GoTo Deploys Pooled CSM Model to Deliver Personalized Customer Success at Scale

GoTo is the company making IT easy, anywhere, with remote management and support and business communications software unified with one admin solution. Their Customer Success team was leveraging calls to action (CTAs) to address, manage, and mitigate risk, but manual processes were causing inefficiencies and limiting the reach of their customer success managers (CSMs). Using Gainsight automation, GoTo implemented a Pooled CSM model that revamped their CTA processes and email campaigns, delivering a personalized customer experience to thousands of small business customers —with just eight CSMs.

GoTo was looking for a way to enhance their service for a segment of their small business customers who required support from the Customer Success team. The thousands of customers in this segment were served by just eight CSMs, who had to manually manage dividing and addressing as many as 1,200 CTAs per week using a process that was time-consuming and inefficient.

Using a Pooled CSM Model, GoTo’s group of CSMs could more effectively share customer success responsibilities instead of maintaining 1:1 relationships with every customer. By deploying this 1:many strategy, GoTo’s goal was to scale personalized customer experiences while maximizing the effectiveness of the existing team. To implement this approach, GoTo turned to the capabilities of Gainsight CS.

The Pooled CSM model from Gainsight allowed GoTo to automatically assign CTAs to their CSM pool, replacing their tedious manual process. Gainsight also allowed them to mass edit CTAs to quickly reassign large quantities of work as needed.

Now, when a CTA is assigned, they use a Round-Robin distribution algorithm from Gainsight to assign the CTA to the appropriate CSM and notify them to take action by the assigned due date.

GoTo uses Gainsight to trigger CTAs based on health scores, NPS detractors and promoters, and other criteria. In doing so, they have enabled their CSM team to become more proactive and less reactive. GoTo also used Gainsight Journey Orchestrator to automate emails from their Pooled CSM segment, launching a series of quarterly newsletters created by CSMs. They sent about 8,000 newsletters in the first batch, and then another 8,000 the following week. This campaign is another element of the Pooled CSM model, which blends digital and human engagements into a single customer journey.

Gainsight’s seamless integration with Salesforce has been crucial to the success of the Pooled CSM model.

Implementing a Pooled CSM model using Gainsight has resulted in a time savings of five hours per week for GoTo’s CSM team. More importantly, the streamlined process has increased morale and allowed them to focus on more high-value tasks.

The impact of the pooled model can also be seen in the team’s increased productivity and reach. CSMs can process 1,200 CTAs per week across various risk factors, which have given CSMs deeper insights into true customer risks.

GoTo’s Journey Orchestrator campaign has been a runaway success, achieving an open rate of 33%.

With high open rates and the right content, not only is GoTo able to reach and engage with more customers, but their customers are engaging with and realizing value from their newsletters.

Finally, their many detailed Gainsight Dashboards provide easy ways for the Customer Success team to share data with managers and leaders. The team also hosts monthly prioritization calls with leadership to ensure alignment on the most impactful initiatives.