At Gainsight, our CSM team was looking for the best way to track accomplishment of Premier Plan deliverables within the Gainsight application. By using Success Plans, our CSM team is able to (1) report back to customers on what we delivered and when, and (2) ensure the team is able to keep track of what’s complete vs. outstanding. The Success Plan includes 8 high-level objectives and spans one year.

See below for details on how to set up a similar process in your own organization:

Preparation & Timing

  • All customers who purchase our Premier Package will have a Premier Success Plan

  • Plan includes 8 deliverables, aka, Objectives

  • Success Plan is initiated after contract signing and lasts for one year

  • CSMs will review plan progress with the customer during each EBR (2x/year), or potentially at the end of each quarter

  • (Optional) Create Playbooks to support the Objectives

Admin Success Plan Configuration

1. In Administration > Success Plan Configuration, create a new Success Plan type. For example, we called the new plan type “Premier.”


2. In Administration > Objective Category, add categories as needed. In our example, we added categories for “Premier Deliverable” and “EBR.”  


3. Create a Success Plan template and apply it to the aforementioned Success Plan type.
 We called the template “Premier Package Deliverables.”

C360 SFDC.png

4. In the template, create Objectives. Example Objectives:


  • 1 Train-the-Trainer Session for your team leaders
  • Executive Business Review (1st Annual)
  • Annual Risk Management Best Practice Session
  • Annual Opportunities Best Practice Session
  • Annual Lifecycle Best Practice Session
  • Annual Dashboards Best Practice Session
  • 1 CS Strategy Design Session on topic of your choice
  • Executive Business Review (2nd annual)

5. Under each Objective, enter relevant tasks as needed, or let your CSMs create these per customer Success Plan as appropriate.

For more detailed instruction on the above administrative steps, refer Configure Success Plans for the C360.

CSM Creates Customer Success Plan

After the Admin configures Success Plans, and the appropriate template, the CSM can create a Success Plan for a specific customer. Refer Create Success Plans in the C360 for details on how to build an individual customer’s Success Plan, including how to apply a template.

Sharing Success Plans with Customers

To export your Success Plan as a PowerPoint presentation, see this Exporting Success Plans.

Automating Milestones for Completed Objectives

At Gainsight, we configured a rule to automatically set a milestone on the customer timeline when each plan objective is completed. For instructions on how to configure the business rule, refer to Tutorial - Creating Milestones via the Rules Engine.

Success Plan Reporting

For assistance with building reports on Success Plan data, refer to Reporting on Success Plans.