Health Scores
Building a health score your CSMs trust
A health score only works if the people using it believe it. Most don't, for good reasons. Five rules for building one your CSMs will actually act on, starting with your own renewal history.
Resources
Practical writing for customer success leaders.
Notes from our own customer success team and from the 300 teams we work with, on health scores, playbooks and executive business reviews. No listicles, no "ultimate guides". Things we've seen work, and the numbers behind them.
Executive business reviews
Running EBRs that renew
Most executive business reviews are status reports nobody asked for. An EBR has one job: make the renewal conversation easy. Here's how to run one that does.
Playbooks
Playbooks your CSMs won't ignore
Automated playbooks fail when they create work nobody has time to do. How to design playbooks that fire rarely, matter when they do, and earn their place on a CSM's list.
Where to start
Pick the problem you have this quarter. Each topic below links to the post and the part of Harbor Desk that deals with it.
"Churn keeps surprising us."
Your health score probably can't explain itself, or it was never checked against a real renewal. Start with Building a health score your CSMs trust, then see how Health Scores show their working on every account.
"Our CSMs ignore the alerts."
Too many playbooks, firing on too many accounts, with no clear action. Read Playbooks your CSMs won't ignore for the three we'd start with, and how Playbooks report on their own outcomes.
"Renewals are hard even when the account looks fine."
The executive sponsor may not know what they're getting. Running EBRs that renew covers the five-section review we recommend, and the EBR Builder puts the data together for you.
Customer stories
The posts above draw on three customers who agreed to share their numbers. Tidewater Freight cut gross churn 18% in 12 months by rebuilding their score around their own renewal history. Northwind Analytics raised net revenue retention from 104% to 113% with segment-specific scores and an expansion playbook. Lighthouse Payroll cut EBR prep from 6 hours to 40 minutes per deck. The full stories are on our Customers page.
About this blog
We publish about twice a month. Every post is written by someone at Harbor Desk who has run, or still runs, a customer success team. When we quote a number, it comes from a named customer who agreed to share it, or from our own team.
If you want to see these ideas working on your own accounts, the quickest way is a demo.