After a sale, CS teams aim to help the new customer achieve success. Customer success playbooks enable Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and their teams to automate their customer success processes allowing them to do so much more in less time.

What are CS Playbooks?

Playbooks are tools that allow customer success teams to handle recurring or repeated processes in a more defined and guided manner. Playbooks allow you to scale processes, align teams, and stay one step ahead of the customer’s needs. CS playbooks make sure your customer success best practices are standardized and operationalized.

SmartKarrot Success Plays

SmartKarrot CS playbooks, or Success Plays, allow teams to boost their efficiency across accounts no matter where they are within their journey. Success Plays allow you to create tasks and set triggers to complete processes, all within the tool. CSMs can use templates to create CS playbooks and save existing processes as templates for future use. Success Plays also make it easy to associate activities and assign them to team members. Example processes that clients have turned into success plays include onboarding, escalation, implementation, advocacy, and more. Processes such as these have been helpful in reducing churn rates, increasing renewals, and optimizing customer satisfaction.

A Success Play Template

To create a success play template, you can choose from pre-defined categories on the SmartKarrot platform, create a new template that is a modified version of the existing template, or create them from scratch. CSMs can add and edit templates directly in the tool without needing to upload from external resources. Some of the Success Play templates already available within SmartKarrot include:

Renewal: For accounts that are up for renewal and need to be nudged.

Save: For accounts where the risk of churning is imminent. They know the product, its value, and features, but CSMs will need to pull out all stops.

Churn risk: For accounts that may be at risk of churning because they have shown low engagement or haven’t shown signs of product adoption.

Upsell: For accounts that are used often and already understand and benefit from the value of it.

Get well: Accounts with issues that are visible and identified. There is a need to identify parameters that will make sure these accounts are rectified.

SmartKarrot’s Success Play templates are reusable and can be redesigned for any future activity.

Account assignments or associations can happen as you create new Success Play templates.

Any admin, CSM, or Customer Success Leader (CSL) who has access to the platform can create a Success Play. Several Success Plays can be created on a single template and can be modified depending on the particular requirements.

Highlighted Features of the SmartKarrot’s Success Plays

SmartKarrot has developed CS playbooks that exceed those of other playbooks with features that help you manage everything from creation to execution right within the tool. Specific features to help CSMs and their teams include:

• Dashboard with the overall performance of all accounts
• Level of engagement among CSMs to allocate tasks effectively
• Status of each Success Play, including delays or progress
• Cross-collaboration on tasks across CSMs and Success Plays
• Easy to assign or unassign a playbook, making it dynamic
• Financial snapshots of accounts
• Automation of customer renewals for durations of 30, 60 or 90 days 
• Automated survey campaigns to simplify customer engagement

How to Create and/or Edit a Success Play Template?

Step 1: Overview

The first step in creating or editing a Success Play template is to choose a category, such as escalations, risk, induction, onboarding, etc. or add a new category as you see fit. Then, name the template and choose whether it will be triggered manually or event-based. At this point, you can enable it to allow it to start being used or keep it “disabled” to keep modifying it before it is ready to use.

Step 2: Activities

The next step is to identify the activities for this particular Success Play template and what type of activity it is such as “task” or “touchpoint.”  Example activities are training, customer education, or configuration of platform to name a few. If you have an expected date of completion, you can also choose how many days it should be completed from its inception. . You can also add the collaborator for the task or activity, if applicable.

Step 3: Summary

Step 3 is to view the summary of the entire Success Play to ensure it is correct.

How to Create Success Play Instances

Step 1: Overview

In this step, you need to define the basics of the instance. The instance is usually inherited from a template. Then, the description about the instance needs to be added. A user can also decide if the instance or playbook needs to be repeated or one-time.

Step 2: Activities: Tasks & touchpoints

Here, you need to figure the activities that will complete the success play.

Step 3: Assign or review accounts

In this step, CSMs can assign or re-assign accounts. They can even unassign accounts. They can see the account health score including ARR to help ascertain the health of the account health. You can also manage assignments.

Step 4: Summary

Here you can review the assignments and activities. You can also get the due dates, tasks, CSMs and progress of the assignment. If a task is redundant, you can mark it as not applicable. That makes sure it does not affect the progress of a task.

How the SmartKarrot CS Playbook Feature Helps CS Teams and Companies

SmartKarrot CS playbook feature allows customer success teams to define and automate their most effective processes. It allows CS teams to:

• Have a greater understanding of customer churn risk, possibility for escalation, scope for upsell
• Be better prepared to understand opportunities and predict churn or lifecycle events
• Create templates easily with prescriptive workflows
• Understand specific account health with a high-level of transparency
• Come to logical conclusions about accounts backed by data and analysis
• Create weekly, bi-weekly, or other regular touchpoints with customers to improve engagement levels
• Save time, reduce effort, and improve chances of renewals and upselling through the automation
• Understand reliable projections for growth (ARR) from the existing customer base
• Optimize customer experience as teams are aware of account status via customer alerts

Different Types of CS Playbook Templates at SmartKarrot

Here are a selected few CS playbook templates created by SmartKarrot that you can download without paying a single penny!

Adoption Playbook

Your customers’ use of your product determines adoption in customer success. However, the breadth, depth, and quality of this use will differ. You’ll need to devise a plan to know how to appeal to your frequent users and your less frequent customers. This is where the adoption playbook template from SmartKarrot can come in handy.

Download the adoption playbook template for free.

Cross sell Playbook

Create cross-sells that often alter and offer something: Unique (Exclusive products), Highly Valuable (Deeper discounts), Limited (in number or availability length), and/or Personalized in the customer portal or on the cart page. This is where the cross sell playbook from SmartKarrot can come into the picture.

Download the cross sell playbook template for free.

Onboarding Playbook

Your new consumers need to know how to get started after the sale is completed, including what to do, how to do it, and how to benefit from your product or service. You have won them as lifelong clients when they recognize and appreciate how you enhance their lives.

Customers will be forced to learn through trial and error if you don’t have a strategy for onboarding them. It is a stressful experience that frequently results in buyer’s remorse and, eventually, customer turnover. This is where the onboarding playbook from SmartKarrot can come in handy.

Download the onboarding playbook template for free.

Upsell Playbook

Reaching a customer’s goals and intended improvement is the quickest approach to secure a renewal, upsell, or introduction of a referral. Customer success teams may, however, lose sight of their objectives and turn instead to implementation and training.

The success cycle should be centered on these results to emphasize goals and targeted improvements. Resetting target goals and goal achievement should be the first step in the transition from sales to customer success using a Mutual Success Plan, followed by onboarding and account strategy calls. This is where upsell playbook from SmartKarrot can become a guiding force and help you achieve your objective.

Download the onboarding playbook template for free.35

Bottom Line

SmartKarrot Success Plays allow customers to have a consistent experience with your company and allow CSMs to manage accounts much more easily. CS teams get regular feedback about products and manage multiple accounts easily, while reducing the chances of churn. SuccessPlays simplify CS teams’ work so resources can be allocated where they are more needed. With CS Success plays, customer success and customer-facing teams will achieve greater customer satisfaction and increased customer success.

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