which tasks require the expertise and creativity of a human touch?

With those inputs, companies can implement AI where it makes the most sense for everyone, essentially aligning business objectives with the day-to-day realities of CS teams. When everyone understands how AI fits into the bigger picture—and sees how it’s designed to support, not replace them—trust will naturally follow.

2. Empower CS Teams With More Precise Intelligence

Next, companies need to turn their focus to streamlining the customer experience. Over the past few years, companies have piled more and more responsibilities onto CS teams. Everything from expansion to community-building now falls under the CS umbrella. And for good reason—they are the best team for the job because they’re in the trenches with customers. They know them better than anyone else, or at least should. But this expanded role often comes with overwhelming workloads.

That’s where AI comes into play. By helping CS teams stay on top of all these responsibilities, AI fosters trust and demonstrates its value to CSMs as a tool for managing more responsibilities and increasingly larger account ratios. For example, AI can organize, analyze, and suggest insights from ever-growing data sets so that CS teams always know what the next best action is for each account. These AI-powered real-time customer health insights are the future of the Customer Success industry.

According to the CS Index, Digital CS adoption is growing by 15% year over year, so it’s clear that simplifying workflows is a necessity. By using AI-powered Digital CS strategies to reduce the noise and surface priorities to CSMs, companies can ensure their teams operate with clarity on customer health data and have the time and freedom to focus on bigger, strategic conversations.

When CS teams understand that AI is meant to support their daily responsibilities rather than replace them, it becomes much easier to trust the tools necessary to scale your company.

3. Maintain an Ongoing Conversation About AI

Finally, the best way to build trust in AI is to keep the conversation open. New capabilities and obstacles will arise as tools become more sophisticated and use cases evolve—and, of course, as new players enter the Gen AI market. CS teams need to know that they can continue the conversation as they learn more about how AI supports their function.

We’re only just starting to see what’s possible when CS is fully powered by AI. Bringing CS teams into the conversation now can only create more trust and accelerate everyone’s growth. Said another way, collaboration and transparency today will lay the foundation for growth and success with AI tomorrow.

Learn More About AI Trends in CS

To learn more about how businesses are using AI and all other tools for their Customer Success functions, download your own copy of The Customer Success Index 2024. The report offers insights and provides helpful strategies for an incredible 2025.

The post AI for CS in 2025: Ensuring Security as New Players Enter the Gen AI Market  appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Their efforts not only enhance customer experiences, but also drive business outcomes in powerful ways. At Gainsight, we believe in recognizing and cherishing these dedicated individuals, and we’ve crafted a special day just for them. Without further ado, let’s raise a glass to Community Managers!

Gift Giving: Treat Yourself!

To kick off the festivities, we’re excited to give some very special Community Managers the ultimate treat—the gift of choice! While we wanted to give gifts to every CM in the world, we chose CMs in our network at random to select a gift that speaks to their personal interests, ensuring that each present is thoughtful and meaningful. Here are some fantastic options we’re offering this year:

• Kosterina Original Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Elevate your culinary creations with this robust, high-polyphenol olive oil from southern Greece. With its signature peppery finish, it’s perfect for drizzling over salads or dipping bread.
• Bake Me A Wish Gourmet Cookie Gift: A delightful assortment of mouth-watering cookies, including classics like Chocolate Chip and Snickerdoodle. Because sometimes, a sweet treat is the best way to show appreciation!
• Yoga Strong Foam Roller: For our CMs who lead an active lifestyle, this foam roller is ideal for recovery and relaxation—a perfect way to unwind after a long day.
• Lula’s Garden Ceramic Desk Succulent: Brighten up your workspace with a beautiful pre-potted succulent, all while supporting water.org in their mission to improve lives by providing access to safe water.

These gifts are a small token of our appreciation for the incredible work Community Managers do day in and day out. Today, let’s ensure our Community Managers know how appreciated they are!

Community Confetti: A Celebration You Don’t Have to Clean Up

If you’ve visited the Gainsight Community today, you may have noticed something special—a vibrant confetti graphic showering our platform with appreciation!

Our rockstar Community Managers have curated a collection of heartfelt appreciation posts designed to elevate the overall user experience. These messages are a small yet significant way to recognize the dedication and hard work of our community members.

So kick back, enjoy the colorful confetti, and take a moment to read through the wonderful messages our team has shared across the Gainsight Community.

A Heartfelt Shoutout to Our Own Community Managers

Now, let’s shine a spotlight on our own Gainsight Community Managers.

Courtney Hauser, VP, Customer Experience and CS Operations, at Gainsight wanted to give a special shoutout to our Community Managers: Kenneth Refsgaard, Manager, Community Strategy and Programs, and Revathi Menon, Community Manager.

Courtney says:

“Kenneth and Revathi’s knack for balancing the day-to-day with long-term vision, while paying meticulous attention to detail, has the Gainsight Community thriving like never before. From reimagining user navigation to fine-tuning taxonomy and boosting engagement with gamification and re-engagement strategies, Kenneth and Revathi have transformed the Community experience into an intuitive, impactful, and undeniably world-class experience. And hearing Gainsight customers cite our Community leaders as one of the best benefits of working with us? That’s the stuff of legend. Kenneth and Revathi, we are beyond lucky to have you. Thank you for everything you’ve done—and continue to do—to elevate Gainsight and the entire Community ecosystem.”

Their commitment, creativity, and leadership keep our community thriving and inspired. Whether it’s fostering discussions, providing support, or sharing knowledge, our CMs are the backbone of our customer engagement strategy.

Thank you for everything you do, Kenneth and Revathi—you make a real difference!

The Impact of Community on Customer Success

Community isn’t just a collection of individuals; it’s a powerful unity that drives success. At Gainsight, we understand that a vibrant community enhances customer relationships, fosters loyalty, and ultimately leads to better business outcomes. Strong community engagement strengthens the bond between brands and customers, creating a lasting impact on overall customer success.

As we celebrate Community Manager Appreciation Day today, we encourage everyone to reflect on the value of community and the role it plays in your own professional life. For those looking to delve deeper into the strategies and advantages of community engagement, check out our book, Customer Communities: Engage and Retain Customers to Build the Future of Your Business. It’s a must-read for anyone looking to harness the power of community.

Cheers to our community managers and the incredible work they do every day! Let’s continue to build, nurture, and celebrate the communities that surround us.

The post Celebrating Community Manager Appreciation Day at Gainsight appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Management Platforms

But before we talk about why we believe the Gartner recognition is such an iconic moment for Gainsight and the Customer Success space, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

Gainsight’s Journey: From Boba Shops to Industry Leadership

When “Customer Success” first became a tech category over a decade ago, Gainsight’s CEO Nick Mehta knew it would change how businesses operate. Over the years, the Customer Success space evolved from being a Salesforce-coined term into a full-on movement.

