Mere mention of risk can set off panic for some. For others, they charge into solution mode. When you’re faced with risk in CS, it’s hard to know what the first step should be. What is the risk? What data can I trust? What shouldn’t I do? Who should I tell? There can be a lot of noise that makes it difficult to understand what the right steps to take are, but the responsibility of a CSM is huge, and to forecast, prioritize and escalate correctly, we need to be comfortable in these situations.
Let’s start by defining it.
What is Risk?
It’s something that’s not talked about often, but underpins the reason why some green accounts churn. Back in 1991, there was a popular song called, Things That Make You Go Hmmm…, that’s how you should think about risk. Anytime a customer says something that sounds out of the ordinary or makes you pause, you should ask yourself, “is this a risk?”
Of course there are the larger risks that are more obvious like a stakeholder changing, M&A, bankruptcy, but there are small risks that build up over time, like a snowball or risks that happen over and over again that seem fine, until they’re not.
Those are the ones we need to track closely and talk about.
CSMs can often be focused in on the moment - looking at the renewal coming up, putting together an overview like an EBR, and in those times, we can lose the aggregate - the customer had an issue three months ago, a director was promoted last month and then new person coming in isn’t friendly.
By logging those risks over time, you can see what’s going on with your customer. You not only get a deeper view of that specific customer, but as you look across your portfolio, you can see who has recent risks, who has significant risks, and spend more time with those customers versus going one customer at a time trying to figure out the current state.
Logging risk can also be more helpful than using your health score because it gives you the ability to analyze the previous risks and then determine what actions need to be taken.
Where can risk come from?
CSM teams should workshop this as a group according to their business/strategy.
One contact at the customer account
Customer is in a volatile industry
Size of the company
Region where the customer sits
Transparent relationship
Delayed or blocked adoption
High number of support cases
No support cases
Lack of engagement in meetings
Lack of responsiveness in communication
No sponsor or champion
Sponsor or champion is leaving company
No new feature or product add
Not leveraging expertise of CSM or support
Poor experience with CSM, support, sales or proserve
The account is single-threaded
Low NPS/satisfaction rating
Managing risk
Managing risk can feel overwhelming. To provide clarity, write down risk when you see it. Trying to maintain it all in your head is the quickest way to feel overwhelmed and to potentially have things fall through the cracks.
Discuss the risk during team meetings to brainstorm solutions, and lastly, do retrospectives. Diagnose the churn or contraction to understand what caused it and once resolved, use that as a case study to learn from and share with your team.
A good way to share knowledge is to create a handbook on what the most common avenues of risk are and what the most common solutions are, particularly as new teammates join. A good way to organize this is tying the most common barriers you face in a lifecycle stage, to a set of common steps you can take to overcome them.
With risk, there’s nothing really new that happens. It’s the same type of risk, just with different circumstances. Eg. a customer may be purchased, a stakeholder may change, there may be a bug in the system, someone may not like the color of your product.
Using a handbook connects CSMs facing similar issues, allowing them to collaborate and document solutions that benefits future CSMs and equips the team with prior knowledge to manage risk effectively.
Further, categorizing risk, logging it and then making that information accessible helps to manage. Logging the risk in a consolidated format will help arm others in your organization be proactive in combating the risk. It’s a natural continuation of the customer success philosophy of being proactive and providing a single pane of glass of the customer.
The Fear of Risk
Is the Risk Ever Really Over?
Actions To Take When it Comes to Risk
Create a section in your notes to track risks from meetings. Discuss with your manager why you’re tracking these risks and what they signify. Keep a record of how you resolve these risks and the outcomes achieved. Set up a risk system in your CRM or CSP to track and address risks at a company level.
Have a dashboard in your customer success platform that automatically tracks key risk metrics that finance cares about as CSMs log it, such as account name, type of risk, and reason for the risk. Make sure that CS leadership or CS ops lead the effort to maintain this spreadsheet
Emphasize the importance of making it acceptable to flag risks.
Head of Marketing
Planhat
Amberā is a global marketing executive with over 15 years of experience scaling SaaS and data-centric brands across international markets. As Head of Marketing at Planhat, she leads global brand, demand generation, and go-to-market strategy. Previously, she served as VP of Marketing at YipitData and spent over a decade at Meltwater, where she built and led teams across the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Amberā is known for her strategic depth, cross-functional leadership, and ability to craft narrative-driven programs that fuel growth and resonate across regions.
