Proactive outreach to at-risk accounts

You should already have a health score. If not, start with How to monitor customer health. Here you need one more decision: the line that triggers action.

Use two bands. Amber means the score has fallen by a set amount, for example twenty points in thirty days. Red means the score is below your floor, or a hard signal has fired: no login for 21 days, the main user has left, a support complaint is open for over a week, or a renewal is within 90 days with no recent contact. Write the rules on one page so nobody argues about them.

Each flagged account gets a named person, not a team. In HubSpot this can be a task assigned to the account owner. In a customer success tool such as Gainsight, ChurnZero, Vitally, Planhat, Custify or Totango, it is usually a playbook or alert. Pick whatever you already use and keep the rule simple.

Open the list of amber and red accounts. For each, answer three questions: what changed, who is the contact, and what is the next step? End the meeting with every account owned and every next step dated. Thirty minutes is enough if you prepare the list beforehand.

If you are a one-person team, do this alone with a timer. The review is the habit that matters.

Speed matters more than polish. Aim to reach every flagged account within two working days of the flag. Use a personal message from a named person, not a templated "we miss you" email. Automation can create the task and send a first check-in, but the real contact must be a human.

Here is a template you can adapt:

"Hi [first name], I looked at how your team is using [product] and noticed [specific change, such as fewer logins since March]. I would like to understand whether it still does the job you bought it for. Do you have fifteen minutes this week? If something is not working, I would rather hear it now."

Name the specific change. Do not mention the score. Customers should not feel they are being monitored by a number.

Ask open questions: what has changed in your team or priorities, what are you using it for now, what would make it more useful? Listen for four causes: the champion left, the use case moved, the product is not delivering, or budget is under pressure. Each needs a different fix. Offer a concrete next step, such as a training session for new users or a call with a decision-maker, and book it before you hang up.

If there is no reply, try again on day five through a different channel, such as a short phone call or a message in Slack if you share a channel. After a second miss, ask a senior colleague or the founder to reach out. Log every attempt on the account record.

When an account is back to green, or lost, record why. Use a short list: champion left, low adoption, price, missing feature, competitor, other. After a quarter these reasons show you what to fix in onboarding or the product. Feed them into How to prevent and reduce churn.

• Waiting for the quarterly review to look at red accounts.
• Sending only automated emails to accounts that need a conversation.
• Opening with a discount before you know the cause.
• Having a list of at-risk accounts without owners or dates.
• Reaching out only to the contact who has gone quiet, not their manager.

You track three numbers: the share of flagged accounts contacted within two working days, the share that return to green within 60 days, and the revenue of flagged accounts that renewed. When the first is close to all of them and the second keeps climbing, the routine is doing its job. Also watch whether the number of accounts going red unannounced falls over time.