In March 2013, Mehta realized something big was happening. The SaaS world was moving to the cloud, and companies needed to focus on retention, not just acquiring new customers. It was a novel idea at the time. While Salesforce had coined the term “Customer Success Manager” (CSM) in 2013, it wasn’t widely known. In fact, there were only about 1,000 CSMs globally, which made the total addressable market (TAM) look almost nonexistent.

Gainsight needed to determine whether a genuine community existed around this emerging role. So, in March of that year, the then-scrappy startup decided to run an experiment. Mehta hosted a meetup for Customer Success leaders at Gainsight’s Mountain View office—which, according to company lore, was a former boba tea shop. They grabbed the cheapest party supplies they could find at the local grocery store, sent out invites, and hoped for the best.

To Mehta’s surprise, about 100 people packed into that tiny space. It became clear they weren’t there for the refreshments—they were there to meet each other. That was the moment Gainsight realized it had something special: a community that needed to be brought together.

That little meetup inspired the first Gainsight Pulse conference later that year in San Francisco. About 300 people attended, including early believers like Aaron Levie from Box, a true indication that Gainsight was onto something bigger. Today, Pulse has grown into a global event with thousands of attendees, and Customer Success has become more than just a role—it’s a movement that’s reshaping how businesses think about their customers.

Now, the world-renowned market research company Gartner recognized the Customer Success space in a way it never has before—and we couldn’t be more excited for this defining moment in the CS movement.

Why the Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Management Platforms Is Important for Businesses, in Every Sector

Sure, while we feel Gainsight’s ranking on the Gartner Magic Quadrant is impressive, the real story is what it means for businesses everywhere. At Gainsight, we believe that Customer Success has gone from being a niche player in SaaS to becoming a driving force in virtually every industry.

From healthcare and manufacturing to retail and banking, every sector must recognize that sustainable growth hinges on nurturing ongoing customer relationships. In a world where businesses are shifting to subscription and as-a-service models, delivering real value to customers is the ultimate differentiator. So, no matter your industry, it’s no longer enough to just deliver a product. You’ve got to make sure your customers find real value and fall in love with your brand over and over again.

We at Gainsight believe the Gartner recognition reflects Gainsight’s unwavering commitment to this evolving landscape. From the beginning, Gainsight has been focused on more than just delivering a great product: We’ve created a comprehensive solution that empowers businesses to build long-term, meaningful relationships with their customers. Our strong market presence, bolstered by our vibrant community-building initiatives, has also made Gainsight a go-to platform for professionals across industries. Additionally, Gainsight’s ability to scale and support large enterprises underscores our position as a trusted partner for businesses of all sizes.

A Look Ahead: Customer Success in 2025 and Beyond

It’s amazing to see how far Gainsight has come—from a boba shop with cheap cheese trays to publishing books on Customer Success, hosting massive conferences, and seeing customer success turn into a vital strategy for companies around the world.

While we feel this Gartner recognition is a full-circle moment for Gainsight, we’re far from done. With a deep commitment to innovation, Gainsight will continue to leverage emerging technologies like AI to enhance productivity for Customer Success teams. We are committed to pushing the boundaries of what Customer Success can achieve—like bringing to life our vision for a Customer OS, Gainsight’s cohesive ecosystem that unifies the fragmented post-sales experience to better serve the future of Customer Success.

So what’s next? According to newly appointed CMO Keith Pearce, “The vision for a Customer OS feels like a wake-up call to the industry to redefine how businesses connect with customers in a way that’s both efficient and meaningful. Together, we’ll build bridges across the fragmented customer journey, bring our Customer Success expertise into new markets, and help businesses unlock new, profitable growth.”

We look forward to more groundbreaking solutions, more unforgettable moments, and more customer success wins in 2025 and beyond.

Learn More: Download the Report

Want the full scoop on the state of the Customer Success Management Platform market? Read the Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Management Platforms.

Disclaimer

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Management Platforms, Michael Maziarka, Maria Marino, Jennifer MacIntosh, John Quaglietta, Daniel Hawkyard, 28 October 2024.

The post Customer Success, Recognized: Gainsight’s Journey to the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ and What’s Next for CS in 2025 appeared first on Gainsight Software.

We surveyed companies across industries for the CS Index 2024. The following trends emerged for EMEA teams that we believe will dictate strategies in 2025 in the region.

To help you stay competitive and increase the impact of your own CS team, we’ve pulled out the most important considerations to pay attention to.

1. Growing Budgets Means Growing Impact

The ultimate vote of confidence from any company is where it puts its money. If executives and other champions don’t see the business case for any initiative, you won’t see budget for it—that’s just the reality.

So, it’s exciting to see CS is earning more trust than ever, with over half of survey respondents (52%) saying they plan to invest even more budget into their CS function in 2025. In EMEA, companies indicated that they plan to invest 15% more budget into CS than their American counterparts.

But what does this increased investment actually mean? 

• Better tools for the customer journey: Gone are the days when CS teams could scrape by with generic systems or makeshift Customer Relationship Management tools (CRMs) trying to match the functionality of a dedicated Customer Success Platform (CSP). Today, companies need a comprehensive suite of tools that work together to support every stage of the customer journey—from onboarding to renewal and beyond. CSPs are at the heart of that, offering proactive insights, automation, and collaboration that teams on the frontlines can rely on to deliver exceptional customer experiences. 
• Higher expectations: But with greater investment comes greater accountability. Empowered by more robust tools, customers and executives alike will expect a better customer experience that delivers across all metrics. For CS teams, that puts a premium on the high-value engagements that serve each customer and drive measurable results for the business. The bottom line: CS teams are in the spotlight more than ever. 

2. Expansion Takes Top Priority for Digital CS

The CS Index 2024 also indicated that EMEA companies are not only investing more into CS than their North American counterparts, but they also know exactly where they want to put the resources: Digital CS and expansion.

According to our report, European companies more than doubled their investments in digital or tech touch CS programs compared to 2023, leaning into digital scale to support CS program delivery. This trend is reflected globally, with an overall global increase in digital of 15% YoY.

The focus of digital investments in EMEA? Expansion. EMEA companies see digital CS as a way to both increase revenue and retention, as well as a key means of expanding existing customers. European respondents listed expansion as a key digital metric at almost double that of North America (58% vs. 28%). This means EMEA teams see digital as a key way to expand customer lifetime value (CLTV), beyond driving better experiences and retention.

3. Partnership Drives Customer Retention

EMEA companies embody the core of Customer Success: partnership. When asked about retention, EMEA respondents favored logo retention over Gross Revenue Retention (GRR). In North America, respondents tended towards GRR instead of logos.

What does that tell us? For EMEA CS teams, customer retention isn’t just about hitting numbers; it’s equally about building a partnership with their customers that will create more opportunities to expand and scale.

