If you’re running a B2B go-to-market team, you know the pain: too many tools, too little clarity, and a lot of manual work just to keep everything moving. Maybe you’ve heard about Planhat and wondered if it actually streamlines operations or if it’s just another SaaS with big claims and complicated dashboards. This guide breaks down what Planhat really does, what features matter, and how B2B teams can (and can’t) use it to make go-to-market less of a headache.
Who Should Care?
- Heads of Customer Success, Sales, or RevOps who are tired of spreadsheets.
- SaaS companies looking to keep customer data, health scores, onboarding, and renewals in one place.
- Teams that want to actually use their CRM instead of fighting with it.
If you’re looking for a magic bullet, sorry—nothing’s perfect. But if you want to cut down on busywork and get a clearer view of your customer journey, keep reading.
What Is Planhat, Really?
Planhat bills itself as a Customer Platform: think CRM, but with a heavy tilt toward Customer Success and post-sale engagement. It brings together customer health scoring, onboarding, playbooks, renewals, and reporting under one roof. Unlike older CRMs that treat post-sale as an afterthought, Planhat’s built to help you keep customers happy—and paying.
But let’s not get carried away. It’s not the answer to every GTM prayer, but it does a few things well:
- Centralizes customer data (and makes it less painful to slice and dice)
- Automates repetitive tasks (playbooks, reminders, renewals)
- Surfaces risk and upsell opportunities (customer health, signals)
- Connects with other tools (decent integrations, though not magic)
Now, let’s dig into the features and call out what’s worth your time.
1. Centralized Customer Data: One Source of (Mostly) Truth
Every go-to-market team wants a single source of truth. Planhat gets you close—if your data is clean and you set it up right.
What Works: - Custom fields and flexible data model: You’re not stuck with out-of-the-box fields. Track what matters for your business—MRR, usage, NPS, onboarding status, or anything else. - 360° customer profiles: Sales, success, support, and product data can all live in one place. You can see emails, meeting notes, usage stats, and contracts without bouncing between tabs. - Segmenting and filtering: Want to see all customers in onboarding? Or churn risk by region? Easy to build filtered views.
What Doesn’t: - Garbage in, garbage out. If your data is messy, Planhat won’t fix it for you. - There’s a learning curve to mapping your data model—worth it, but not “plug and play.”
Pro Tip: Don’t try to boil the ocean. Start with the basics—MRR, onboarding status, lifecycle stage—then expand.
2. Customer Health Scoring: Less Guesswork, More Action
Customer health scores can be hand-wavy in a lot of tools. Planhat actually lets you define your own logic, which means you can build something useful instead of relying on generic formulas.
What Works: - Custom health models: Combine product usage, support tickets, contract status, survey scores—whatever signals matter for your business. - Automated alerts: If a customer’s health drops, Planhat can ping the right CSM (or the whole team) so you don’t find out too late. - Historical trends: See how health changes over time, not just a snapshot.
What Doesn’t: - Setting up a meaningful health score takes work. If you rush it, you’ll end up chasing the wrong signals. - There’s always a human element—no health score replaces talking to your customer.
Ignore: The temptation to get hyper-granular with dozens of signals. Start simple: usage, engagement, support pain, and expand as you learn what’s predictive.
3. Playbooks and Workflows: Automate the Boring Stuff
One of the real pain points in B2B GTM is process consistency—everyone doing things their own way, nothing tracked. Planhat’s playbooks help you standardize and automate the steps that matter.
What Works: - Onboarding checklists: Assign clear steps and tasks to new customers, track progress, and trigger reminders automatically. - Renewal processes: Set up reminders and tasks in advance so renewals aren’t a last-minute scramble. - Lifecycle automation: Move accounts between stages (onboarding, adoption, renewal, expansion) based on data or manual triggers.
