Use Cockpit to Manage Daily Routine
Overview
This guide describes how CSMs can use Cockpit and Calls to Action to get organized, take action, and manage customer risks on a daily basis.
Additional Resources:
- CTAs, Tasks, & Playbooks Overview
- How a Gainsight CSM Uses Cockpit (9 min. video)
- What Makes a Good CTA (article written by a Gainsight customer)
Use Cockpit to Get Organized
Sort your Cockpit
Along with checking email and voicemail in the morning, one of the first things we recommend CSMs do is review new CTAs in Cockpit. In the Cockpit List View, use the Group By option to group CTAs by either Status or Created Date. This displays any new CTAs you have not yet taken action on.
When you group Cockpit by “Status”, CSMs can see which CTAs are New, a Work In Progress, or Waiting on Customer to complete a task.
Grouping by “Created Date” provides a similar view, and shows which CTAs were created today, in the last 7 days, or more than 7 days ago.
Note: You may see other CSM's CTAs in the list view, if you are the owner of one or more of the underlying tasks on their CTA.
Align CTAs with existing calendar events
We also recommend CSMs work to align non-critical CTAs to their existing calendar events with their customers. As an example, if a CSM is meeting with a customer on Friday, they will adjust the due date on a new non-urgent CTA or one of its tasks, and simply add that topic to the planned meeting agenda.
To adjust the due date on a CTA or CTA task:
- Click the CTA name or CTA task name.
- In the CTA or task detail screen, click the calendar icon and select the desired due date.
Change the status of a CTA
Updating the status of CTAs is a sure fire way to stay organized.
To adjust the Status of a CTA or CTA task:
- Click the CTA or CTA task name.
- In the detail screen, select the current status.
Manually add CTAs for any new risks, opportunities, or events that may surface
CSMs can manually create a CTA in Cockpit for any situation that is not tied to an automated CTA (that is, Create a Company risk CTA if the customer filed for bankruptcy). We don’t recommend creating manual CTAs for all emails and voicemails, but rather just for critical pieces of information and risks.
For instructions on how to create a manual CTA or task, refer Create Manual Calls to Action (CTAs) & Tasks.
Use Cockpit to Take Action
Depending on the volume of CTAs a CSM may have on a given day, it can be effective to use the Search CTA option to focus in on customers you know need attention. This is a crucial step to ensure that high priority customers do not slip through the cracks and provides the bigger picture of all the open CTAs for a given customer.
To use the Search CTA function in Cockpit, input the customer’s name (or a key term) that you want to see all CTAs for in the “Search CTA” box in the upper right-hand side of Cockpit.
Use Cockpit to Manage Your Work
There are a number of ways to use Cockpit to proactively manage workload:
- In Group By, select Due Date to see which CTAs should take priority for a given day.
- Close tasks quickly and delegate tasks (when appropriate) to other members of the organization.
- Use Timeline Activity from the CTA detail view to log an activity (for the particular account or relationship, and tied to the specific CTA) on the Timeline sub-tab. The Timeline functionality in the CTA detail view is the same as in C360/R360 > Timeline. You can create tasks for an activity in the Timeline tab and these tasks are added to the same CTA. For more information on Timeline Activity, refer Use C360 or R360 Timeline to log Activities.
- Use Chatter to enter comments, simple notes, and @ mention co-workers in the CTA detail screen (when appropriate) to improve cross-functional collaboration.
- Use the “Snooze” option in the CTA detail screen when you legitimately cannot take action. For example, when a customer is waiting on a new release and the CSM wants to confirm what we rolled out meets their needs. Note that “Snoozing” a CTA removes it from the Cockpit view, but it will still appear on the C360 page in the Cockpit section. (You can also click the filter icon in the upper right and select snoozed CTAs.)
- If a CSM has scheduled time off, use the Cockpit Calendar View to identify, and potentially delegate, the CTAs that may be coming due during your absence.
Close CTAs and Tasks
To close a CTA (and its tasks):
- Click the CTA name to access the detail view, and update the CTA Status to the appropriate final status. Once you close a CTA, it will appear crossed off in the Cockpit List View. When you refresh the List View, the closed CTA will disappear.
