BrettFullmer: Restructure hub around 5-phase funnel: Onboard, Adopt, Risk, Renew, Grow

2026-09-01T17:58:01Z

Restructure hub around 5-phase funnel: Onboard, Adopt, Risk, Renew, Grow

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:58, 1 September 2026
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	Most Customer Success functions are still run on vibes: a spreadsheet, a gut feeling about which accounts are "fine," and a QBR deck built the night before. Every other function touching production risk — infrastructure, security, finance — long ago moved to systems: instrumentation, defined targets, standardized response procedures, and a blameless review when something breaks. Customer Success hasn't caught up, and the gap shows up as surprise churn.		Most Customer Success functions are still run on vibes: a spreadsheet, a gut feeling about which accounts are "fine," and a QBR deck built the night before. Every other function touching production risk — infrastructure, security, finance — long ago moved to systems: instrumentation, defined targets, standardized response procedures, and a blameless review when something breaks. Customer Success hasn't caught up, and the gap shows up as surprise churn.

	The Playbook is an attempt to close that gap~~: treat the customer base the way~~ a ~~reliability engineer treats a fleet~~ of ~~production systems~~.		The Playbook is an attempt to close that gap, laid out as five phases every account moves through — and a system underneath each one, so none of it depends on tribal knowledge.

	==Why this framing==		==Why this framing==
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	Twenty-plus years in enterprise infrastructure and managed services means being the person a customer calls right after they've already tried turning it off and on again. That job runs on the same discipline as [[Spacelift]] and the practice labs on this site: plan and apply are structurally separate, nothing touches production without a human confirming, and every failure gets a real postmortem instead of a shrug. The Playbook applies that same discipline to the customer relationship instead of the AWS account.		Twenty-plus years in enterprise infrastructure and managed services means being the person a customer calls right after they've already tried turning it off and on again. That job runs on the same discipline as [[Spacelift]] and the practice labs on this site: plan and apply are structurally separate, nothing touches production without a human confirming, and every failure gets a real postmortem instead of a shrug. The Playbook applies that same discipline to the customer relationship instead of the AWS account.

	The other half of the framing: since 2024, building AI agents (see [[MAC]]) that now do the boring 60% of this job. The Playbook is written for a world where automation already handles detection and drafting — the open question isn't whether AI touches the customer relationship, it's exactly where the human has to stay in the loop. [[~~The Confirm Gate~~]] is the ~~chapter~~ that answers that.		The other half of the framing: since 2024, building AI agents (see [[MAC]]) that now do the boring 60% of this job. The Playbook is written for a world where automation already handles detection and drafting — the open question isn't whether AI touches the customer relationship, it's exactly where the human has to stay in the loop. [[Risk]] is the phase that answers that.

	==The ~~six plays~~==		==The five phases==

	'''~~Instrumentation~~''' — ~~knowing the state of the fleet before anything goes wrong:~~		# '''[[Onboard]]''' — treat it like a deploy, not a checklist. The single biggest lever over year-one churn.
	* [[~~Observability (Customer Health Scoring)~~]] — the ~~monitoring layer~~: what to measure and ~~why~~		# '''[[Adopt]]''' — the health score: what to measure, how few signals you actually need, and what breaks it.
	* [[~~SLOs~~ for ~~Customer Outcomes~~]] — ~~what "healthy" actually means~~, as a ~~number~~, ~~per segment~~		# '''[[Risk]]''' — the play library, the confirm gate, and incident response for accounts that cross into critical.
			# '''[[Renew]]''' — real targets instead of aspirations: NRR/GRR by segment, and an error budget for how much risk is acceptable before you throttle growth.
			# '''[[Grow]]''' — expansion as a second, smaller onboarding, plus advocacy.

