Customer success playbooks have become such a key aspect of organizations in recent times. There was a time when there was nothing like the term – customer success in the professional sphere. But now, we cannot live with these so-called playbooks. So, what exactly has changed in recent times?  

Several organizations have started to use playbooks to make the mundane tasks of their CSMs easier. But why is playbook automation said to play such a crucial role in the life of a CSM? Is there a way a CSM can survive without playbook intelligence? Let us try to get an answer to this question in this write-up. 

What is a customer success playbook?

A customer success playbook is a tool that helps customer success teams handle repeated processes in a definite and structured manner. Customer success playbooks help scale operations, align processes, and be aware of customer needs.

Things that can happen when you do not opt for playbook automation in your organization 

Customer success playbook automation is helpful to improve customer retention. When you do not opt for playbook automation, you might as well be ruining your chances of customer success.

1. Cannot explicitly leverage best practices guide 

Without a customer success playbook tool, you cannot use existing best practices. With playbook tools, you can repeat customer success instances. You can boost efficiency and repeat tasks, set triggers, and increase customer advocacy. You can understand why churn occurs with customer success playbooks. Factors like-

• Product adoption
• Personnel changes
• Budgetary changes
• Disruptive practices

This means a customer success playbook tool can help increase successful outcomes and reduce chances of failure. Customer success playbooks can help you automate customer success actions like sending an email, calculating risk, and creating tasks.

2. Deliver inconsistent outcomes 

Playbook automation helps deliver successful, similar outcomes. Without playbook intelligence, you will deliver inconsistent outcomes. You can ensure no information slips through cracks with playbook automation. Playbook intelligence standardizes processes and workflows for a consistent customer experience. Customer success playbooks can help deliver amazing outcomes for customer success managers. Without customer success playbook automation, you can either over-deliver and set expectations or under-deliver to disappoint the customer.

3. The team workflows are ill-defined and lack automation 

Lack of playbook automation can make team management tough. Since all team members perform different tasks in a process, it can lead to confusion. To streamline this activity, playbook intelligence is important. Customer success playbooks can help manage everything about an account. Playbook intelligence simplifies dashboard management, improves task allocation, enhances cross-collaboration between accounts/ CSMs, and regulates customer segmentation.

4. Loss of efficiency and lack of timely guidance for the CSMs 

Playbook intelligence can lead to timely action by CSMs. If a company does not have customer success intelligence, there can be a lack of timely action. Lack of playbook intelligence can mean loss of efficiency. Playbook scenarios can be reviewed to ensure they meet time-need constraints. Customer success playbooks are effective in offering CSMs better processes and aligning the processes with required outcomes.

5. Lack of organization of success play 

Success plays can be considered crucial for customer success. Customer success playbooks improve how processes work with customer success managers. Customer success managers can improve touchpoints for communication. You can align customer success playbooks to achieve objectives. You can provide your team with prescriptive guidance in a prompt fashion. This will help scale operations and escalate important tasks.

6. Cannot assign based on your criteria 

Lack of playbook automation leads to an inability to assign customers as per designed criteria. For example- If you are grouping customers based on industry, you can have a specific playbook. This playbook automates this, ensuring that you are grouping customers in a way predecided.

Why Are Customer Success Playbooks Important for Customer Success?

Customer outcomes can be improved with customer success playbooks. Here are the benefits of CS playbooks and playbook intelligence-

• Since everything is automated, customer experience is improved. You know for certain that customers will get the initial email from the customer success onboarding playbook.
• Improved customer experience leads to lower churn rates.
• Customer success playbooks help increase upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
• Customer success playbooks also increase customer lifetime value (CLV). This improves revenue from an account eventually.

Playbooks can be used for a ton of best practices. Some of these include-

• Ascertain success goals for every stage of the journey
• Plan the customer journey better
• Blend human and digital customer engagement strategies
• Customer segmentation and message delivery accordingly
• Meeting new requirements and goals through frequent updation

Final Words 

Playbook automation is a critical aspect for the smooth functioning of CSMs in an organization. As you can see from the pointers mentioned above, these are some of the things that can happen when you do not opt for playbook intelligence in your organization.  

Playbook intelligence is now considered vital for customer success. It can be a huge differentiating factor for businesses to improve processes, reduce silos, amplify results, and enhance outcomes. You can implement playbooks for every customer journey- from onboarding, usage, and eventual advocacy.

Using the right customer success playbook tool is essential to drive the impact. SmartKarrot’s customer success playbooks are capable of providing real-time alerts, improving customer touchpoint management, working as an early warning system, and more.

You can also monitor the overall customer journey, easily manage how CSMs work and get notified in case of customer account change issues.

Designed to empower your CS team, SmartKarrot’s CS playbook intelligence tool or success plays help you be aware of what your team is doing, how your accounts are performing, and how you can improve their performance.

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