A Tactical Framework For Putting Customer Outcomes at the Center

Most teams know they should be focused on making customers successful.

But…how often do they:

- Explicitly document desired outcomes in a shared place.
- Frame their success plan in the context of those desired outcomes.
- Revisit and update the plan for reaching those outcomes in every interaction.

Here’s a framework for putting customer outcomes at the center:

1/ Explicitly document customer’s desired outcomes

Use a dedicated property in your HubSpot CRM to document the desired outcomes and success metrics you discover so everyone who interacts with the customer knows what they are trying to achieve.

Make note of both the high-level “goal” or objective.
eg. Improve customer adoption and ability to scale onboarding

And the quantitative measures of success your customers will use to track progress.
eg. 25% reduction in time to send first email campaign


2/ Include “desired outcomes” in your customer success plan

For example, this welcome card in a customer facing Arrows plan provides context on:

- The goal we are working towards
- How we will measure our progress
- How the plan will help us get there

The “desired outcomes” can be synced with our HubSpot property to ensure we only ever have to update them in one place to keep everyone up to date.

3/ Continuously discover and verify desired outcomes

The outcomes your sales team identified during discovery 3 months ago, might not be the same ones or the complete list of outcomes that exist today.

By always referencing the currently known goals and success metrics in customer conversations we can maintain alignment - and discovery new ways to add value and unlock upsell and cross sell potential for the business.


Starting at the end with your customers desired outcomes will always make your customers more successful than starting with your process and hoping it aligns with why your customers signed up.

Because customer success is defined by the customer.

5 Steps to Optimize Your Onboarding Plan To Drive Action

Do you have a hard time getting customers to take action in your onboarding plan?

Try this 👇

1. Start by defining what success looks like for your customer during onboarding
2. List out everything you and your customer need to do to make onboarding a success (super rough)
3. Group all the tasks that fit together into distinct phases
4. Assign an owner to each task
5. Add the work that needs to happen at each step directly into the plan itself whenever possible.

👉 Watch a 5-minute walkthrough

Documented process + iteration = repeatably successful outcomes

Documenting your plan can help you:
1. Keep track of who is responsible for the next step on path to success throughout the customers journey - whether your team or the customer.
2. Provide a shared space for collaboration to align on the best path to success.
3. Have a standardized record of what has been done and what is left to do.
4. Lay out the foundational steps that moves you and your customers from point A to point B in any phase of the journey to success.
5. Set clear expectations about when steps must be completed to hit target dates and communicate the impact of delays.

Because driving action isn’t about sending endless follow ups.

It’s ultimately about creating alignment with customers on the outcomes they signed up for your product to achieve and the work you’ll need to do together to get there.

How to proactively loop in your team to increase Net Revenue Retention (NRR) when customers take high intent actions

Steal this automated workflow to proactively loop in your sales team when existing accounts take high-intent actions to drive renewals and upsells in HubSpot.

The revenue you close on day 1 is just the beginning but it can be difficult for reps to get visibility into what's happening with their accounts after the initial close.

Especially if the customers involved in the initial deal have moved on from the company or aren’t the ones with the greatest current need.

Here’s how it works:

PRE-WORK: Copy the renewal date from deals to the company record, and use a calculated property to set “Days until renewal” by subtracting “Today’s Date from the Renewal Date”.

1. Trigger the workflow when a contact has taken a high-intent action within a set timeframe.
→ Viewed the pricing page in the last 7 days
→ Downloaded an ultimate guide in the last 30 days
→ Viewed documentation for a premium feature

2. Add an IF/THEN branch to check for an Upcoming Renewal

3. IF “Renewal Date” is known AND “Days to Renewal” is less than 90
THEN check the “Account Type” of the associated company based on employee count.

4. IF number of employees > 100 account is “Enterprise”
→ Send a Slack notification to the sales team to create a customized strategy and reach out.

5. IF number of employees < 100 account is “SMB”
→ Rotate the contact between the sales team and assign an owner
→ Create a task for the new owner to enroll the contact in a renewal sequence

6. IF there is not an upcoming renewal
Add an IF/THEN branch to check if the contact has any associated deals.

7. IF the contact does not have associated deals
→ Rotated the contact to an owner on the sales team
→ Create a task for the new owner to enroll them in a nurture sequence

8. IF the contact does have an associate deal
→ Send a Slack notification to the deal owner to identify if an upsell or cross sell opportunity exists based on the intent.

Meeting people where they are instead of dumping them in generic sequences is the best way to add value and close deals.

If you proactively identifying “high-intent” accounts, you can help your team focus their time on the accounts with the highest potential for upsells and cross sells.

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