Item: Gainsight CS
Rating: 10
Author: Ian Cummings

Support Rating

Gainsight is a great tool and I know there is a lot of potential to get better. I have a background in startups where there is a lot of data passing between customers, departments, and people. A lot of it can be lost and/or cluttered, but with Gainsight you are able to capture that data that passes between customers and their trading partners.

From that data you can isolate what you are looking for and run a report that gives you insight. You also have Call To Actions which are great ways to stay proactive, sometimes I think I would feel lost without these. The customer health scores are great ways to get a pulse on the health of an account and if utilized correctly you can be very accurate. Dashboards are great as well because they can give you a view into specific types of reports about your accounts that can help you stay on top of your book of business. If I want to view my book of businesses overall health score I can view that, if I need to see a revenue pattern I can view that.

The tool is great and I am excited for the improvements.

Pros and Cons

We have proactive insights into each of our customers accounts, for example when there are new enablement projects starting/finishing we are notified by Call To Actions (CTAs). A CTA can help our department to stay in front of any issues/changes the customer is facing.
Another major feature is the ability to pull reports from that data flow between our customers and their trading partners. Our CSM team can use these insights and reports to provide powerful business impacting views into what is working for our customers and what areas can be improved.
The final main feature of Gainsight is the ability to keep a log of all the interactions that happen between our customers and the CSM department, by updating the timeline we are able to understand what has happened with the customer as accounts change between CSMs.

I would recommend that there are more ways for Gainsight to capture the communication between the CSM and our customers. Currently we have to manually track the communication and as a result things do get missed or are not deemed as "important". If we have an easy way to log a call, email, or presentation it would improve our teams insight into the customer journey.
I think it would be great to have the communication within Gainsight to be visible to other departments that only use Salesforce. This would give our company more transparency between the departments and one central area of information.
I would like to have an ability to work completely out of Gainsight and not have to jump back and forth into Salesforce. So if a case is updated it would be great to open that case in Gainsight and then if I need to send a message to the analyst I can do so with Gainsight.

Executive Visibility

Our managers and executives can use Gainsight to view the entire departments book of business, with that information they can identify areas of opportunities. They can see view specific industries', or teams and from there find the low hanging fruit or show the difference between regions and countries. By having an entire view on the pulse and health of your customers I think you will find great insights.

Return on Investment

Improve customers health, we have been able to stay proactive and on top of cases that are being worked by the CSM or Support team and ensure that task get completed.
We have been able to improve retention due to Gainsight by showing value and drive the time it takes to resolve a case.
Revenue waterfall and increase upsell is being utilized even more, and I look forward to how Gainsight can improve this section.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce

While Gainsight works with Salesforce, I know that at my past company we only used Salesforce to support our customers. It was not the best tool because the checks and balances that Gainsight provides are lacking in Salesforce. If you are serious about customers health and success I can say that having both Gainsight and Salesforce you will increase your production and results.

Likelihood to Recommend

Currently at SPS Commerce we use Gainsight within the Customer Success department. Gainsight provides the CSM department with many benefits. We have proactive insights into each of our customers accounts, for example when there are new enablement projects starting/finishing we are notified by Call To Actions (CTAs). A CTA can help our department to stay in front of any issues/changes the customer is facing.

Another major feature is the ability to pull reports from that data flow between our customers and their trading partners. Our CSM team can use these insights and reports to provide powerful business impacting views into what is working for our customers and what areas can be improved.

The final main feature of Gainsight is the ability to keep a log of all the interactions that happen between our customers and the CSM department, by updating the timeline we are able to understand what has happened with the customer as accounts change between CSMs.

The Power of Gainsight

Overall Satisfaction with Gainsight