To make the most out of customer partnerships, EMEA CS teams should:

• Collaborate on shared goals

• Anticipate and address customer needs proactively
• Build trust through open communication

4. AI Ushers in a New Era of CS

The topic of AI is on everyone’s mind, and respondents to the CS Index 2024 were no different. For teams in EMEA, though, there’s an unexpected advantage: stricter data privacy laws.

At first glance, tighter regulations might seem like a hurdle, but they can simplify a huge part of AI adoption. Unlike their peers in North America, who often struggle with privacy compliance, EMEA teams can focus on onboarding and integrating AI into their workflow. It may sound like a small detail, but it makes a world of difference in terms of time-to-value (TTV) and scale.

Of course, adopting AI isn’t without challenges. Like everyone else, EMEA CS teams

still face challenges related to integrating AI into existing workflows and internal resistance. Still, the benefits of adopting AI outweigh the challenges, and CS teams that can overcome these hurdles can realize the benefits, like real-time insights to gain the most accurate picture of customer health and reduce churn.

Conclusion

CS is evolving into a more strategic, value-driven function, especially at EMEA companies. Today, CS teams are moving beyond reactive support to become proactive partners in their customers’ success. How? By focusing on scaling impact, strengthening relationships, and driving measurable outcomes. We’re so excited to see what happens next in our evolving industry!

Learn More: Download the Report

Dive into more insights and results by downloading the CS Index 2024. See the state of your competitors and useful strategies for making 2025 your most successful year yet.

The post What the 2024 CS Index Means for EMEA appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Unfortunately, many companies are missing the boat, the average support response taking over 12 hours. With customer retention on the line, it’s no wonder that organizations are investing heavily into scalable customer support options.

But what are the right investments?

How do you improve efficiency without adding extra headcount?

The answer is a combination of digital self-service, strong communities, and sophisticated AI. Convinced? Jump into digital self-service solutions to get started right away. If you need a little more information, keep reading.

Digital Self-Service Empowers CSMs to Focus on High-Impact Activities

Customer Success Managers (CSMs) provide millions of dollars in value to their organizations every year. That is, when they can spend their time focusing on renewals, upsells, and other revenue-driving customer engagements.

If CSMs need to spend their day addressing endless customer support questions and inquiries, even if they are quick and easy, they will miss out on important opportunities to grow your business.

Digital self-service resources prevent the risk of missed opportunities. Customers can find the answers they need when they need them, preventing frustration on their end. Simultaneously, CSMs stay protected from time-consuming tasks and can prioritize strategic actions. In terms of cost-savings and revenue-driving solutions, digital self-service improves both.

Avoid Excess Headcount Spending with Digital Self-Service

An additional way digital self-service can reduce operational costs is by keeping headcount at a sustainable level. If a company needs to add additional employees every time they acquire a new customer, then they will always have a cap on their profitability and scalability. On the other hand, when a company leverages digital self-service solutions, their potential increases exponentially.

For added value, digital self-service solutions stay up-to-date and accurate without any additional resources required. The resources necessary to recruit, hire, and train customer-facing teams add up quickly and cut into the bottom line.

Add to that the time it takes to keep all employees trained on customer questions, and you can see why digital self-serve options are the preferred solution for successful companies.

Empower Customers with Instant Answers

Earlier, we mentioned the high expectations customers have for support and guidance. What we didn’t mention is that over half of customers surveyed said they would find a different company to buy from if they experience poor customer support. In other words, not only does instant customer support improve customer relationships, but delayed customer support also hurts customer relationships and their company loyalty.

With a digital self-service solution, companies mitigate churn risk and empower customers to educate themselves on topics most important to them as soon as they need an answer. Often, self-service options lead customers into online communities where they can learn even more without engaging with CSMs or other team members.

Additionally, when customers do reach out to talk to CSMs, the conversations revolve around strategic decisions, new use cases, and expansion opportunities. These are the conversations CSMs need to be part of, not support questions.

Stay Proactive With AI to Avoid Support Surges

Finally, digital self-service solutions allow companies to stay proactive in providing support to customers. In complex organizations, customers can run into any number of issues daily. Likely, those questions have been addressed before, with their coworkers or other teams.

Through the power of AI, self-service solutions can guide customers through common questions and troubleshooting strategies before they even know the questions. Customers will experience fewer moments of frustration, and your team won’t need to use any additional resources.

Instead of guessing what your customers need in terms of support or guessing when it’s too late, use the data available to create exceptional support experiences. Instead of scrambling every day to triage, let AI highlight the next best actions for your team and your customers. And most importantly, save resources for growth opportunities.

Learn More About Gainsight’s Digital Self-Service Solutions

Start today with your own digital self-service solution. Empower your customers and give your CSMs time to do what they do best, grow your business. The time to be proactive is now.

The post Cost-Effective Customer Support: How Self-Service Reduces Operational Costs appeared first on Gainsight Software.

While our robot overlords aren’t taking our jobs anytime soon, the report found that AI is transitioning from a nice-to-have experiment to an essential driver of customer engagement and scalability. Let’s examine the key trends that will define the future of CS in 2025.

1. AI: From Experimentation to Essential

For years, AI in Customer Success was experimental. However, the 2024 CS Index revealed that AI has become essential. More than half (52%) of companies surveyed are now integrating AI into their workflows. Here’s how AI is transforming the field:

• Early Warning Systems: AI enables teams to predict churn months in advance, providing the time and insights needed to intervene effectively.
• Time Saved: By automating tasks like data entry and churn detection, AI saves CS teams more than 10 hours per week. It helps teams uncover deeper customer insights to predict churn months in advance and enable proactive, scalable customer engagement. Gainsight customer Launch Potato, for example, saved 25% of their CSM’s time with AI.
• Deeper Insights: AI-powered analytics uncover actionable trends and patterns in customer behavior, making engagement more personalized and impactful.

2. The Rise of Digital CS

Digital Customer Success (DCS) is no longer a side project. It is a cornerstone of modern CS strategies. According to this year’s CS Index, Digital CS continues to grow as a prominent strategy to engage customers at scale, increasing 15% annually, driven by AI and automation. The adoption of digital tools to deliver customer success continues to grow, including online customer communities and self-service portals, which surged from 42% last year to 73% this year. Additionally, Europe showed an even stronger trend in digital, with a 2x+ increase over last year’s 27%. So what’s driving this growth?

AI and automation are fueling the expansion of Digital CS, allowing organizations to:

• Engage Customers at Scale: Automated workflows and self-service tools simultaneously provide consistent, tailored experiences to thousands of customers.
• Focus on High-Value Activities: By offloading routine interactions to digital channels, teams can dedicate more time to strategic planning and relationship-building.