	~~'''Response'''~~ — ~~what happens when the monitor fires:~~		Each phase feeds the next — a clean [[Onboard\|Onboard]] sets up [[Adopt]], a dip in [[Adopt]] routes to [[Risk]], a resolved [[Risk]] becomes evidence for [[Renew]], and a clean [[Renew]] is the gate to [[Grow]] — which loops back into [[Adopt]] for the next cycle.
	* [[~~The Play Library~~]] ~~— standardized runbooks~~ for ~~recurring account signals~~
	* [[~~The Confirm Gate~~]] ~~— where automation stops~~ and a ~~human has~~ to ~~sign off~~

	~~'''When it breaks''' — the failure path, done properly instead of ad hoc:~~		==Supporting practices==
	* [[Incident Response for At-Risk Accounts]] — declaring, staffing, and running a save motion
	* [[The Postmortem (Churn and Save Retros)]] — the blameless review that feeds back into every other page here

	~~==Supporting concepts==~~		* '''[[The Postmortem (Churn and Save Retros)]]''' — the blameless review that closes the loop after every incident, save, or loss, and is what makes this a system instead of a one-time setup.
	* [[~~Customer Lifecycle Stages~~]] — the ~~timeline~~ the ~~plays run against~~, ~~from onboarding to advocacy~~		* '''[[CSM vs TAM vs Customer Engineer]]''' — who on the team actually owns which phase.
	* [[CSM vs TAM vs Customer Engineer]] — who on the team actually owns which ~~play~~

	==Who this is for==		==Who this is for==

BrettFullmer: Publish The Playbook hub page

2026-09-01T16:55:27Z

Publish The Playbook hub page

New page

Most Customer Success functions are still run on vibes: a spreadsheet, a gut feeling about which accounts are "fine," and a QBR deck built the night before. Every other function touching production risk — infrastructure, security, finance — long ago moved to systems: instrumentation, defined targets, standardized response procedures, and a blameless review when something breaks. Customer Success hasn't caught up, and the gap shows up as surprise churn.

The Playbook is an attempt to close that gap: treat the customer base the way a reliability engineer treats a fleet of production systems.

==Why this framing==

Twenty-plus years in enterprise infrastructure and managed services means being the person a customer calls right after they've already tried turning it off and on again. That job runs on the same discipline as [[Spacelift]] and the practice labs on this site: plan and apply are structurally separate, nothing touches production without a human confirming, and every failure gets a real postmortem instead of a shrug. The Playbook applies that same discipline to the customer relationship instead of the AWS account.

The other half of the framing: since 2024, building AI agents (see [[MAC]]) that now do the boring 60% of this job. The Playbook is written for a world where automation already handles detection and drafting — the open question isn't whether AI touches the customer relationship, it's exactly where the human has to stay in the loop. [[The Confirm Gate]] is the chapter that answers that.

==The six plays==

'''Instrumentation''' — knowing the state of the fleet before anything goes wrong:
* [[Observability (Customer Health Scoring)]] — the monitoring layer: what to measure and why
* [[SLOs for Customer Outcomes]] — what "healthy" actually means, as a number, per segment

'''Response''' — what happens when the monitor fires:
* [[The Play Library]] — standardized runbooks for recurring account signals
* [[The Confirm Gate]] — where automation stops and a human has to sign off

'''When it breaks''' — the failure path, done properly instead of ad hoc:
* [[Incident Response for At-Risk Accounts]] — declaring, staffing, and running a save motion
* [[The Postmortem (Churn and Save Retros)]] — the blameless review that feeds back into every other page here

==Supporting concepts==
* [[Customer Lifecycle Stages]] — the timeline the plays run against, from onboarding to advocacy
* [[CSM vs TAM vs Customer Engineer]] — who on the team actually owns which play

==Who this is for==

CS leaders scaling a motion past the point where tribal knowledge holds it together, and senior CSMs/TAMs who want a system instead of another "be customer-obsessed" slide. See [[The Playbook (book)]] for the long-form version of this argument.

[[Category:Customer Success Manager]]
[[Category:Technical Account Manager]]
[[Category:Customer Engineering]]
[[Category:AI Agents]]

The Playbook - Revision history

BrettFullmer: Restructure hub around 5-phase funnel: Onboard, Adopt, Risk, Renew, Grow

BrettFullmer: Publish The Playbook hub page