Early Use Gainsight Review
Updated August 18, 2017
Early Use Gainsight Review
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Gainsight
Currently used only by customer success organization.
Solves the problems of: hard to find data in SFDC; need for health information, both subjective and objective; need for efficient and automated workflow for customer contact; need for alerts and triggers for activities; real-time info visibility back into SFDC for the rest of the org.
Solves the problems of: hard to find data in SFDC; need for health information, both subjective and objective; need for efficient and automated workflow for customer contact; need for alerts and triggers for activities; real-time info visibility back into SFDC for the rest of the org.
- Automated workflow and activity creation, with a centralized dashboard for CSMs to manage their work, allows CSMs to spend their time on more valuable work
- Flexible health scoring based on many factors including quantifiable product use and subjective aspects like relationship status allows us to fine tune and focus our energy where it's needed most
- Ability to view rolled-up information on accounts that have multiple sub-accounts and see all relevant data within the 360 even for simple accounts, means less time searching and manually compiling data to get an overall view
- Every CTA requires a task to sync to SFDC, and sometimes the CTA and task are really the same thing (managing an escalation, for example)
- Reporting seems somewhat limited, including visualization - but could be our lack of maturity
- Logging activity from different places shows in different areas, tagged differently, and reported to SFDC differently. Means CSMs have to make a lot of decisions on where and how to log - leads to wasted time and inconsistency
Our vice president uses Customer 360 daily. No other execs in the org use Gainsight at this time. We were charged with proving its worth before more licenses will be purchased.
- Increased efficiency
- Haven't used long enough to recognize more quantifiable outcomes
- Automated workflow is crucial
- Automated and flexible health score is key
- 360 view and ease of use are critical
- A tool designed for actual CSM work, not for sales
Gainsight CS Feature Ratings
Using Gainsight
7 - Customer Success and Customer Experience
1 - BI/data skills; process improvement mindset; able to simplify complex ideas and implement into the platform; ability to collaborate with other teams to get data flowing;
- at-a-glance visibility to centralized customer information
- ability to track and score product usage
- workflow management for CSM team
- sharing CS information across the org via integration with SFDC
- We're not quite there yet, still focused on the basics
Evaluating Gainsight and Competitors
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
Gainsight provided features that were not present in other platforms, such as automation, native integration with SFDC, and a centralized workspace for CSMs. If competitors offered some of these, they were not as easy to use.
Gainsight as a company is considered a leader in not only platform features, but also thought leadership in the Customer Success space. Having access to this level of partnership and best practice information - from process to scoring health - is very important.
Gainsight as a company is considered a leader in not only platform features, but also thought leadership in the Customer Success space. Having access to this level of partnership and best practice information - from process to scoring health - is very important.
I wouldn't change what we did, nor would I change the outcome. We spent an appropriate amount of time, energy, and analysis for our situation, and were thoughtful about not just our current needs but where we wanted to mature in the future. Gainsight met our needs, and their view on the future aligns well with our strategy overall.
Gainsight Implementation
- Implemented in-house
Yes - We were in a state of transformation internally when we first purchased and implemented Gainsight. To that end, we specifically implemented very basic functionality initially to provide quick wins, and items that would not limit our flexibility and allow us to shift and mature as we better defined our own customer journeys and internal processes.
My company practices Agile software delivery methods, so we simply had a backlog of items to build, then demonstrated the features every week. As we matured, we groomed our backlog of work to align with changes in our needs, so it was more 'continuous delivery' that was able to pivot with our needs rather than in structured "phases". We were thoughtful about future needs from the start though, and knew there would be some significant shifts (such as moving to MDA) to take up in the future.
My company practices Agile software delivery methods, so we simply had a backlog of items to build, then demonstrated the features every week. As we matured, we groomed our backlog of work to align with changes in our needs, so it was more 'continuous delivery' that was able to pivot with our needs rather than in structured "phases". We were thoughtful about future needs from the start though, and knew there would be some significant shifts (such as moving to MDA) to take up in the future.
Change management was minimal - Our change was not due to the Gainsight Implementation, but due to our team formation and alignment on things unrelated to the platform such as customer journey, team growth, account alignment.
- We haven't encountered any issues during implementation
Gainsight Support
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | Need to explain problems multiple times |
Yes - Our company reported an issue that turned out to be considered a bug, I think....but we had to describe the situation several times before getting accurate feedback on what we were experiencing. We did get different answers from different people within Gainsight - it was a newer feature, so perhaps the team was not fully up-to-speed on all the nuances.
We also submitted something that looked like a bug, but was just something that was not well communicated when the feature was rolled out.
We also submitted something that looked like a bug, but was just something that was not well communicated when the feature was rolled out.
We have had many questions related to Scorecard 2.0 and Relationships. Some were answered by Support, and some were answered by our Implementation dude (who is great). Support team never hesitates to get on a call with me and our Sales Ops team to explain features, and our Implementation dude meets with us every week to help us understand use cases and best practices.
Using Gainsight
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar | None |
- Cockpit - the concept is simple and intuitive
- Customer 360 - this has been a lifesaver for CSMs, considering we had to look in approximately 17 places across several systems to gather basic information on each account.
- Copilot - powerlists and so forth are more complex than expected
- Scorecards - there have been great improvements, but we're using usage data and the combination of the data and the switch to Scorecard 2.0 has been a little longer than expected.
- Reporting - not that hard to use per se, but more difficult and less powerful/flexible than desired. Would love to see improvements in this area!