What Doesn’t: - Playbooks are only as good as the process you define. If your onboarding is a mess, automating it just makes the mess faster. - Some more complex workflows might need workarounds—Planhat isn’t Zapier.
Pro Tip: Start with one high-impact playbook (like onboarding) and get feedback from the team before automating everything.
4. Collaboration: Keeping Everyone on the Same Page
A lot of teams complain about silos—sales doesn’t talk to CS, CS doesn’t talk to product, and so on. Planhat tries to fix that by making customer info visible and actionable across teams.
What Works: - Shared timelines and notes: Everyone can see what’s happened with an account—calls, emails, support issues, renewals. Fewer “what’s the latest?” meetings. - Task assignment and mentions: Assign tasks to team members, mention people in notes, and track ownership. - Permissions and visibility: Control who can see and edit what (useful if you have sensitive customers or teams across regions).
What Doesn’t: - If your company culture is allergic to documentation, no tool will fix that. - Slack-style chat is limited—this isn’t a replacement for your main comms tool.
Ignore: The urge to document everything. Focus on the key notes and actions that actually move deals or renewals forward.
5. Integrations: Playing Nice with Other Tools
No SaaS tool is an island. Planhat integrates with a decent set of apps (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom, email, calendar, and more). That said, not every integration is perfect.
What Works: - Two-way sync with major CRMs: Updates flow both ways, so you don’t have to double-enter data. - Product usage data: Connect your product analytics (Amplitude, Mixpanel, Segment, etc.) to inform health scores and alerts. - Support and billing tools: Bring in support ticket data or invoice status for a fuller customer view.
What Doesn’t: - Some integrations require technical setup. If you don’t have someone in-house who can wrangle APIs, budget some extra time. - Not every field in your CRM will sync perfectly—expect some mapping quirks.
Pro Tip: Start with your CRM and email/calendar integrations. Add product usage and support data once you’re comfortable.
6. Reporting and Dashboards: Insights Without the Headache
You need real data to run a go-to-market team, but most reporting tools are either too basic or too complicated. Planhat tries to strike a balance.
What Works: - Out-of-the-box dashboards: See renewals, expansions, churn risk, onboarding progress—no need to build everything from scratch. - Custom reports: Build reports on almost any field. Filter by CSM, segment, health score—you name it. - Scheduled exports: Push data to your inbox or share with execs on a set schedule.
What Doesn’t: - If you want full-blown BI (think custom SQL queries, deep data modeling), Planhat isn’t your tool. - Visualizations are solid, but not as flexible as dedicated analytics tools.
Ignore: The urge to over-engineer dashboards. Focus on the 3-5 metrics your team actually uses.
The Real Benefits (and the Limits)
The Good:
- Cuts down on busywork and manual tracking.
- Makes renewals, onboarding, and escalation a lot less chaotic.
- Gives clarity on customer health and growth opportunities.
- Brings Sales and CS closer together—if you use it right.
The Not-So-Good:
- You still need to get your data right—don’t expect magic.
- Some ramp-up time for setup and change management.
- Not a fit if you need deep customization or crazy-complex workflows.
Getting Started Without the Headache
If you’re considering Planhat, here’s how to avoid the common traps:
- Clean your data first. Garbage in, garbage out.
- Map your basic processes on paper. Onboarding, renewals, escalations—write them down before building them in Planhat.
- Start small. Begin with one playbook and a handful of core fields.
- Train the team. Don’t just send a login link. Show people how it’ll make their lives easier.
- Iterate. Don’t expect perfection on day one—improve as you go.
Keep It Simple, Iterate, and Ignore the Hype
Planhat isn’t magic, but it can make go-to-market a lot less painful for B2B teams who are drowning in spreadsheets and scattered tools. If you keep your setup focused, get buy-in from the team, and avoid chasing every shiny feature, you’ll spend less time chasing updates and more time actually helping customers.
Keep it simple, iterate as you learn, and don’t let the software run the show. The right tool is the one your team actually uses.