OR,
- Hover on the CTA Owner icon to access the close CTA checkbox in the list view.
To close a task:
- Click the task name and update the status to Closed in the task detail view, OR
- Hover on the Task Owner icon to access the close Task checkbox.
To view Closed CTAs, click the filter icon on the right, in the default filter Status Report Category, select Closed Won and/or Closed Lost. Then click APPLY.
Use Cockpit for Risk Management
At Gainsight, we have implemented a Risk Management Framework to enable our CSMs to address risks using a combination of CTAs and scorecards. The framework has four key objectives:
- Address early warning signs of risk.
- Incorporate the CSMs judgment into the assessment of the risk level.
- Establish a common view of risk across the organization.
- Hold other departments accountable for addressing risks.
The following explains how Gainsight CSMs use Cockpit to operationalize our Risk Management Framework.
Sort by Type or Reason
Gainsight CSMs address customer risks by grouping CTAs by either “Type” or “Reason”. This allows CSMs to easily organize tasks and gain greater visibility into what risks exist across their customers.
Grouping by “Type” allows CSMs to see all “Risk” CTAs in one group, which provides a clear picture of which customers need attention most.
Grouping by “Reason” sorts all CTAs by their CTA Reason (i.e. Support Risk, Implementation Risk, Bugs Risk, etc.). While this may group Risk, Event, Opportunity or Objective CTAs together, it provides CSMs with the ability to drill down into reason-specific CTAs that are identified in the Risk Management Framework.
Sort by Name
A new sort option called Name is introduced, which allows CSMs to sort their CTAs by the Name of the CTA. If required, CSMs can modify the order from ascending to descending.
To sort the CTAs by Name:
- Navigate to Cockpit list view page.
- Select Name from the Sort By dropdown list. This will sort the CTAs in ascending order, and if required you can change the order.
Note: This functionality is also applicable to 360 > Cockpit.
Chatter to Communicate the Status of Risk CTAs
One of the most effective ways Gainsight CSMs communicate the status of a current customer risk to the broader organization is by leveraging Chatter from within the CTA. With Chatter, a CSM is able to let the team know the status of a specific risk, request assistance from another team, or loop in any additional stakeholders.
To use Chatter within Cockpit, your Admin must first enable Chatter. For more information, refer Chatter: Integration Overview. To post to Chatter:
- Click the CTA that you want to post a Chatter update to.
- Scroll down to the Chatter section on the CTA detail screen, and enter your update.
- Optional: Use the @mention option to tag a specific colleague in your chatter post.
- Click Share.
Use the Important Flag to Escalate Customer Risks
One way Gainsight CSMs call attention to customer risks is by using the Important flag within Cockpit. When a customer risk is “flagged”, it signals that a CSM needs help with the issue or would like to escalate the issue to a manager or executive. To flag a CTA in Cockpit, simply click the flag icon to the left of the identified CTA.
Cockpit also provides the ability to sort by all “Flagged” CTAs. Click the filter icon and in the default filter ‘Flagged’, select the checkbox. Then Click APPLY.
Notice that when you view flagged CTAs in Cockpit, you will see all of your flagged Risk, Event, Opportunity, and Objective CTAs.
Review Risks in Operational Meetings
Another way that Gainsight CSMs use Cockpit and CTAs to manage customer risks is through operational meetings. For example, we hold a weekly Support Risk Meeting, which is attended by both CSMs with flagged customer risks and our Support team. The agenda for this meeting is driven by all open, flagged support risks.
To view the open, flagged risk CTAs in Cockpit:
- Click the filter icon on the right.
- In the default filter ‘Flagged’, select the checkbox.
- In the default filter CTA Type Report Category, select Risk .
- In the default filter Status Report Category, select Open.
- Click APPLY.
Review Risks in 1:1 Meetings
At Gainsight, CSMs review their risks, and specifically their flagged risks, with their managers during weekly 1:1 meetings. This provides the perfect forum to discuss progress towards resolving customer risks, developing next steps or determining if further escalation is needed.