3. CS Expands Beyond B2B Tech

For the first time, this year’s report also includes data from industries other than B2B tech. What started as a strategy for B2B tech companies is now finding a home across industries like healthcare, financial services, and manufacturing. According to the CS Index:

• 95% of B2B tech companies have established CS functions, with over half employing dedicated CS Ops teams.
• 62% of organizations in industries outside of B2B tech are adopting CS principles to meet customer needs and improve outcomes.

This broader adoption signals that CS is becoming a universal business strategy. Brent Krempges, Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight, states, “Organizations across industries increasingly recognize CS as central to the customer lifecycle, driving collaboration across departments. This has made CS indispensable for recurring revenue models and extended its influence beyond traditional B2B enterprise tech boundaries.”

4. Retention Remains King

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) has long been the benchmark for subscription companies. However, this year’s data shifted from relying on NRR alone. Findings show that organizations increasingly prioritize Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) as a key performance metric, with 55% of companies using GRR as a top measurement. 76% of companies indicated customer retention as another primary revenue metric utilized.

Interestingly, regional differences are also emerging:

• North America: GRR leads the way, with 89% of organizations focusing on this metric.
• Europe: 95% of companies prioritize logo retention as a key performance metric.

As companies refine their retention strategies, AI and digital tools will be crucial in identifying at-risk accounts and enhancing customer loyalty.

The Future of Customer Success: A Unified Approach

As we head into 2025, one thing is clear: Customer Success is no longer siloed. The CS Index found that 94% of organizations have cross-functional collaboration at the core of their customer strategies. Marketing, Product, and Operations teams work alongside CS to deliver seamless, impactful customer experiences.

AI and automation are key enablers of this unified approach. Tools like Gainsight’s Staircase AI help organizations connect the dots across every customer interaction, ensuring no opportunity is missed, and every customer feels valued.

The trends outlined in the Customer Success Index offer a roadmap for CS professionals looking to thrive in 2025. Whether embracing AI, scaling with Digital CS, or adopting a company-wide mindset, the future of CS is full of opportunities to drive growth and retention.

Learn More

To explore the full findings and insights, check out the Customer Success Index 2024.

The post New CS Index Report Reveals Trends to Watch in 2025 appeared first on Gainsight Software.

It’s a valid question—but the answer lies in understanding and reconciling the distinct roles each tool plays in the buyer and customer journey. MAPs and CSPs are designed for different phases of the customer lifecycle, managed by different teams, and geared toward different outcomes.

For each tool to succeed, it must be used to fulfill its intended purpose. When CSPs are deployed strategically, they handle much more than email outreach; they deliver insights that enable proactive engagement, driving long-term retention and expansion opportunities back to your business.

Let’s explore why both these tools are essential for your organization’s growth.

Different Tools for Different Jobs

Using a MAP to manage post-sale customer communications is like using the back of a screwdriver to hammer a nail: it might work, but it’s inefficient and could be prone to errors because of a lack of in-depth customer data. MAPs are built for marketing tasks like lead acquisition, nurturing prospects, and driving conversions. They excel at managing pre-sales interactions.

CSPs on the other hand are designed specifically to orchestrate the post-sale experience. As part of a robust post-sales operating system, a CSP can combine email, in-app messaging, and human connection with data-driven insights to support onboarding, proactive interventions, and renewal management. This tailored approach allows teams to address the unique and evolving needs of existing customers, which is something marketing tools simply aren’t built to handle.

More and more, organizations are recognizing the distinct value of each tool in the customer journey. According to our recent report The Customer Success Index 2024 (CS Index), there was more than a 50% decline in CS teams relying on a MAP for customer communications in favor of dedicated post-sales tools and systems.

CSPs Offer Better Insights for Timely Customer Intervention

One of the core strengths of a CSP is its ability to harness real-time customer insights to trigger timely and personalized communications.

For example, a CSP pulls in usage metrics, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), support ticket history, and surfaces health scores to identify when a customer may need extra attention. Whether it’s a decline in product engagement or a sign of dissatisfaction, these insights enable targeted messages to be sent at the perfect moment—avoiding the pitfalls of lacking an accurate picture of customer health.

MAPs operate on a broader, prospect-focused level. They typically don’t aggregate the data needed to anticipate or respond to the signals that indicate a customer’s evolving needs. Unlike MAPs, which might send an upsell email to a high-risk customer, CSPs are able to leverage health scores to fine-tune communication, ensuring you know not only what to send but also what to avoid sending. This thoughtful approach helps build trust, reduce churn risk, and drive meaningful engagement.

Separate Systems, Unified Goals

While CSPs and MAPs serve distinct purposes, they can complement each other to create a seamless overall experience. Separating marketing and customer success communications offers two key advantages:

• Focus of Responsibilities: Marketing teams can concentrate on acquisition, while post-sale teams focus on retention and growth, driving value for the business across your entire revenue pipeline.
• Communication Prioritization: Customers can be enrolled in distinct types of email communications, ensuring critical post-sale updates aren’t overshadowed by marketing messages. Allowing customers to easily opt out of marketing emails, while still receiving essential updates, will provide a better experience and ensure  important information always reaches them.

Additionally, with sophisticated CSPs Customer Success Managers (CSMs) can send personalized emails to multiple customer contacts and roles directly, improving efficiency without sacrificing the human touch.

A Foundation for the Customer Operating System

Ultimately, a CSP is more than just a tool for post-sale communications—it’s the foundation of a broader customer operating system. By combining insights, automation, and human intervention, CSPs help organizations retain and grow their customer base. They empower teams to deliver consistent, high-value communications throughout the entire customer journey, from onboarding to renewal and beyond.

When used together, CSPs and MAPs create a powerful system that ensures customers feel supported and valued at every stage of their journey.

Learn More

Now that you understand the critical role CSPs play in growing your business, you need to decide which CSP will grow with you. See why Gainsight is ranked as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Platforms.

The post The Role Both MAPs and CSPs Play in The Customer Lifecycle appeared first on Gainsight Software.

For every business today, the question isn’t merely about providing answers; it’s about creating an empowering self-service experience that propels customers toward achieving their goals…without leaning on your team at every turn.

As we venture into the future of digital self-service support, let’s explore five key trends to watch in 2025 that will define the customer experience landscape:

1. Rise of Proactive Self-Service

The landscape of self-service support is undergoing a significant shift from a reactive approach to a proactive one.

Customers are seeking comprehensive, deep content that empowers them to explore solutions independently. Companies are now focusing on creating vast knowledge bases filled with resources that customers can easily navigate. By providing rich, curated content, businesses enhance customer satisfaction and enable customers to feel more in control of their journeys.

This is good news for the bottom line, too: According to the Forrester Total Economic Impact (TEI) report, delivering a digital-led customer experience can double the expected returns from customer success within the next three years.

