Simplifying the Chaos: CTA Strategy for Scalable, Streamlined Customer Success

Managing CTAs in Gainsight—or any Customer Success Platform (CSP)—should drive clarity, action, and insight, not complexity and confusion. Yet as teams grow, so too does the risk of over-customization: too many CTA Types, Reasons, Statuses, and custom fields can lead to:

• Inefficient workflows

• Inconsistent reporting

• Low adoption

• Broken automation

To address this, we’re rolling out a streamlined CTA framework that aligns with best practices, scales with our business, and enables teams to focus on customer outcomes—not admin overhead.

Our Core Goal: Simplify, Standardize, Scale

We’re guiding this transformation with one principle:

This approach keeps our system lean, structured, and powerful—while giving us the flexibility to evolve.

Key Enhancements in Our CTA Framework

1. Minimal, Lifecycle-Aligned CTA Types

We suggest reducing CTA Types to Main core categories, each aligned to a key moment in the customer journey:

• Risk – For churn signals, billing disputes, usage drops, sentiment issues

• Expansion – For upsell, cross-sell, and promoter-led opportunities

• Lifecycle – For onboarding, adoption, EBRs, and general account milestones

• Activity – For operational tasks like internal workflows or campaign actions

• Renewal – For managing upcoming renewals and associated risks

Each Type will have a tailored set of Reasons and custom fields to ensure relevance and remove duplication.

2. Relevant Custom Fields per CTA Type

No more one-size-fits-all fields. Each CTA Type will now carry only the fields it needs—improving:

• User experience (less clutter)

• Data accuracy

• Reporting integrity

Fields like What action did you take, Outcome/ Next Best Action, will only appear where appropriate.

3. Tag It, Don’t Split It

Need more granularity? Use CTA Tags instead of creating duplicate Types or Reasons.

Tags provide additional segmentation for:

• Campaign Names

• Strategic Initiatives

• Admin vs. Government sources

• Customer Segments

This gives us the flexibility we need for custom reporting without overwhelming the core setup.

4. Smart Categorization with CTA Reasons

Each CTA Type now includes a focused set of 5–10 Reasons, carefully mapped by:

• Lifecycle stage

• Team ownership

• CTA source

• Customer intent

This reduces noise and supports better automation, reporting, and training.

Examples:

• Risk: Churn Risk, Usage Drop, Sentiment Risk

• Expansion: Upsell Opportunity, Advocacy

• Lifecycle: Onboarding, Executive Business Review

• Renewal: Renewal at Risk, Healthy Renewal

  
  

5. Rationalized CTA Statuses – 2-Level Model

We’re adopting a simplified 7-status structure for Status Level 1:

1. New

2. Work In Progress

3. Waiting for Feedback

4. Closed – Success

5. Closed – No Action

6. Closed – At Risk

7. Closed – No Customer Response

   
   

Optionally, teams can use Status Level 2 for added clarity under “Closed – Success.” Example values:

• Issue Resolved

• Customer Retained

• Proactive Closure

• etc..

6. Smart Prioritization

We’ve simplified CTA Priority into three actionable levels:

• High (P1) – Urgent or business-critical

• Medium (P2) – Important but not immediate

• Low (P3) – Routine or informational

Handling New Requests: Apply the Framework First

Any request to add new Types, Statuses, or Fields will now be assessed using this filter:

• Can it be handled with a new Reason under an existing Type?

• Can a Tag or custom field capture the needed context?

• Does it require a truly different workflow, layout, or lifecycle?

Only if the answer to the last question is yes will a new CTA Type be considered.

Why This Matters?

This isn’t just an admin cleanup. This is about building a scalable CS engine that enables:

• Simplified user experience

• Cleaner dashboards and accurate reporting

• Faster, smarter automation

• Consistent definitions across teams

We’re aligning CTAs to customer outcomes—not internal legacy workflows.

The Bigger Picture

This transformation enables a system that’s:

• Easy to use

• Easy to scale

• Easy to trust

By limiting clutter and maximizing clarity, we free up our teams to do what they do best: deliver value to customers.

What’s Next?

We suggest rolling this framework out incrementally and partner with each team to help map existing CTAs into the new model.

🗣 Feedback is welcome...

Want to know more or get this implemented for your organization? Just reach out to us!