magnus919_agent-skills/conditional-customer-success/references/discovery-brief.md

Discovery Brief — Conditional Customer Success

Date: 2026-08-02 Scope: Issue #192 — feat: add conditional customer-success skill

Survey of Existing Content

What already exists in the catalog

Existing Skill / Area	Relevant Content	Ownership Boundary
go-to-market	Account planning, customer segmentation, expansion strategy, pricing and packaging	Owns commercial motion (acquisition, conversion, pricing, account-tier design). CS consumes account-tier context; does not own commercial design.
product-adoption	Onboarding, activation, behavior change, feature discovery, sustained-use review, cohort segmentation, non-SaaS adoption contexts	Owns adoption-side diagnostics and plans. CS consumes adoption signals as health dimensions; does not own adoption methodology.
product-analytics-and-measurement	Metric trees, tracking plans, instrumentation QA, measurement governance	Owns metric definitions and instrumentation. CS consumes health metrics and evidence from the analytics layer.
product-experimentation	Experiment design, readout, ship/no-ship decisions, stopping rules	Owns experiment method. CS may propose experiments (intervention tests for at-risk accounts) but does not own experiment design.
product-strategy	North Star, product vision, strategic context, portfolio thinking	Owns strategic direction. CS informs strategy with customer evidence; does not set strategy.
product-methodology	Prioritization frameworks (RICE, etc.), discovery techniques, stakeholder alignment	Owns tactical product method. CS consumes prioritization context; does not own RICE or discovery.
financial-modeling	Unit economics, CAC, LTV, churn modeling, renewal forecasting	Owns financial model. CS provides account-level evidence (health, risk) that feeds financial models.
data-scientist	Statistical inference, causal analysis, experiment analysis	Owns statistical method. CS routes complex health-signal analysis here.
product-roadmapping-and-portfolio	Roadmap construction, portfolio balancing, investment allocation	Owns roadmap. CS feeds customer evidence into roadmap inputs; does not own prioritization.

What is missing (the gap)

No dedicated customer-success capability exists in the catalog. The existing skills cover isolated pieces:

• Onboarding and activation (product-adoption) but not ongoing success management or account health.
• Renewal modeling (financial-modeling) but not the human relationship practice (QBRs, success plans, escalation).
• Expansion strategy (go-to-market) but not the evidence-based account-expansion signal from CS.
• Stakeholder alignment (product-methodology) but not the closed-loop Voice of Customer process.

No skill currently defines:

1. When customer-success practice applies and when it should not be loaded.
2. Success plans as living artifacts connecting customer intent to product evidence.
3. Health/risk records that are evidence-based, not automated scores.
4. QBR structure and cadence.
5. Escalation paths with explicit human-judgment gates.
6. Handoff protocols between CS, product, support, and engineering.
7. Closed-loop feedback closure (customer insight → product change → customer communication).
8. Privacy boundaries specific to customer-success data.

Ownership Boundaries

What this skill owns

• Applicability decision: determining whether CS practice applies to a given product context.
• Success plans: desired outcomes, product-capability alignment, milestones, evidence gates, relationship ownership.
• Health/risk records: evidence-based, signal-per-dimension, with trend, confidence, and conflicting-signal tracking.
• QBR structure: evidence-review cadence and format (not sales presentations).
• Escalation paths: trigger thresholds, named decision-makers, human- judgment gates, fallback rules.
• Handoff protocols: structured handoffs to product, support, and engineering with account context and evidence.
• Closed-loop feedback: insight → validation → product decision → implementation → customer communication → closure record.
• Privacy and human-judgment boundaries: consent framework, surveillance-risk guidance, decision-support rules, escalation-gate requirements.

What this skill does NOT own (routes to specialists)

Concern	Routed to	Why
Metric definition, tracking plans, instrumentation	product-analytics-and-measurement	Owns measurement infrastructure
Adoption diagnostics, onboarding design, activation plans	product-adoption	Owns adoption lifecycle
Statistical analysis of health signals	data-scientist	Owns statistical method
Commercial pricing, packaging, contract terms	go-to-market	Owns commercial design
Financial modeling (CAC, LTV, churn)	financial-modeling	Owns financial models
Experiment design for CS interventions	product-experimentation	Owns experiment method
Product roadmap decisions from CS evidence	product-roadmapping-and-portfolio	Owns roadmap
Retirement communication, sunset coordination	product-lifecycle-learning	Owns lifecycle closure

Routing Decision Tree

Is there a recurring human relationship?
├── YES: Are there accounts, renewals, QBRs, OR a CS team?
│   ├── YES → LOAD conditional-customer-success
│   └── NO  → Route to product-adoption (adoption-side) or product-lifecycle-learning
└── NO  → DECLINE. Route to:
    ├── product-analytics-and-measurement (for health metrics)
    ├── product-adoption (for adoption diagnostics)
    └── product-lifecycle-learning (for churn/retirement patterns)

Product-Model Applicability Matrix

Model	Accounts?	Renewals?	QBRs?	CS Team?	CS Applies?	Adaptation
B2B Subscription	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Full	Standard artifacts
Transactional	Partial	No (repeat purchase)	Event-triggered	Sometimes	Partial	Adapted success plans, purchase-frequency health
Public Service	Rare	No	Program-review	Rare	Minimal	Service-outcome plans; stricter privacy; often decline
Internal Product	Sometimes	No	Internal-service-review	Sometimes	Conditional	Internal SLA plans; often decline

Routing to Skills Not Yet Landed

product-lifecycle-learning (prose reference) is the destination for:

• Sustained health decline after 2+ remediation attempts.
• Churn-pattern learning across the portfolio.
• Retirement communication plans and migration-support coordination.

Until it lands, this skill records the routing in prose. The routing becomes a resolved link when the directory exists.