| name | cs-playbooks |
| description | Build customer success playbooks — onboarding, health scoring, CSQLs, expansion plays, QBRs, and churn intervention. Use when building a CS function, designing customer journeys, or creating playbooks for retention and expansion. Triggers on: "customer success", "CS playbook", "onboarding", "health score", "CSQL", "expansion play", "customer retention", "QBR", or any request about post-sale customer engagement. |
| license | MIT |
| compatibility | Claude Code, Jesse, Codex, Hermes, Windsurf, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Copilot, Zed, VS Code, Goose |
| metadata | {"version":"1.1.0","author":"LeadMagic","category":"customer-success","tags":["customer-success","cs","retention","onboarding","health-scoring","expansion"],"frameworks":["Lincoln Murphy Desired Outcome","Gainsight CS Index","Winning by Design SPICED Post-Sale"]} |
Customer Success Playbooks
Overview
Customer Success is not reactive support — it is proactive value delivery that
drives retention and expansion. This skill builds the CS operating system:
Desired Outcome mapping (Lincoln Murphy), health scoring with leading indicators
(Gainsight), CSQL identification for expansion, and playbooks per customer
lifecycle stage.
When to Use
- "Build our customer success function"
- "Design customer onboarding"
- "Create a health score model"
- "Set up expansion plays"
- "Build QBR templates"
- "Customer comms during outage / incident"
- "CS crisis FAQ for support"
- "Retention crisis — churn wave response"
Authoritative Foundations
- Lincoln Murphy — Desired Outcome framework. Every customer has a Required
Outcome and an Appropriate Experience. Success is their outcome, not your
feature usage. The Success Gap: customers using the product correctly but
still failing.
- Nick Mehta / Gainsight — CS ops at scale: health scores, lifecycle stages,
digital-first delivery. Operational layer on Murphy's strategy.
→
references/lincoln-murphy-customer-success.md
- Winning by Design SPICED — Post-sale lifecycle: onboarding → adoption →
value realization → expansion → renewal.
Step-by-Step Process
Phase 1: Map the Customer Journey
Define stages: Onboarding → Activation (Day 1-7, aha moment) → Habit Formation
(Week 2-6, usage signals) → Indispensability (Month 2-6, workflow integration)
→ Expansion → Renewal. Each stage has a milestone metric.
Phase 2: Build Health Scoring
Score 0-100: product usage (0-40), engagement depth (0-30), relationship
health (0-30). Red (<50): immediate CSM outreach. Yellow (50-74): automated
nurture. Green (75+): expansion targeting.
Phase 3: Define CSQLs (Customer Success Qualified Leads)
Behavioral signals of expansion readiness: usage nearing plan limits, feature
adoption in new department, new stakeholders in meetings, "can we do X?"
questions, willingness to be a reference.
Phase 4: Build Playbooks per Stage
- Onboarding play: time-to-first-value target, guided setup, success milestone
- Adoption play: usage monitoring, best practice sharing, feature education
- Expansion play: triggered by CSQLs, framed as "logical next step" not upsell
- Risk play: early warning signals, intervention cadence, executive alignment
- Renewal play: value review, ROI documentation, future roadmap alignment
Phase 5: Incident & Crisis Customer Comms
Canonical: references/crisis-management-playbook.md · Pattern 33 · Executive home: gtm-leadership
| Role | CS responsibility |
|---|
| CS captain | Own customer email to affected segment; ticket macros |
| CSMs | Proactive outreach to red health accounts during outage |
| Support | Single FAQ source — skills/management-leadership/gtm-leadership/templates/crisis-faq-for-support.md |
Sequence: Internal memo → holding statement / status page → affected customer email → FAQ for sales/support.
ACKNOWLEDGE → OWN → ACT → FOLLOW UP in all customer-facing copy. Legal review Sev 3+ before admitting data impact.
Post-incident: Retention play for accounts that churn-threatened; link churn-prevention and Retention stage in references/gtm-lifecycle-stages.md.
Cross-links: customer-onboarding (trust rebuild) · references/gtm-data-exchange-playbook.md (breach path)
Output Format
CS playbook with journey map, health score model, CSQL definitions, and
stage-specific play templates.
Quality Check
Before delivering, verify:
Common Pitfalls
- Measuring activity, not outcomes — logins are not value. Map customer
Desired Outcomes and measure progress toward them.
- CS as firefighting — if CSMs only engage when something is wrong, they
are reactive support, not customer success.
- No expansion motion — CS owns the relationship. If expansion lives only
in Sales, the customer gets handed off at the worst moment.
- One-size health score — different segments need different health models.
Enterprise cares about executive engagement; SMB cares about time-to-value.
Execution Artifacts
references/framework-notes.md — named frameworks, citation anchors, and operating assumptionstemplates/output-template.md — copy-paste deliverable structure for the userscripts/check-output.py — local checklist validator for required sections
This skill includes lightweight artifacts the agent can load on demand:references/lincoln-murphy-customer-success.md — Desired Outcome, Success Gap, Gainsight ops (repo root)
Canonical lifecycle (repo root): references/gtm-lifecycle-stages.md (Engagement, Retention) · references/lifecycle-metrics-by-stage.md · skills/analytics/gtm-metrics/templates/stage-health-scorecard.md
Crisis comms: references/crisis-management-playbook.md · skills/management-leadership/gtm-leadership/templates/crisis-customer-email.md · crisis-faq-for-support.md
Use the artifacts when the user asks for an implementation-ready deliverable, a repeatable workflow, or a quality check rather than generic advice.
Implementation Depth
Use this section when the user asks for a finished asset, not a high-level explanation.
Diagnostic Questions
- What is the primary motion: founder-led, sales-led, product-led, partner-led, or lifecycle-led?
- Which ICP tier is the output for: small business, mid-market, enterprise, or mixed?
- What proof is available today: customer stories, usage data, third-party validation, screenshots, or none?
- What system will execute the work: CRM, sequencer, warehouse, support desk, product analytics, or manual workflow?
- What decision will the user make from this output: launch, prioritize, route, rewrite, score, coach, or measure?
Framework Application
Map the recommendation explicitly to the named frameworks in this skill:
- Lincoln Murphy Desired Outcome: apply only the part that directly improves the requested deliverable.
- Gainsight CS Index: apply only the part that directly improves the requested deliverable.
- Winning by Design SPICED Post-Sale: apply only the part that directly improves the requested deliverable.
Deliverable Standard
A strong output from this skill includes:
- A crisp diagnosis of the current situation
- A recommended path with tradeoffs, not a generic list
- A concrete artifact the user can use immediately: table, script, checklist, scorecard, sequence, dashboard spec, or implementation plan
- A measurement plan with leading and lagging indicators
- Risks and edge cases called out before execution
Adaptation Rules
- For small business: reduce complexity, shorten time-to-value, and prioritize owner/operator clarity.
- For mid-market: include workflow ownership, handoffs, integrations, and enablement assets.
- For enterprise: include governance, risk, procurement, stakeholder mapping, and proof requirements.
Related Skills
- gtm-leadership: Executive war room and crisis severity (canonical)
- customer-marketing: Public reputation, G2/TR during incidents
- customer-onboarding: Post-incident trust and activation recovery
- churn-prevention: Early warning detection and re-engagement
- expansion-selling: Upsell and cross-sell motions
- qbr-planning: Quarterly business review structure