2. Shift to Instant Access Where You Work

The expectation for support experiences is shifting toward instant access, provided directly in the product and applications where customers are already working. This means seamlessly integrating self-service features directly within product interfaces—think tooltips, integrated chatbots, and contextual help options that allow customers to get assistance without disrupting their workflows.

As customers interact with your product, they should also have immediate access to support resources tailored to their specific context. Organizations that provide this type of in-app support create frictionless product experiences that foster loyalty and build trust.

3. Growth of Peer-Driven Value

The future of customer success relies heavily on collaboration, turning customers into active participants in a collective knowledge ecosystem. Community-driven support will increasingly shape how customers seek help, moving away from traditional support channels toward peer-to-peer interactions through online communities.

Fostering a vibrant online community allows customers to share experiences, ask questions, and provide answers, turning users into invaluable resources for one another. This approach not only enhances relationships but also leads to innovative solutions born from shared insights.

4. AI-Powered Hyper-Personalized Experiences

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing countless aspects of our everyday lives, from eerily accurate shopping recommendations to chatbots that can respond with surprising human-like authenticity. But beyond these clever applications, AI is fundamentally changing how companies approach customer support, ushering in an era of hyper-personalized experiences that truly cater to individual needs.

Imagine transforming static systems and traditional help centers into dynamic “assistants” or “tutors” that learn and evolve alongside your customers. With AI, support becomes proactive and tailored.

For instance, as a customer navigates your academy, an AI tutor can pop up to offer course suggestions based on their specific product use cases or immediate challenges. Alternatively, it could provide quick summaries of relevant courses, enabling customers to enhance their product knowledge more rapidly.

This hyper-personalization is not just a boon for customers; it also amplifies the effectiveness of customer-facing teams. AI can automate mundane, repetitive tasks—such as answering common inquiries and routing tickets to the appropriate teams—freeing up valuable resources.

As a result, your teams can focus on what they do best: nurturing stronger, more strategic relationships with customers that drive loyalty and growth.

By harnessing the power of AI, companies can create a self-service experience that feels uniquely tailored to each customer. This level of personalization will not only enhance customer satisfaction but also solidify bonds between customers and brands, paving the way for a more engaged and successful customer journey.

5. Emphasis on Integration and Seamless Experience

As digital self-service tools evolve, the importance of integrating these features not just within products but also across platforms becomes increasingly vital. Customers favor solutions that streamline their journeys across touchpoints, making it easier to find resources regardless of where they are in their journey.

Organizations that prioritize an integrated user experience are likely to see improved retention rates, as customers feel consistently supported and valued.

Looking Ahead: Consolidating Self-Service Solutions

As we look toward the future of digital self-service, one overarching trend emerges: the need for a unified approach that consolidates self-service resources into a single, accessible destination.

Creating a centralized location for self-service support allows customers to find the information and tools they need effortlessly, fostering a sense of consistency and ultimate convenience.

This integration not only streamlines the experience but also enhances customer confidence as they engage with your brand. When resources are seamlessly brought together—whether it’s educational content, community forums, or release notes—customers can navigate their journeys with ease and clarity.

By embracing this trend, businesses position themselves to respond effectively to evolving customer expectations. The brands that prioritize this cohesive self-service experience will not only meet customer needs but also cultivate loyalty and satisfaction in an increasingly competitive landscape. In this future-focused vision, the success of self-service lies in its ability to empower customers through convenience, connectivity, and comprehensive support—all in one place.

As we move forward, let’s commit to building self-service ecosystems that truly serve and enhance the customer journey.

Learn More

Explore more resources on how to enhance your self-service strategy with Gainsight.

The post The Future of Digital Self-Service: 5 Trends to Watch in 2025 appeared first on Gainsight Software.

For many businesses, a CRM’s role quickly diminishes once the deal is done. The baton gets passed to Professional Services and Customer Success. These teams must ensure that the promises made during the sales process are kept, starting with implementation and extending through the entire customer lifecycle.

That’s where a Customer Success Platform (CSP) comes in—the post-sales companion to your CRM that drives retention so that your business can sustainably grow.

The Power of Outcomes

At the heart of every customer relationship lies a simple question: Are we delivering value? CRMs are great at capturing the initial customer goals revealed during the sales process—reduce costs, improve efficiency, or drive revenue growth. But once the deal is signed, those goals risk being forgotten.

A CSP picks up where the CRM leaves off, turning goals into action. It doesn’t just track what your customers want to achieve; it operationalizes those outcomes. With automated workflows and Success Plans, a CSP ensures that progress is always monitored, and any deviations are flagged for immediate action.

If a customer is falling behind on adopting a key feature, a CSP can detect it via usage data, automatically send education resources, and notify a Customer Success Manager (CSM) to intervene if needed. Instead of guessing, your team knows exactly how to guide the customer to success.

Seeing Health in Real Time

Customer health is a lot like an iceberg—what you can see above the surface (recent calls, support tickets, etc.) is only a fraction of the whole picture. CRMs can log these types of interactions, but they don’t connect the dots to reveal the deeper trends that indicate whether a customer is thriving or at risk.

A CSP dives below the surface, offering real-time health scores amplified even more with AI capabilities. CSPs don’t just aggregate health data—they analyze it for sentiment, engagement, and risk. When health dips, a CSP triggers actions, whether it’s sending digital learning content, scheduling a call, or escalating the situation to an executive sponsor.

Imagine knowing that a customer’s usage has been steadily declining or deviating from expected behavior—not after they cancel, but before they become a churn risk. You can even look at aggregate trends across your customer base, instead of the single account views typically used in a CRM. With a CSP, these insights are within reach, empowering your team to act before it’s too late.

Navigating Complex Relationships

For businesses with multiple products or global operations, customer relationships can quickly become a maze. CRMs handle parent-child hierarchies well enough, but they struggle with the nuances of cross-product and cross-department relationships.

A CSP brings clarity to this complexity. With advanced 3D data models, top-rated CSPs map every relationship—who’s using what, how the system is performing, and what opportunities exist to grow. Where CRMs are good at tracking relationships related to the deal, Customer Success teams manage business relationships differently and need a system that can help track the matrixed relationships that exist for each customer.

Take, for example, a customer with one division using your product successfully while another struggles to onboard. A CSP can provide this insight in seconds, helping your team tailor their approach to maximize value across the entire account.

Reinventing the Customer Journey

Most people think of customer journeys as a pre-sales tool, crafted by Marketing to nurture leads. But the real magic happens after the sale, when the journey transitions to onboarding, adoption, and renewal. Unlike CRM, a CSP orchestrates post-sale journeys that seamlessly blend digital engagement with human touchpoints. Automation handles the routine—such as onboarding reminders and training invitations—while CSMs step in when it matters most.

During onboarding, for instance, a CSP might send an automated email series guiding a customer through the setup process, while also engaging them directly within the product through interactive guides and resources to help them learn. If a customer misses key milestones, the CSP can also notify a CSM to provide personalized support.

