Nicole Looker 

Hi everyone. Any other K-Pop or Demon Hunter fans in the room? Anybody else? Yes, huge fan here. Thank you all for joining this afternoon.

As mentioned, it is day two of Dreamforce, and we are all getting a little tired, but thanks for hanging in there with me. I am here to talk about the importance of building a winning post-sales process—covering everything that happens after “Closed Won.”

I am the Director of Revenue Operations for Rebuy, an e-commerce SaaS app built on the Shopify ecosystem. We work with many customers across multiple segments, and all of this is mission-critical to consider for your go-to-market teams.

During this session, I will cover the realities we face as operators, the business case for why post-sales is critical for GTM teams, a framework you can put into practice now to generate more revenue, and an example business use case with implementation tactics.

The first question I want everyone to think about is: Do you really know how much revenue you are leaving on the table after your sales team closes a deal?

When I looked into this, the answer was clear—quite a lot. Acquiring new customers costs much more than growing existing relationships. Existing customers actually drive the majority of our revenue growth.

According to several studies, acquisition costs have increased 222% over the past nine years. A 1% increase in retention leads to an 11% increase in customer lifetime value. Many companies now see more than 70% of their revenue growth coming from existing customers.

The problem is that most of our processes traditionally stop at “Closed Won.”

So, what is the business case here? What we are seeing—and what I have personally experienced—is that handoffs are black holes. Context is lost in the abyss, and CSMs spend too much time gathering information the sales team already had.

It is hard to predict or track expansion because most companies lack a solid forecasting motion for it. Meanwhile, executives ask why gross retention is declining, and RevOps scrambles to find answers.

Often, our biggest customer segment gets ignored because their contract values are small. We rely on manual processes that are not scalable or repeatable.

Previously, RevOps was focused on lead generation and conversion: MQL to SQL to Closed Won. Then we would repeat it. But now, RevOps must evolve into a complete revenue engine.

We should be thinking about what handoffs look like, how onboarding is measured and managed, how we monitor customer health, how we identify and forecast expansion, and how we ensure renewals are timely and consistent.

Nicole Looker 08:24

So how do we do all of this? How do we build our revenue engine successfully?

We are going to look at what I call the Four-Pillar Architecture for RevOps Excellence. It consists of:

1. Segmented handoffs
2. Health monitoring
3. Expansion identification
4. Automated renewal management

Let’s walk through each pillar.

First, segmented handoffs. After “Closed Won,” we want to make sure that the context sales gathers is preserved and automated so that no important information is lost. We break customers into tiers so each segment gets the right level of support.

Second, health monitoring. Use health scores and data signals to gather information and generate automated alerts based on trends.

Third, expansion identification. Use data and intent signals to forecast expansion opportunities and identify them earlier.

Fourth, renewal management. Build a renewal system that automates communication for smaller segments while ensuring enterprise clients receive the white-glove experience they need.

Now, I know that sounds great—but is it really that easy? Probably not.

I am a data-driven person, so I think about the data needed to build these pillars into workflows. Let’s break them down further.

For segmented handoffs, we must define our customer segments. This varies by business. It could be based on ACV, location, or annual revenue. Knowing this is the foundation.

With tools like AI call transcripts and CRM integrations, we can capture sales data automatically—things like competitive threats, budgets, stakeholders, decision makers, key influencers, pain points, and promised solutions.

Getting sales reps to capture this manually is a challenge, but technology can help solve that.

Health monitoring is next. This means tracking product usage—what features are turned on or off, login frequency, attendance at meetings or QBRs, ticket volume, CSAT scores, and even payment timeliness or contract compliance.

All these points feed into an algorithm that generates a proactive health score so the team can act before it is too late.

For expansion, we look at indicators like seat usage, storage growth, headcount increases, or customer requests for integrations or new features. These are all expansion signals that can trigger workflows inside the CRM.

Finally, renewals. Most renewal data already exists in the CRM—renewal dates, terms, pricing. The key is keeping it updated and tracking changes to decision-makers, budgets, and competitive threats.

Your team should also be able to demonstrate ROI using your tools during renewal discussions.

Now let’s see it all in action.

Nicole Looker 13:29

Here’s our use case. We have a strong foundation with an excellent sales and customer success team, and a large TAM of high-intent prospects who want to buy our product.

We have fast deal cycles in SMB and mid-market, but enterprise deals need more hand-holding and resources. The sales team struggles to keep track of all the data. Customers who do not qualify for customer success churn quickly because they do not get the support they need.

Enterprise customers require help from many stakeholders, which makes tracking difficult. Sales reps fill in too many manual fields, and there is no clear routing process. We also do not have a health score, and because of the high SMB and mid-market volume, renewals need automation so the CS team can focus on high-ACV enterprise contracts.

Sound familiar? I figured most of us have experienced something like that.

Implementation Step One: Segment Customers

In this case, we segmented by ACV. Enterprise ($100K+) customers get white-glove handoffs with dedicated CSMs. Mid-market receives structured onboarding with assigned CSMs and regular check-ins. SMB customers get automated onboarding, pooled CSM support, and self-service resources.

Inside Salesforce, we created a custom formula field to populate the segment. Once that field was filled, the record type switched automatically to display only the fields relevant to that segment. Sales knew what to capture, and CS saw only what mattered for their motion.

Implementation Step Two: Routing

Routing to the right people at the right time is critical. Inside Salesforce, we created a trigger at the “Closed Won” stage. We used AI call transcripts to ensure required fields were populated, Slack notifications for assignments and alerts, and LeanData to round-robin opportunities across enterprise, mid-market, and SMB groups.

Once routed, BookIt links were added to Apollo sequences sent by the assigned CSM. This enabled customers to schedule meetings directly.

The result was a 75% faster time to first meeting across all customers—key to maintaining momentum post-sale.

Implementation Step Three: Health Score

We built a health score algorithm using CRM data, weighting each input to total 100 points. We created triggers to notify CSMs when scores dropped below 70, escalate to managers below 50, and involve executives if the downward trend continued.

This allowed us to identify at-risk accounts earlier and act proactively, instead of waiting for renewal to find out they were unhappy.

Implementation Step Four: Expansion Identification

We created signals for expansion, including requests for features or integrations, new stakeholders, or usage increases. AI call transcripts and CRM changes triggered alerts in Slack, and expansion opportunities were auto-created in Salesforce using Sweep.

We added a new opportunity type for expansion with its own stages to separate it from new business and renewals.

CSMs reviewed new opportunities within five business days to validate them—essentially treating them like a CSQL.

This process increased expansion opportunity identification by 67% and conversion rates improved significantly.

Implementation Step Five: Renewal Automation

We built a 120-day renewal flow with 30-day milestones. Automated alerts notified teams as each step was completed. Renewal opportunities were auto-created with key information, and data updates flowed through Salesforce.

Contracts were generated in PandaDoc automatically and reviewed by the team. This approach improved renewal predictability, expansion rates, and customer lifetime value.

Nicole Looker 22:40

So, key takeaways. RevOps does not stop at “Closed Won.” There is enormous opportunity in post-sales—driving retention, expansion, and sustainable growth.

The four-pillar framework adds structure to post-sales processes. The implementation approach is flexible across business designs, but automating tasks and preserving context are what make this successful.

Post-sales motions transform one-time buyers into lifelong customers, creating durable advantages for your organization.

Thank you all for your time this afternoon, and enjoy the rest of OpsStars