this is where it breaks
Customer Success × RevOps

Renewals shouldn't be
a surprise.

Most CS teams find out an account is leaving on the renewal call. We build the system underneath your CS org: a clean sales-to-CS handoff, health scores that predict churn, renewals forecast 120 days out, and expansion signals routed to the people who can act on them.

100+ engagements
Sprint-based delivery
Outcome-measured
Today's renewal loop
Closed Won
Sales side
≠
Renewal
CS side
!Health score built on activity countsvanity
↻Renewal tracker (spreadsheet)stale
↗Expansion vs. new business splitmanual tag
Where the system breaks

Sound familiar?

We see the same six fractures across 100+ CS × RevOps engagements. None of them are about how hard your CSMs work. All of them are about plumbing.

6
recurring failures
The health score counts emails and meetings. Accounts that churned were still "Healthy" 90 days out.
Renewals live in a spreadsheet. Some get discovered two weeks before they lapse.
CS inherits deals with no documented goals or stakeholders. CSMs re-ask discovery questions in week one.
The renewal forecast is a gut call per CSM. GRR gets explained after the quarter, not forecast before it.
Product usage data exists. CSMs can't see it until the adoption drop is already a renewal problem.
Expansion looks like new business in the CRM. Nobody can say how much NRR CS actually sourced.

This isn't a CSM problem. It's a systems problem.

and the root cause is 12 months old by the time churn shows up
The connected system

One customer record. Seven instruments.

Each fix closes a specific gap between Sales, CS and the renewal. Connected, they turn closed-won into a forecastable, expandable base.

Closed-won → renewal, one timeline
Sales

Closed Won

Deal · Contract · Context
1Handoff gate
2Health score
3Risk alerts
4Usage data
5Expansion signals
6CS reporting
7Renewal forecast
Retention

Renewal

GRR · NRR · Expansion
Seven fixes

Each gap, named and wired.

We don't hand CS leaders a best-practices deck. We ship the mechanics. Below: every recurring failure, paired with the instrument that closes it.

Fix 01 · The Backbone

Sales → CS Handoff Gate

No deal transfers until five fields are documented and reviewed: buyer pain, success criteria, decision structure, usage commitment and expansion indicators. Deal-stage requirements block Closed Won until they're complete, then a workflow sets the customer stage, assigns the CSM, opens the onboarding project and books the kickoff task.

Closed Won
Sales
→5-field gate
Kickoff
CS
→CS inherits context, not confusion. Sales stays accountable past the signature.
Fix 02

Health Scores That Predict Churn

A points-based model with group caps and decay, built on usage, engagement, sentiment, support and commercial signals. At-risk under 40, Neutral 40–69, Healthy 70+. Calibrated after 60–90 days against accounts that actually churned, then re-weighted every quarter.

→A score that measures risk, not how often the CSM sends email
Fix 03

Risk Alerts & Save Plays

A move to At-risk notifies the CSM and CS lead, creates a save-plan task and requires a churn risk reason. Dark accounts (30 days, no activity), detractor NPS, Tier 1 escalations and champion departures each trigger their own play.

→A status change becomes a save plan the same day
Fix 04

Product Usage in CRM

Usage score, active users, last login and key feature adoption synced to the account at least daily.

→Adoption drops caught before the renewal call
Fix 05

Expansion Signals

Seat growth, usage spikes and At-risk → Healthy recoveries flagged for expansion review, worked in their own pipeline.

→Upsell separated from new business
Fix 06

CS Leadership Reporting

GRR, NRR, logo churn and expansion pipeline on one leadership dashboard, plus a "my accounts" view per CSM.

→Retention numbers the board trusts
Fix 07 · The Save

Renewal Forecasting

Replace the spreadsheet with a renewal pipeline: a renewal deal is created automatically 120 days before the renewal date, owned by the CSM, and moves through Upcoming → Engaged → Proposal Sent → Negotiation → Renewed, Downgraded or Churned. Churn and downgrade reasons are required, so every loss is categorized.

→A renewal forecast you can defend, with health attached to every deal
Northwind Labs · $186K ARR Health 31 · At-risk Renews in 74 days
Contract
start
120-day
deal
Today
QBR
Renewal
Renewal deal opens at 120 days. Reminder sequences at 90, 60 and 30. CSM, AE and Finance all in the loop. Illustrative account.
Before · After

What changes when the system works.

Without the system
Deals land in CS with no goals, stakeholders or success criteria
Health score rewards activity, so churned accounts look healthy
Renewals tracked in a spreadsheet and forecast by gut feel
Usage drops and champion exits discovered on the renewal call
Expansion mixed into new business, so CS-sourced NRR is invisible
JayOh →
With JayOh
Closed Won is blocked until the five handoff fields are complete
Health score calibrated against real churn and re-weighted quarterly
Every renewal is a deal in a pipeline from 120 days out
At-risk, dark-account and champion-change alerts trigger a save play that day
Expansion pipeline owned by CS, reported as NRR leadership can trust
Diagnostic lag
12mo
Typical gap between a churn root cause and churn showing up on a dashboard
no more surprises
Renewal runway
120days
Out, every renewal becomes a worked deal instead of a two-week scramble
Handoff gate
5fields
Documented and reviewed before any deal transfers to CS
NRR target
115%
Strong band for $5M–$50M ARR B2B SaaS. Below 90% means refilling a leaky bucket
30 minutes
we own the result
From firefighting to forecasting

Stop saving renewals.
Start compounding.

We'll trace where accounts leak between handoff, onboarding and renewal, show you which signals your health score is missing, and build the system that fixes it. Sprint-based. Outcome-measured.

No pitch deck. A system diagnostic.