Coretelligent, a premier Managed Service Provider, crafts robust tech strategies, ensuring security, compliance, and transformative growth. The company specializes in comprehensive IT solutions, cloud and on-premises architecture, AI, and revolutionizing digital and data management.
nCloud Integrators assisted Coretelligent with its Gainsight Essentials Plus implementation and integration of five data sources. Brian Demlein, SVP of Customer Success, discusses how a single source of truth allows the company to improve client engagement, streamline processes, and remove the need for micromanagement.
Why did you decide to implement Gainsight?
The biggest driver for us was the need to consolidate client information. We had multiple systems that we were using for intake, billing, support, and product management, and we needed a place to bring all this information together so we could assist our clients in a more streamlined and consistent way. Now, we have a single source of truth that has allowed us to become more efficient and streamline many of our processes. All of our client notes reside in Gainsight’s timeline for everyone to access, new automations improve our processes and support our customer success team, and we have the dashboards and reports that give CSMs as well as management the information to quickly identify risks and opportunities.
Can you discuss some of the automations that are helping to streamline your processes?
Much of this automation is driven by our new Calls-to-Action (CTAs). We started with five, including notifications for a health score rise or drop, POC changes and stale opportunities, as well as reminders for 30/60/90 day check-ins and quarterly business reviews (QBRs). These eliminated the need to set manual reminders for certain tasks and customer follow ups that happen on a consistent basis, or notifications if something has changed within the account. In the past, we would run reports and track people down to determine if customer follow ups or tasks were completed, and now these reminders and processes are all standard and automated. It really takes the micromanagement out of the entire process.
Was there anything different or unique about your Gainsight implementation?
I think that all Gainsight implementations are unique in a way, but I would say ours was different because we wanted to consolidate the information from five different systems, including a home-grown system.
Can you discuss how you were tracking customer health in the past and how this changed with your Gainsight implementation?
We had a very primitive process for customer health, which was just based on sentiment and how we thought the client was doing. Now, we are using real data to develop the health score including data around adoption, deployment, engagement, and CSAT scores, as well as account strategy sentiment and CSM assessment. So instead of relying on opinions, we are actually validating our customers' health with data, and this allows us to truly understand our customers and prioritize our efforts.
What was the biggest advantage of using nCloud Integrators to help with your Gainsight implementation?
I would say the structure of nCloud Integrators deployment was really great. It was well-organized and mapped out to lead us down the path to a successful launch. The whole “Crawl, Walk, Run” process was really helpful for us. Also, I think people learn in different ways, so having the in-person sessions, the homework, as well as the informational videos helped everyone on our team understand Gainsight and how to move forward independently. Also, nCloud Integrators’ workbook helped us to map out the data sources, CTAs, and other items within our platform.
In addition, our consultant was very knowledgeable about Gainsight, and I felt that she really understood our business, as well as where we were and where we wanted to go. This was really important for a successful deployment, because she understood, for example, what reports and CTAs would make sense for our business.
What made your Gainsight implementation successful?
The main thing was that we established our desired business outcomes at the beginning of the process. From here, the automation, CTAs, reports and dashboards were all aligned to these outcomes. We were able to hit all of our milestone dates within the implementation process and our “go-live” was on time. While there is still work to be done, we now have the framework in place to be successful.
Did nCloud Integrators help you overcome any difficult hurdles?
Without nCloud Integrators’ help, we wouldn’t have been able to do it on our own, so the biggest hurdle for us was the overall successful deployment – and that is what we accomplished.
Do you have any tips for others looking to implement Gainsight?
My advice would be to ensure that you have the commitment and engagement from your organization. We were successful because everyone on our team was committed to this implementation. Four management-level individuals attended and contributed to all of the nCloud meetings. Gainsight will require commitment, which includes attending the meetings, doing the homework, watching the videos, and learning the system.