Over time, you will outgrow your Customer Success platform and find a need for automation. If you have a Salesforce admin, and they have any spare time, you can enlist their help to build your automation. If you create custom code on top of Salesforce or your spreadsheet, it will require maintenance and probably break.
That's why there's a market for Customer Success platforms, including Gainsight, Totango, Natero, Client Success, Amity and so on. But before you get into discussions with a platform vendor, you should invest time to do the pre-work to get ready for implementation. We call this platform readiness, and it's an often overlooked, but necessary process. It will help you highlight the exact use-cases that you want your new Customer Success platform to solve. It will make both your life and your vendor's life a lot easier because you will mitigate the risk of a failed platform implementation.
To get started, create an accurate list of the actions and the outcomes you expect from your platform. Let's say you want to send an automated email 90 days before renewal to the responsible CSM. First, you need to check your data. Run a report to check what's already there - sometimes it will be inaccurate or completely missing.
We've seen instances where more than half of the data a use-case relies on does not exist. A new platform can't fix this because your platform can't make up a renewal date for you. Don't leave this to chance, instead - check your use-cases and data are in good shape before you speak to a vendor. Otherwise, you'll be putting yourself at risk. We've seen all sorts of implementations go sideways because these steps were missed.
Next, pick your top five use-cases and go through the process of creating reports to check your data for holes. We guarantee you will find holes, and we call this process 'shining the light on your bad data'. When you take your specific use-cases to a vendor, you'll be able to see exactly how their platform does or doesn't achieve what you expect it to. It's easy to be mesmerized by the bells and whistles of Customer Success platforms because they are powerful pieces of software, so keep it simple.
When you do this pre-work, your vendor will be amazed by how well-prepared and organized you are. These two simple steps will reduce the risk of a failed implementation and save you a lot of time, energy, effort and money.