Additionally, a CSP helps map out stakeholders and tailor engagement based on their roles—using email for leadership and in-app resources for end users—ensuring every interaction meets the customer where they are. This is how organizations achieve scale without sacrificing the human connection.

A Unified System for Operational Success

When you pair a CRM with a CSP, you’re bridging a gap that results in creating a unified journey to drive success at every stage of the customer lifecycle. The CRM captures the “who” and “why” of customer relationships, while the CSP delivers the “what” and “how.”

Together, they create a seamless transition from pre-sales to post-sales, ensuring that no opportunity is missed, no customer is overlooked, and every interaction delivers value.

Ready to see how a CSP can elevate your customer success strategy? Learn what requirements should be at the top of your list in, Buyer’s Guide: Select A Customer Success Platform To Grow With.

The post How Your CSP Picks Up The Customer Journey Where Your CRM Leaves Off appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Marley’s chains, and the poignant symbolism behind them remind me of the lessons learned in the Technology industry over the past few years. If we could travel back in time, how many companies might wish for a do-over to make different choices?

Maybe I am plucking it for the sake of convenience to fit the storyline, but the pre-2023 days of growth at all costs feel like an Ebenezer Scrooge moment for the industry—the days of ballooning budgets, fatter teams, in-person sales kickoffs, steak dinners, and ballgames with clients. Growth was the crown jewel of valuation, but it often came at a cost: a lack of focus on what happens after the deal is signed. The post-sales experience, when customers need to be onboarded, educated, understood, and fully enabled with the new capabilities they’d purchased, was often overlooked. Too many companies left customers to figure it out alone, only to connect during the next renewal period (and maybe another steak dinner).

It’s a rare opportunity in a career to join a company that’s not only a category creator and a de facto brand, but also sees people as more than prospects, customers, employees, and accounts. Gainsight’s impact is clear: helping people rise to the C-suite, building communities that foster genuine friendships, and transforming companies by showing them how to treat customers as people. This human-centered approach proves that when Customer Success is done right and managed as a strategic investment, everyone wins.

Sure, Gainsight is the clear market leader—the dot on the Gartner Magic Quadrant up and to the right—and has the SaaS industry fan following equivalent of Taylor Swift, along with marquee investors and rock-star executives. All of those things appealed to me as I considered joining. But what stood out to me was the company’s vision to turn fragmented customer experiences into a holistic one. It’s a journey that bridges the gap from purchase to implementation, realizing success, and evolving into a key component of the customer’s daily life.

Happy customers are the gift that keeps on giving. They buy more and renew, not because of steak dinners and ballgames, but because of the immense value they gain with your products and services. Gainsight’s Customer OS is an ah-ha moment for companies to turn a disjointed post-sales experience into a frictionless one, complete with new digital self-service and AI capabilities that reduce both cost and churn. And along the way, it enables businesses to grow the right way: sustainably, profitably, and with purpose.

To me, this feels like Scrooge’s Christmas morning awakening: “There’s still time for me!” Time to do Customer Success the right way. To realize the relationship between Customer Success done right and the durable, profitable growth that it drives. With Gainsight’s Customer OS, we’re setting a new standard for how to retain and empower customers.

That’s why I am here, and I can’t wait to get started!

Learn More

Read more about Pearce’s appointment as CMO in the press release, Gainsight Unveils Next Chapter of Innovation and Advances Customer OS for 2025

The post A Customer Carol: The Gift That Keeps On Giving appeared first on Gainsight Software.

As businesses strive to achieve their revenue goals, relying on gut feelings and instinctive judgments can lead to missed opportunities and wasted resources. However, Gainsight’s new AI product, Staircase AI, promises to cut through the noise, delivering unbiased, real-time insights that help Revenue teams identify hidden opportunities for growth.

Here’s a look at why real-time customer insights are going to be your superpower in 2025.

Overcome The Challenge of Overlooking Customer Needs

Sales teams are often caught in a whirlwind of tasks and responsibilities, making it difficult to maintain a nuanced understanding of customer sentiment.

Without accurate insights, organizations risk overlooking key expansion and upsell deals. Many Sales professionals rely on their instincts to gauge customer satisfaction and readiness for growth, but this approach can be fraught with inaccuracies. Staircase AI aims to remedy this by analyzing customer conversations across various channels, surfacing genuine needs and opportunities more quickly and accurately than otherwise possible.

Maybe even faster than the speed of light.

So what’s the consequence of not knowing how your customers are feeling, when they’re feeling it? Simply put: No one wants to feel overlooked. And even if you set your customers up for success proactively as much as possible, they will run into unforeseen challenges. That’s why the power of AI-driven real-time customer insights is a game-changer, because you can show up for your customers exactly when they need you—efficiently—and never open yourself up to surprise churn due to overlooked customer needs.

Efficiency, Efficiency, Efficiency: Prioritizing Time and Resources

Time is a precious commodity in Sales, and leveraging it effectively is essential for achieving success. Many organizations struggle to identify where their teams are investing too much or too little effort relative to account Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). This is problematic, because, while we’d love to spend endless time with every customer, the sad truth is that we simply can’t. Being judicious with team resources is more important in today’s economy than ever before, but we need to ensure customers are receiving the support they need to thrive. Efficient growth is still the name of the game going into 2025.

Staircase AI provides a clear picture of team dynamics, highlighting inefficiencies and allowing managers to better allocate resources. By understanding how team members spend their time, organizations can prioritize efforts on the accounts that matter most, ensuring that every minute counts towards maximizing revenue.

Gut Feelings? Out. Data-Driven Decision Making? In.

Acting on a hunch and relying on manual processes are so very out of style in this market. But data-driven decision-making is always in.

In an increasingly competitive landscape, Revenue professionals can no longer depend solely on gut feelings to guide their actions. You could say, in the long run, it won’t make you very popular.

Traditional intuition may lead to missed opportunities, overextending relationships with accounts exhibiting declining sentiment, or letting key advocates slip away. The solution? Staircase AI empowers Revenue teams with unbiased, real-time insights that illuminate customer behavior, sentiment, and readiness for expansion. By basing decisions on data rather than intuition, organizations can seize hidden opportunities and grow within their existing customer base more effectively.

Grunt Work Is Not a Good Look on You

One of the standout features of Staircase AI is its ability to eliminate much of the grunt work associated with traditional customer analytics. By automatically ingesting and analyzing customer conversations, Staircase cuts through the complexity and provides Sales teams with straightforward insights, free from the burden of manual data entry.

Ultimately, this automation allows teams to focus on what truly matters: nurturing relationships with customers and closing deals.

