Existing customers are your best source of revenue. They are your brand advocates, your success stories, your partners, your influence card, your upselling/renewal opportunities. 

You have to take care of them. We’re pretty sure that your Customer Success (CS) team is doing a great job by delivering extra value, guiding customers with technical problems, and enabling them on your solution, but why don’t you spoil them a little bit? 

Nick Mehta, Gainsight’s CEO, shares 3 ways in which ELG plays can fit into your CS strategy to keep your existing customers extra happy and expand your market. 

Here’s what this article has in store for you:

• The importance of integrations 
• The right move to make with ecosystem intel 
• Gainsight’s ELG event plays to improve customer experience

The power of ELG + CS 

There are three main ways to leverage ELG within your CS motion: 

1. Integrations that lead to happy customers
2. Ecosystem intel that can lead to upsells and renewals
3. Events to pamper existing customers and expand your market

Integrations

Your buyers need to do their work as fast and efficiently as possible. They don’t want to switch platforms, connect the dots, and build and action their strategy. 

Your buyers need an integrated platform that gives them all the insights they need in one click. “People don’t want to buy tools in isolation, they want to buy tools that fit into the tech they are already using,” said Nick.

• 91% of customers place a higher priority on how a product integrates into their lives or workflows over its price, service, and brand reputation, indicating the growing importance of integration-first buying behavior among customers.
  
  
• Integrations with existing tech are a top priority for 76% of buyers.
  
  
• Integration is the most important factor for buyers purchasing partner technology. 74.2% of buyers report that a system’s ability to integrate is either a very or extremely important consideration.

To plan and build integrations in a smooth way, you need three things: (1) the overlap intel, (2) the mastermind who can help you build up a business case, and (3) to speak your product team’s language. 

(1) Before you go and build random integrations, it’s important to identify your partner's joint accounts overlap. If you have a high overlap count between your customers and your partner’s customers, or your prospects overlap with your partner’s opportunities, this is a good signal to start building a business case for developing a tech integration with your partner. 

(2) Once you have identified the partner, you might need a solution architect or a sales engineer who can meet with your partners, connect the dots between what your users want and what your company’s goals are. Once they have all the information that they need, they can build a mockup for your customers to give feedback on. 

(3) Present your business case to your product team in a way that shows how this will bring value to your existing customers and how the integration can be done through a joint effort of the partners — how ELG can help accelerate the product roadmap. 

“We believe it’s making sure that your entire customer journey is all integrated together,” said Nick. “The big vision is how do you get this operating system to connect together your whole customer journey and tie it to ecosystem-led strategies.” 

Ecosystem intel 

How cool would it be to have the superpower of easily closing renewals and upsellings? 

Integrations can help do it, but sometimes you might need more than that to achieve a renewal or an upsell — sometimes the missing piece is a name or the goal of your customer’s strategy. 

“If you’re a Customer Success Manager (CSM) or an Account Manager (AM), and you’re trying to renew your customer and understand them, sometimes it is useful to exchange notes with another non-competitor vendor in your ecosystem,” said Nick. “You’re learning a little bit about your joint ICP, their procurement process, and how you can collaborate together.” 

Leverage your partners' ecosystem intelligence to identify churn signals, uncover customer challenges, and address pain points. Collaborate on co-retention plays and create joint value propositions to secure renewals by showcasing the combined value of your solutions.

This partnership not only helps retain customers but also opens doors for upsell opportunities by tapping into new markets and identifying shared customers' needs. However, these benefits only materialize if you proactively share data and engage with your partners early on.

• According to Canalys, companies with strong partner programs enjoy a 15% higher renewal rate and a 20% increase in upsell revenue.
  
  
• RollWorks customers who are using partner integrations renew at a rate approximately 30% higher than customers who don’t.
  
  
• Breezy HR’s customers who worked with partners were 57% more likely to renew their contracts than those who didn’t.

