Gainsight CS vs. Strikedeck (discontinued)

Gainsight CS can do almost anything if you put enough effort into it. Its advantage is that it has a very broad range of functionality and endless configuration options. That is also its disadvantage because everything has to be built. If you are looking for something that arrives with tools and behaviors that are already tailored out of the box to CS best practices, it's not Gainsight CS.

Incentivized

The system is good for Customer Success teams to get started and if all the users are updating it responsibly. There are not many checks and balances in the system so your team will have to be disciplined. The reason why I have not been generous with my rating is only because of the slow nature of support and upgrades to the product.

Incentivized

• Ability to capture all customer information in one spot
• Gantt charts for overall success plans to map out TAM deliverables
• Automatically integrate feeds from sources to build reports as needed
• Ability to capture customer follow-up tasks so I'm not trying to capture the list of actions too repetitively (e.g. using the "Tasks" section of an entry)
• Ability to use the plugin to automatically add emails to timeline; ability to use calendar integration to automatically add meeting minutes that will sync up to Gong notes

Incentivized

• Automating tasks within Playbooks
• Combine multiple sources of customer data
• Makes it easy to track and review customer status
• The Customer Support is outstanding - knowledgeable, helpful, responsive

Incentivized

• Would love to see a Gainsight OPs/Admin checklist that guides CS Ops team through specific pieces of information needed to execute specific playbooks (best practices)
• When creating reports, sometimes it's difficult to find the correct variable that you are looking for as it's nested under various categories
• Would love ability to "heatmap" specific individual customer engagement based on CSM inputted customer contacts at meetings
• Would love to see more analysis on engagements - how often, how frequent - built into the product

Incentivized

• The knowledge base with content and videos is still work in progress.
• The support team was very responsive, but not consultative. I had to create from scratch most of the time.
• It was confusing to use.

Incentivized

Gainsight offers a level of support that I've not experience before. They will work with you to come up with a solution to a problem - or help match you with another client that has a similar setup as you to get their feedback. Also the functionality that we have built within the software works for us. It's 'easy' to use (once you get the hang of it) and our users rather enjoy working in the software.

Incentivized

I give it this score based on the implementation at my current employer. I don't know if it could be higher based on if the implementation went better, or if there is something on the vendor side that could help. If this were asked at my previous employer, I would have given it a score of 9 or 10.

Incentivized

I think the only thing holding me back from a 10 is the fact that I don't have that next step field and integration seems to break at times.

Incentivized

Rarely any issues with availability or outages. When they do occur, there is excellent communication and consistent updates. Bugs are usually addressed in a timely manner, and communication around those issues is also extremely good

Incentivized

There are some times when it can take almost a minute to load some of our reports or the rules engine. Within a rule it can also take time to load the actions as they each load one at a time when scrolling. The ability to scroll without waiting would be ideal

The CSMs are very hands-on and helpful, both Elaine and Lane have provided a lot of guidance and value over the years. Support is responsive and will jump on things as needed. The thought leadership and community is probably the most valuable part of our support from Gainsight.

Incentivized

When we get issues with Strikedeck, we raise it internally with the Strikedeck admin team. They then contact Strikedeck and raise a support ticket. The turnaround time is quick quick. But from my personal use of Strikedeck, I have only come across few situations where a support ticket is raised with Strikedeck.

Incentivized

The online videos are very good for basic tasks in the platform, but it isn't very descriptive or helpful trying to make your own specific variables fit the simple example that is typically used. Typically, I'll watch a video, try on my own and still have to get help from support or Customer Success team

I was not part of the implantation (I took over later). However, based on what was passed to me, the tool was not well implemented at our org. I think this had to do with complexity, wrong person assigned in our org, and org buy-in. I think it would have been very successful if we had a better assignment process internally.

Incentivized

We went through an evaluation of ChurnZero, which did not have the ability to pull in usage from complex data sets or to visualize it natively. ChurnZero did not offer the ability to run surveys or NPS which would have required additional tooling and investment

Incentivized

The lower price was why we went with Strikedeck over Gainsight or Totango.

Incentivized

It can lean a little heavily toward Customer Success, but the ability to customize many areas based on specific user or account characteristics allows you to make it work across many different roles. This also makes collaboration within the tool across teams possible. It a flexible tool if you have a skilled admin to help guide your process building.

Incentivized

• No metrics yet, but we have improved our at-risk customers by identifying risks earlier via our automated health score and with our Gainsight approved mitigation workflow, CSMs and leaders have better discipline with mitigation efforts and sharing at-risk customers across the org so other teams can step in and assist

Incentivized

• Helps in better forecasting of revenue & customer retention.
• Provides Customer Success specific MIS.
• NPS survey help gauge customer pulse.

Incentivized