Introduction & Business Objective

Business Context

In many organizations, the Customer Success (CS) function is reactive rather than proactive. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) often rely on manual spreadsheets, delayed CRM updates, or infrequent renewal reports to detect customers at risk of churn. As a result, opportunities for timely engagement — such as renewal reminders, satisfaction checks, or upsell conversations — are often missed.

Problem

Customer churn occurs when active clients discontinue services due to dissatisfaction, lack of engagement, or missed renewal follow-ups. Without a structured retention framework inside the CRM, key data like renewal dates and engagement timelines remain siloed. CSMs are forced to manually track hundreds of accounts, leading to inconsistent follow-ups and revenue leakage.

Strategic Solution

This project introduces an automated retention alert system built entirely within HubSpot’s Free and Starter tiers. The system dynamically identifies “at-risk” customers by combining contract data (renewal dates) and behavioral data (last activity).

The workflow automatically assigns high-priority tasks to the responsible CSM the moment a customer meets churn-risk conditions — transforming the CRM from a static data repository into a proactive revenue-retention engine.

Core Goal

To create an end-to-end, data-driven retention mechanism that reduces manual oversight and ensures zero delay in detecting churn risk.

Phase 1: Data Infrastructure (CRM Administration & Setup)

The foundation of proactive retention automation lies in clean, structured, and meaningful data. This phase focuses on creating the data model that supports accurate churn detection.

Step 1: Define and Create Custom Properties

Two new custom date fields were added under a dedicated Property Group: "Customer Success" to capture time-based retention indicators.

Property Name Field Type Description Example Value
Contract Renewal Date Date Picker Tracks when the customer’s current contract expires. Used for time-based churn alerts. 2025-11-01
Last Service Interaction Date Date Picker Tracks the most recent meaningful engagement or service interaction logged in HubSpot. 2025-08-15

Setup Steps:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Properties → Create Property.
  2. Select Object Type: Contact (to ensure it aligns with the workflow).
  3. Choose Group: “Customer Success.”