Having an existing customer doesn’t mean that you automatically know everything about them. There’s intel that you won’t find in your CRM, or your customer success platforms — you’ll only find it in your ecosystem, and this intel can dictate whether you renew or not. 

“ELG provides ways to jointly help your customer and improve your net retention at the same time,” said Nick. “In the end your product is not that different from your competitors — yes, you have a database, workflows, a UI, but what makes your product unique and valuable are your expertise meaning customer success, and how good your product fits with everything else they have, and how well does it integrate into their ecosystem.”

ELG events

To take care of existing customers, Gainsight loves to plan events. But the event strategy definitely is not the same if you take out ELG of the equation. 

They do a lot of in-person and virtual events like local dinners, the Pulse conference, webinars, and happy hours. The key to make all of those a success is to get the right people in the right place — and ELG can help you with that. 

“Doing events is a great way to gain some pipeline, but at some point you will recycle your same audience,” said Nick. “Your events will be full of people who know you, but what about people who don’t know you? To gain net new prospects or enter into a new market, ELG is your best ally.” 

Gainsight leverages an ELG strategy to create events that provide maximum value to both attendees (existing and new customers) and sponsors without compromising community trust. 

Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how Gainsight utilized ELG to achieve this:

1. Prioritize attendee trust

Gainsight places a high value on attendee trust, ensuring that personal data and information are not shared indiscriminately. This is the foundation of their ELG approach, where the focus is on maintaining the trust of the attendees while also delivering value to partners and sponsors.

2. Use modern account mapping with Crossbeam

Instead of sharing mass attendee lists, Gainsight uses Crossbeam for precise account mapping. By matching the list of attending companies at their events with the target prospects, opportunities, and customers of their partners and sponsors, they create a curated list of high-value introductions.

3. Curate targeted introductions

With the data from Crossbeam, Gainsight creates a focused list of attendees who would benefit most from interactions with specific partners and sponsors. This curated approach ensures that connections are valuable and relevant to both parties, avoiding the inefficiencies of mass networking.

4. Mass personalization of the event experience

Gainsight tailors the event experience for each attendee, ensuring they connect with the partners and sponsors most relevant to their interests and needs. This personalized approach enhances the overall event experience and ensures that the connections made are meaningful.

5. Extend ELG to smaller, curated events

Gainsight also applies this ELG strategy to smaller, local events, such as curated dinners. They work with local partners to carefully select attendees, ensuring a mix of potential new business and existing happy customers. Their ideal attendee breakdown is:

• 70% potential new business
• 30% existing happy customers
• 20% shared relationships to represent success stories

6. Leverage ecosystem-qualified leads

By focusing on ecosystem-qualified leads (EQLs) — attendees who already use a partner's product but not Gainsight's — Gainsight ensures that these events are fruitful for both the hosts and the attendees, with a balance of prospects and customers that promotes both social proof and potential new business.

7. Streamline event planning

The ELG strategy allows Gainsight to plan and execute these events efficiently. A process that might have involved extensive data-sharing and unpredictable outcomes can now be completed with a short prep call, making the planning process quicker and more effective.

8. Support sales and marketing teams

Finally, Gainsight’s ELG playbooks empower their sales and marketing teams by providing them with the right data and insights to co-sell and co-market effectively, ensuring alignment across all teams and driving scalable business growth.

Ecosystem-driven customer success 

Gainsight's approach to customer success is deeply intertwined with its partner ecosystem, demonstrating that existing customers are more than just revenue sources — they're advocates, partners, and opportunities for growth. By integrating your product seamlessly into your customers' workflows, leveraging ecosystem intelligence, and creating events that foster valuable connections, you can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

“ELG is a force multiplier — I don’t think anyone gets to be a big and successful company without leveraging their ecosystem,” said Nick. “Overlaying ELG in your existing motions has become inevitable, and I wish we would have done this sooner.”

Just like Nick implemented an ELG strategy to boost their customer success motion, companies like Rollworks, and Freshworks have done it too. Here’s what they have done to succeed.