Conclusion: Elevating Sales Strategies with Staircase AI

In today’s economy, the greatest opportunity for growth lies within an organization’s existing customer base. Relying on gut feelings and outdated methods of gauging customer sentiment won’t get teams to their sales quotas. With Staircase, Sales professionals can bridge the gap between intuition and reality, uncovering hidden expansion opportunities and making informed, data-driven decisions.

With Staircase, organizations can ensure they are not only equipped to meet their quotas, but also positioned for sustainable growth long term. The journey to enhanced revenue potential starts with taking the right steps. So trust us—take the stairs.

Learn more in our infographic, 10 Ways Staircase AI Will Land Your Next Deal.

The post Why Real-Time Customer Insights Are Nonnegatiable for Revenue Growth in 2025 appeared first on Gainsight Software.

1. Embrace Hosting

This year, I dove right into hosting, aiming to positively influence attendees’ experiences at the massive Pulse event. Whether it was playing pong, searching for the best espresso, getting down with Dance Dance Revolution, chowing down at the secret poké station, or—oh right, it’s a work conference—I meant soaking in numerous insightful tracks, keynotes, and running the executive meeting center along with Kristen Keller, Field Marketing Manager, Gainsight. It was all thrilling. The ad-hoc chats where I just pulled up a chair at lunch or chatted up a partner like Mark Deegan, CEO, Wigmore IT Group Limited, and started talking shop were the best. It was all about making those small but memorable connections.

And what’s more memorable than sharing a stroopwafel moment in Amsterdam?

2. Celebrate the Community

The attendees brimming with enthusiasm and our fantastic sponsors truly make Pulse pulse! I enjoyed stopping to chat with several sponsors, and catching up with Amy Downs at Customer Obsessing Consulting, who I’ve known for nearly 20 years, was a true highlight.

From her days as a CCO to co-founding a consulting company that designs CX and Customer Success programs, witnessing her journey has been nothing short of amazing.

3. Keep Celebrating the Community

Pulse is a journey of personal and professional growth for every attendee, and it’s an honor to see our friends hitting their stride. There were too many incredible moments with our community to remark on here—but let’s touch upon one more. Faye Richards, Head of Customer Operations and Scaled Accounts at Yulife, shared what this year’s Pulse meant to her on LinkedIn:

“2024 marked a major milestone. With our UK-based operations scaling to a global reach across the US, South Africa, and Japan, this year’s Pulse was all about validating the progress YuLife has made so far (great to have Natasha Rana with me this time around). And with exciting plans on the horizon, especially around Human-First  AI in customer success, it’s an exciting time for innovation in our field. Looking forward to what we can do together Rachel Valiente Bush in the next 12 months!

As I look ahead to Pulse 2025, I’m excited for what’s next. You might even see me on stage sharing insights from this incredible journey. ”

We can’t wait to see your debut on the Pulse stage, Faye! Keep crushing it—your story is incredible.

4. Give Back

Having attended and hustled at 14 Pulses, each event is an exhausting and amazing experience. I’m always honored to experience the magic our Events team creates; they make a huge effort appear seamless to the attendees, transforming complex logistics into a smooth, engaging experience. (P.S. I hope you don’t get charged for the cappuccinos because I drank about 100 of them to wash down my 50 stroopwafels.) It’s so fun to watch new attendees experience the magic. Here’s what stood out this time:

• Dynamic Discussions with Justyna Bąkowska from F5: We had intense discussions about data, AI strategies, and even extending Gainsight to her partner ecosystem using our Through Partner CS capabilities. While at the epic Pulse party, we screamed awkwardly into each other’s ears because we were too excited to wait to talk CS and Poland! To round it out, we even grabbed our AI PM Shantan Reddy to make some real-time roadmap recommendations while waiting for a sweet book signing.
• Connecting with James Lubbock: As the Head of Customer Success at hyperexponential, James joined my session on Gainsight Copilot—one of many AI features live or in beta. I nominated him for our next beta and can’t wait for them to experience it and provide feedback. Turning talks into action was awesome. IMHO, the smaller sessions should not be just another econ 101 lecture; it’s about sharing ideas and helping folks execute them on the spot.
• Strategy Chats with Kristen Sanders: Meeting Kristen, VP of Global Customer Success at BMC Software, was incredible. We dove into strategy and the benefits of advisory offerings, and talked up the power of a thriving advocacy program with Melanie Paddock, Sr. Manager, Customer Marketing & Advocacy, Gainsight

5. Innovate and Inspire

I had the privilege of running our Gainsight Copilot and AI best practices session, loaded with strategy, recommendations, and both live and beta features.

Gainsight Copilot empowers you to easily uncover the nuances of customer relationships. This advanced solution leverages conversational AI to inquire about specific customer details, saving you time and helping you deliver a more personalized customer experience.

But the real question is: Who did it better? Dad or my son, Einstein, who rocked the keynote in 2017 with Nick Mehta?

6. Rock the New Realities

We’re a group of passionate people navigating the realities of the market and macroeconomic conditions, but we’ll always have time to watch Sam Buddery, Senior Solutions Consultant, Gainsight, crowd surf to a cover band playing Rage Against the Machine and Teenage Dirtbag—or a saxophone player with a bedazzled hat. (Thanks, Ellie Sax for the incredible performance two years in a row!)

The Pulse community is not just about work; it’s about celebrating our collective journey in style. Like Sam Buddery (below) in the front row prior to his crowd surf.

Until next year, peace out, Pulsters!

Got Pulse FOMO? We Got You

Whether you missed the event or you’re looking to relive the magic, don’t forget to revisit our greatest hits in the Pulse Library.

The post Top Takeaways From Pulse Europe 2024: From Secret Poké to AI to the Best Community in Business appeared first on Gainsight Software.

Over the last five years, Harri has been on an incredible growth trajectory, rapidly innovating and scaling to meet market demands. As their customer success organization matured, they needed a way to listen, engage, educate, and empower their customers in a way that scales—in a single, consolidated platform. As such, they built a Customer Community as a single destination for customers to connect, share best practices, provide feedback, and build stronger relationships with the product. “It’s like bringing our customers into the same room—it’s powerful,” says Dan Maimone, Director of Customer Success and CS Operations, Harri.

We sat down with Maimone to get the full scoop on the team’s journey, the challenges they faced, and how Gainsight became the platform they needed.

Harri and Gainsight Break New Ground

Q: Congratulations to Harri on becoming Gainsight’s first quadruple multi-product customer in Europe! How does it feel to be breaking new ground with Gainsight?

Dan Maimone: Thanks! It’s really exciting. We’re thrilled to be Gainsight’s first customer in Europe to bring together Customer Success, Product Experience, Customer Education, and now Community under one roof. Our shift to Gainsight has already powered an outcomes-based approach that not only increased efficiency and product adoption, but has also helped us achieve our business goals. Now with Customer Communities, we are embracing Gainsight’s full Customer OS experience and can support our customers more deeply and effectively— it’s a testament to our commitment to their success. We’re eager to see the impact across our entire customer base.

