Gong on Gong: Our 3-step churn prevention playbook

Increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25-95% .

Investing in retention has a massive impact on the bottom line, but preventing churn is notoriously difficult.

With little time and incomplete or inaccurate data , customer success (CS) leaders often struggle to gather insights and proactively identify at-risk customers before it’s too late.

I’ve dealt with these issues before, so I’m excited to some of the workflows we’ve implemented at Gong to mitigate churn.

Here’s the three-part playbook we use to drive happy customers.

Like many CS leaders, my calendar is packed with meetings, so I’m always looking for ways to efficiently walk through upcoming renewals and spot potential risks.

With Gong Deal Boards , I can quickly identify renewal red flags and assess risk across all accounts.

You can customize the boards to fit your needs, but these are the three fields I review daily:

• Activity: I check the activity field to quickly see all touch points, like calls, emails, and meetings, which contacts at the account have been engaged, and at what frequency. If the account has little or no activity recorded, this tells me we may not be doing everything we can to ensure that customers are getting the most out of Gong.

• Next Call:By using the “Next Call” field, I can dig deeper to uncover if there’s a confirmed meeting on the books. If there isn’t a call scheduled, I’ll ask the CSM during our 1:1 what the next steps are and have them document them in the “next step” field on the deal board (more to come on that soon).

• Competitor: Gong’s Smart Trackers uses AI to identify and capture competitor mentions across all conversations. I can access competitive mentions directly from the deal board and assess if there is a revenue risk without pinging my team members.

After I’ve reviewed potential risks across all customers, I hone in on each upcoming renewal by diving into the “next step” field.

The “next step” field is an open text field on our deals board. My team updates it before our weekly forecast call with risk and pricing summaries, dated next steps, and details on decision-makers. This field syncs bi-directionally with our CRM, so I have peace of mind knowing the data in all our platforms is accurate and up-to-date.

I recommend creating a “next step” template with required categories to distribute across your team for consistency within CSM notes. Getting your team to update this field regularly may require some coaching, but having up-to-date notes is hugely valuable in moving deals forward.

I also use this field to guide my team 1:1s and discuss potential gaps, what’s working, and what isn’t. Having a regular and systematic operating rhythm with my team gives me insights into accounts with upcoming renewal dates, allows me to focus on high-value opportunities, and escalate risk when necessary.

Clear processes drive stronger internal team collaboration and, ultimately, better customer outcomes.

The final piece of my renewal check-in requires peeling back the onion again. After reviewing the “next step” field, I have a better idea of the action my team member is planning to take (or lack thereof), but manually inputted data can be biased so there’s still more to learn. That’s where AI comes in.

To form a more complete picture of an account, I rely on Gong’s conversational insights. Specifically, I use Gong’s Ask Anything , a revenue-specific query solution, to search for intel across all customer touch points. Asking targeted and specific questions helps me understand each customer account more deeply.

Here are some questions I ask to uncover customer pain points and potential issues:

• What are the main challenges mentioned by the customer during previous calls?
• Are there any unresolved issues or concerns raised by the customer?
• What hurdles is this customer currently facing?
• Are there any signs that the customer may not renew?

I can use Ask Anything to gain context on customer needs and objectives. This helps me start piecing together next steps without having to schedule meetings or scroll through Slack threads.

With a more complete picture, I can accurately assess risk and take action to drive more renewals.

Creating and implementing an actionable plan to prevent churn isn’t a nice to have, it’s a must. Mitigating churn improves retention rates and drives profitability, but I’ve seen how challenging it can be to extract insights and take action.

Thankfully, Gong can help.

Gong’s Revenue Intelligence Platform uses AI to capture critical intel and transform that information into actionable next steps. Leading GTM teams turn to Gong to deliver a seamless customer experience.

Sound interesting? Watch this quick demo to learn how customer success managers use Gong to manage renewals and move deals forward.