# Customer success & retention Human Guide

## What This Is For
Comprehensive customer success and retention expertise combining onboarding, health scoring, churn prevention, retention strategies, and LTV maximization. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for go-to-market work: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Customer success & retention agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for customer success & retention.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Customer success & retention guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- Map customer goals and success criteria
- Define key milestones and timeline
- Set up automated touchpoints
- **Discount**: 20-30% for 2-3 months (avoid 50%+)
- **Pause**: 1-3 months max, 60-80% eventually return
- **Downgrade**: Show what they keep vs. lose
- **Feature unlock**: Extend trial of higher tier
- **Personal outreach**: For high-value accounts
- Card expiry alerts: 30, 15, 7 days before
- Backup payment method prompt at signup
- Card updater services (Visa/MC auto-update)
- Pre-billing notification for annual plans

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Workspace Context, Operating Contract, Quick Reference, Part 1: Core Principles, Time to Value Is Everything, Proactive Beats Reactive, Segment for Relevance, Measure Leading Indicators, Make Expansion Natural, Part 2: Customer Onboarding Design.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- **Discount**: 20-30% for 2-3 months (avoid 50%+)
- | Hard decline | Don't retry — ask for new card |
- | Authentication required | Send customer to update payment |

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Customer success & retention human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the manojbajaj95/claude-gtm-plugin skill entry for `customer-success-and-retention`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Customer Success & Retention

## Workspace Context

Read bootstrap context before asking questions: `strategy/brand.md` for brand, audience, offer, channels, tools, constraints, and metrics; `about/me.md` for personal voice; `content/ideas.md` and `content/calendar.md` for content planning. Use legacy product-marketing context files only as fallback. Save generated drafts to `content/<platform>/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD_short-topic-slug.md`, and route durable learnings back to `strategy/brand.md`, `about/me.md`, or `content/ideas.md`.

## Operating Contract

This skill is self-contained for its frontmatter scope: use its local instructions, references, scripts, and assets as the playbook; ask only for missing task-specific inputs; hand off to adjacent skills instead of expanding scope; and return an actionable artifact, decision, plan, draft, or diagnostic.


Comprehensive framework for customer success, retention, and lifetime value maximization.

## Quick Reference

| Situation | Use This Skill For |
|-----------|-------------------|
| Designing onboarding flows | Onboarding Excellence |
| Reducing churn | Churn Prevention & Recovery |
| Building health monitoring | Health Score Models |
| Improving LTV | Retention & Ascension |
| Cancel flow optimization | Cancel Flow Design |
| Payment failures | Dunning & Recovery |

---

## Part 1: Core Principles

### Time to Value Is Everything

The faster users get value, the more likely they stick. Measure and optimize time to first value moment. Remove every obstacle between signup and aha moment.

### Proactive Beats Reactive

Reach out before problems escalate. Health scores predict churn before it happens. Intervention when metrics dip is worth 10x intervention after cancellation request.

### Segment for Relevance

Not all customers are the same. High-touch for enterprise, tech-touch for SMB, self-serve for individuals. Match effort to customer value and needs.

### Measure Leading Indicators

Revenue is a lagging indicator. Track: engagement, feature adoption, support tickets, NPS changes.

### Make Expansion Natural

Upselling should feel like helping, not selling. When customers outgrow their tier, expansion is a solution.

---

## Part 2: Customer Onboarding Design

### Onboarding Workflow

1. Map customer goals and success criteria
2. Define key milestones and timeline
3. Create onboarding checklist
4. Design enablement content
5. Set up automated touchpoints
6. Define handoff from sales
7. Measure time-to-value

### Activation Milestones

| Milestone | Target Time | D30 Retention Impact |
|-----------|-------------|---------------------|
| Account created | T+0 | Baseline |
| Profile complete | T+5 min | +8% |
| First core action | T+24 hr | +15% |
| First value experience | T+3 days | +25% |
| 3-day active streak | T+7 days | +35% |

### Onboarding Patterns

| Approach | Best For | Risk |
|----------|----------|------|
| Product-first | Simple products, B2C | Blank slate overwhelm |
| Guided setup | Products needing personalization | Friction before value |
| Value-first | Products with demo data | May not feel "real" |