Q: What motivated Harri to adopt these four products from Gainsight’s Customer OS suite?

Dan Maimone: We wanted to consolidate our tools in one place—we didn’t want to have six different tools across the customer success function. But on a deeper level, our philosophy has always been customer-centric, and we wanted to take it further. With Gainsight Customer OS, we’re able to listen, engage, educate, and empower our customers in a way that scales. Each product offers a unique function: Customer Success for relationship management, PX for gathering and acting on product insights, Customer Education to streamline learning, and now Community, where customers can come together, share knowledge, and support one another. Bringing all four together was a natural evolution for us.

Harri Launches Customer Community

Q: The launch of Harri’s Customer Community is now here! Can you tell us what you looked forward to the most with the new Community?

Dan Maimone: Absolutely. Our community is a place where customers can connect not just with us, but with each other. We’re anticipating that this will create a strong, peer-driven support system that enhances the Harri experience. Customers will be able to ask questions, exchange insights, and share feedback directly, giving us a direct line to their needs. It’s like bringing our customers into the same room—it’s powerful.

The platform brings together everything our users need in one easy-to-navigate space, including courses from Harri Academy, quick access to support, industry insights, and a dedicated area for the latest releases to keep users informed on new products and features. We will also soon introduce Community Groups and Beta Testing Opportunities within the platform, allowing users to connect over shared interests, participate in exclusive feature previews, and provide direct feedback to shape future developments.

With the combined integrations from Gainsight, Zendesk, and AI-driven personalization, we’re providing a seamless, highly collaborative environment that empowers our customers. This launch is a major step in our commitment to helping them succeed and thrive.

A More Personalized, Meaningful Customer Journey

Q: How will this four-product integration change your customer journey?

Dan Maimone: It changes everything. From onboarding to ongoing support and growth, each interaction is more personalized and meaningful. With so many insights at our fingertips, we can anticipate needs, respond to feedback in real-time, and help customers reach their goals faster. It’s a holistic approach that just wouldn’t be possible without a suite like Gainsight’s.

We’ve already seen so much forward progress. We improved our CSM reach by streamlining interactions and workflows. We gained insights into customer behaviors using learning analytics to understand and predict customer needs and responses. We tailored success plans by combining insights from CS and PX. We’ve enhanced operational efficiencies by integrating advanced AI tools and automated solutions. We’ve driven outcome-based adoption by linking product usage directly to customer success metrics. Now, we tie it all together by building a Customer Community as a single destination for our customers to connect, share best practices, provide feedback, and build a stronger relationship with the product.

Q: That’s amazing! As an innovative, all-in-one Gainsight customer, what advice would you give to other organizations considering a similar approach?

Dan Maimone: Start by truly understanding your customers’ pain points and goals. Once you know where you can have the most impact, look for tools that help deliver that value at every stage of the customer journey. For us, Gainsight provided the right ecosystem, and that alignment has been key. Don’t hesitate to go all in—being comprehensive in customer success pays off!

Next Steps for Harri and Gainsight

Q: Finally, what are Harri’s next steps with Gainsight’s platform?

Dan Maimone: Now that we’re live with the full Gainsight Customer OS suite, our next focus is driving engagement within the community and exploring more automation opportunities to deliver value at scale. We’re just scratching the surface, and with Gainsight, we feel equipped to keep growing alongside our customers.

Learn more about the team’s journey in our case study, How the Combination of CS, PX and CE Is Empowering Harri’s Teams and Customers.

The post Unlocking the Power of Customer-Driven Growth With Dan Maimone, Director of CS, Harri appeared first on Gainsight Software.

That’s why we make implementation simple, effective, and fast, getting your CS framework up and running in as little as eight weeks, delivering verified outcomes to your clients in as little as four months.

We’re excited to share how our Professional Services team has been addressing implementation hesitation, helping clients like Amelia and Abnormal Security swiftly and successfully stand up their CS frameworks.

So, what makes Gainsight’s implementation so effective and well-received? Here 5 key themes that the Gainsight team weaves through our approach:

1. Quick Setup with Industry Best Practices

The Gainsight PS team provides the tools, assets, and best practices necessary for clients to rapidly establish their CS frameworks. We aim to not just get you up and running but to do so in record time. Need to go live in a few weeks? We got you. Need to start with a more mature framework? We got you.

The bottom line: We deliver an end-to-end Customer Success framework in an estimated 8 weeks.

2. Meeting Clients Where They Are

Whether clients are in an early stage of their customer success journey or part of a multi-team organization, our implementation experts are equipped to customize solutions to meet distinct needs. We cater to both simple frameworks and complex cross-functional collaborations to ensure everyone is aligned and engaged.

The graphic above outlines the foundational outcomes of implementing Gainsight CS, which are driven by the implementation workflow listed below. The beauty of this CS framework? You can start small and scale. Early-stage companies that need to start with a basic framework can grow as they go, and large, mutli-product organizations can easily collaborate across many functional areas from the get-go.

3. Proven Track Record

Our implementation experiences are underpinned by industry-leading IP, allowing us to deliver highly successful outcomes. With an outstanding Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 71 for our Professional Services, we’re proud that our clients recognize our commitment to excellence. Just take a look below at what one long-time Gainsight user shared.

With Gainsight CS, you’re not just connecting systems and data; you’re creating an environment where customer outcomes flourish, backed by our dedication to continuous innovation and improvement.

4. Rapid Results

Our average time to verified outcome is approximately four months. This means that clients are not only up and running quickly, but they also begin to see meaningful, verified progress towards their goals in a short timeframe.

5. Speed to Full CS Framework

We’re proud to say that we can deliver a full end-to-end CS framework in an estimated eight weeks. This fast rollout ensures that your team can start focusing on delivering exceptional customer experiences as soon as possible.

Take a look below at what one user says about getting set up for success with Gainsight from the get-go.

It’s natural to have concerns about the complexities of implementing a new system, but as evidenced by our clients’ experiences, Gainsight’s Professional Services team is dedicated to making the process as smooth and beneficial as possible. We provide the necessary assets, guidance, and support to facilitate a successful transformation—helping you deliver on your promise to your customers.

If you’re considering a new CS framework but you’re hesitant due to implementation fears, we invite you to join the ranks of satisfied customers like Amelia and Abnormal Security who have experienced first-hand the simplicity and effectiveness of Gainsight’s onboarding services. The journey to enhanced customer success doesn’t have to be complex—let us help you simplify it!

For more information on making your Customer Success implementation a success, don’t hesitate to reach out to us today. 

Learn More

Want to learn more about what makes a best-in-class customer success platform? Check out the Gartner Magic Quadrant for CSPs.

The post Demystifying the Implementation Journey: How Gainsight Makes Customer Success Simple appeared first on Gainsight Software.