Let's be honest: a lot of “customer journey” advice sounds great in theory, but falls apart the second you try to jam your actual business into some cookie-cutter SaaS tool. If you’re using Totango and want the customer stages to actually fit the way your team works, not some hypothetical best practice, you’re in the right place.
This guide is for anyone who’s inherited a messy Totango instance, is tired of forcing customers into awkward buckets, or just wants to make the tool less annoying and more useful. You don’t need to be a Totango super-user, but you do need admin access and a willingness to poke around.
Why bother customizing customer journey stages?
Totango ships with standard journey stages like “Onboarding,” “Adoption,” and “Renewal.” These are fine if you’re a textbook SaaS company. But if your process is even a little different — more hand-holding, custom implementation, a weird contract cycle — the defaults start to break down. You get:
- Stages nobody uses, or everyone ignores
- Stuck accounts that never “graduate” to the next stage
- Data that’s impossible to trust
Customizing the journey stages gives you:
- A more accurate view of what’s actually happening with your customers
- Clearer signals for your team on what to do next
- Cleaner reporting (which means less time explaining weird numbers to your boss)
Let’s get into the practical steps.
Step 1: Map your real customer journey first (outside Totango)
Don’t touch Totango yet. Seriously. The biggest mistake is rearranging stages in the tool before you’ve actually agreed on what your customer journey is.
How to do it:
- Grab a whiteboard, sticky notes, or a blank doc.
- Write down the major moments in your customer lifecycle, in plain English.
- When do you first talk to a customer?
- When do they start using your product?
- When does your team typically “hand off” or change focus?
- What does a successful renewal or upsell look like?
- Don’t get lost in the weeds. Aim for 4–7 stages. If you have more, you’re probably overcomplicating things.
Pro tip: Talk to the frontline folks — CSMs, support, onboarding. They know where customers actually get stuck or drop off.
Step 2: Translate your journey into Totango stages
Now that you’ve got your stages, you need to map them to Totango’s structure. Totango calls these “Lifecycle Stages” inside a “SuccessBLOC” (their term for a workspace focused on a part of your business, like onboarding or renewal).
What you need to know:
- Each account in Totango can be in one stage at a time.
- Stages are ordered, but you can move accounts forward or backward.
- You can rename, add, remove, or reorder stages (with some caveats — more on that below).
Action:
- Log in as an admin.
- Go to the relevant SuccessBLOC (often “Customer Journey”).
- Find the “Journey” or “Stages” tab in settings.
Step 3: Edit or create your stages
Here’s where you’ll do the actual customization.
To edit stages:
- In the “Stages” area, you’ll see the default list.
- Click a stage to rename it, or use the options to add/delete/reorder.
A few honest tips:
- Don’t obsess over perfect naming. Just make sure your team knows what each stage means.
- Avoid one-off stages for edge cases. If only 1% of accounts ever go to “Pilot Pending Legal,” skip it. Track that with a tag or attribute instead.
- If you want to remove a default stage: Totango will warn you if accounts are currently assigned to it. You’ll need to reassign those first.
What doesn’t work:
- Trying to force a linear journey when your real process is a loop or has branches. Totango stages are one track per account. If you have truly parallel journeys, consider using separate SuccessBLOCs or custom attributes.
Step 4: Define clear rules for moving between stages
It’s not enough to rename the boxes. You need to spell out when an account actually moves from one stage to the next.
Why bother?
- Prevents “stage drift” (accounts stuck in the wrong stage forever)
- Makes reporting meaningful
- Saves your team from endless arguments
How to do it:
- For each stage, write a one-sentence rule: “A customer moves from Onboarding to Adoption when they’ve completed training and logged in 3 times.”
- If possible, automate stage changes with Totango’s automation. You can set up triggers based on events, attributes, or health scores.
- If you can’t automate, create a checklist or playbook for your team.
What to ignore:
- Don’t try to automate everything right away. Some transitions (like “Customer is happy enough for a case study”) will always need a human decision.
Step 5: Communicate changes to your team
A new journey stage setup is useless if nobody uses it. Before flipping the switch:
- Share the new stage definitions with anyone who manages accounts.
- Explain why you made changes (less busywork, better reporting, etc.).
- Ask for feedback — but don’t let this become endless debate.
Pro tip: Give examples of real accounts and where they’d fall in the new stages. This is way more helpful than abstract definitions.
Step 6: Update your reporting, dashboards, and processes
Once your stages are live:
- Check that your existing reports and dashboards still make sense. You might need to update filters or widgets.
- Update training docs, onboarding guides, and any “how-to” resources for your team.
- Review automated workflows — if you had automations tied to old stages, make sure they point to the right place.
Watch out for:
- Old data in weird places. Don’t panic if your “Adoption” numbers suddenly spike or dip. It takes a cycle or two for things to normalize.
- People using the old stage names out of habit. Gentle reminders help.
Step 7: Review and iterate
No journey stage setup is perfect. After a month or two:
- Ask your team what’s working and what’s confusing.
- Check if accounts are getting stuck in any one stage (that’s usually a sign the rule is unclear, or the stage isn’t useful).
- Don’t be afraid to tweak — just make changes on a schedule, not every week.
Common pitfalls to avoid
- Overcomplicating the journey: If you can’t explain the stages to a new hire in under a minute, it’s too complex.
- Ignoring real-life exceptions: Not every customer follows the “happy path.” Build in ways to track exceptions (tags, notes), but don’t add a stage for every scenario.
- Chasing “best practices” that don’t fit: Just because a webinar says you need a “Value Realization” stage doesn’t mean you actually do.
Wrapping up: Keep it simple, keep it useful
Customizing customer journey stages in Totango isn’t hard — the hard part is getting your team to agree on what the journey really is. Start simple, use plain language, and don’t be afraid to adjust as your business changes. The goal isn’t to impress anyone with fancy diagrams; it’s to make your data and your workflow a little less painful.
Don’t wait for perfection. Get your stages good enough, see how they work, and keep iterating. Your future self (and your team) will thank you.