Design an actionable health score for customer success

OpsLift Chief Customer Officer Talei Blomfield shows how to design a health score that your team can trust and act on. An actionable health score will help you predict risk, drive expansion and reduce churn. She covers when you need one (and when you don’t), what to include, how to keep it simple and automated, and where to find true indicators across the customer journey.

Key themes include:

1. Define customer success (and the job of a health score)
   A health score should estimate churn risk and expansion readiness, and trigger the right play, often as simple as green/amber/red when done well.

2. Pick one business outcome
   You can’t optimise for everything: choose churn reduction, expansion, or referrals as your primary focus. “Great customer experience is expensive.” Deliver the right experience for your model; invest where it moves your chosen outcome.

3. Find leading indicators across the journey
   Map the journey (sale → onboarding/activation → adoption → renewal) and look one stage earlier than where churn shows up. Capture churn reasons; separate regrettable (can’t fix) from non‑regrettable (can fix). 

4. Keep it simple, actionable and automated
   Start with the minimum number of signals that change your actions; avoid “nice to know” metrics.

5. Validate the score and tailor by segment
   A good score removes surprises: if eight of ten churns were flagged, you’re on track; if not, iterate.

Key takeaways:

• Choose your primary business outcome and align your health score to it.

• Map the journey and identify 2–4 leading indicators per segment.

• Act on what you can change.

• Start simple in your CRM; integrate product, billing, and support data; add playbooks 

• Review every churn/expansion vs the score and iterate quarterly.

View the complete session to go beyond the highlights.