Yes, Your SaaS Does Need a Customer Success Playbook!

A comprehensive SaaS customer success playbook sets your team up for success.

A playbook provides in-depth content & plays for onboarding, adoption/engagement, at-risk accounts, and renewals. Each section can include processes, sample outreach cadences, and more. If you have a customer success software platform, actual emails and plays can be housed there, and referenced in the playbook. In the absence of a CS platform, the playbook becomes the central resource for templates, outreach cadences, etc. 

A new team member’s onboarding can be driven by the content of your playbook, supplemented with in-person discussion, shadowing, training, and coaching. Use your playbook as the go-to resource for everyone on the CS team, whether new or tenured, and indoctrinate it into the culture so it’s top of mind, and always relevant. 

Sample SaaS Customer Success Playbook Outline

Customer Onboarding

• Customer onboarding framework. 
• Customer onboarding cadence.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Onboarding email templates.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Onboarding kickoff agenda.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 

Customer Engagement

• Customer engagement overview.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Customer engagement signals & red flags.
• Engagement cadence.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Engagement email templates.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Quarterly Business Review (QBR) process.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• How to prep for calls and run discoveries. 

At-Risk Customer Plays

• At-risk customer overview.
• At-risk customer signs & signals.
• At-risk process.
• At-risk cadences.
• At-risk email templates.
• Stakeholder change process.
• Customer win-back process.

 Customer Renewal

• Customer renewal management overview.
• Managing renewals.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Renewal cadence.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Renewal email templates.
  • By customer segment, if applicable. 
• Closed lost reasons.
• Customer reactivation process.

Customer Success Operations

• Customer success framework.
• Customer segmentation.
• Customer growth potential.
• Service levels.
• Health scores.
• Tools & technology.
  • A page for each of the sales tools you use such as CRM, email tracking, cadence management, sales enablement, etc. with best practices, tips, and tricks.
• Product training resources.
  • Your training best practices (when to train, who to train, how to train, etc.).
  • Sample training outline.
  • Product training checklist.
  • Product training customer-facing resources.
  • Product training internal resources.
• Our team.
  • Customer Success department org chart.
  • All job descriptions for customer success team functions/roles.
  • 30/60/90 Team onboarding plans (by role).
  • Team & individual OKRs.

There is content that overlaps with the sales playbook and may be available centrally for both teams. This includes:

Quick Reference

The first section of the playbook is a quick reference that provides a snapshot of key information including:

• Outcomes you help customers achieve.
• Types of organizations/roles you sell to.
• Pains you solve.
• Needs you meet.
• Your value proposition.

Your Buyer

• Ideal buyer profile (also known as ideal customer profile, ICP).
• Buyer goals, aspirations, needs (and how you help achieve them).
• Buyer personas.
• Buyer types and/or functional roles.
• Buyer problems & your solutions (Buyer problem, what it means, what it means to their organization, how you help solve it).

Your Product/Service

• Overview of product and/or services.
• Quick reference for product/services (key selling props, etc.).
• Pricing conversion guide.
• Common product questions.
• Links to important product resources.
• Training materials, support site, etc.
• Your Product/Service

Competitive Landscape

• Quick reference guide.
• Competitive differentiation (Chart of each primary competitor as well as competitive categories with details on your specific differentiation against that competitor or type of competitor).
• Battlecards.

When to Create Your Customer Success Playbook

When is it time to create your customer success playbook? Probably earlier than you think. Once your customer-facing team is more than 3 people, with plans to hire several more in the upcoming year, it’s time to start your playbook development. A playbook is a critical resource in onboarding, training and reinforcing your customer success framework and best practices. It can, and should, be the go-to resource for your team for all situations. With a playbook you create an empowered customer success team who knows how to help customers onboard, grow and adopt your SaaS platform.