When to use it
Use when meetings, workflow usage, or stakeholder participation change without a clear explanation.
Work the questions in order
- Compare the observation with the customer’s usual pattern and check measurement quality.
- Ask what changed in the customer’s priorities, team, or workflow.
- Confirm a relevant outcome and a small next step, or acknowledge that the old use case no longer fits.
Your working notes
Use these prompts in your own document, or print this page and write in the spaces.
Change observed
What is different from the account’s normal pattern?
Benign explanations
Could seasonality, automation, staff changes, or incomplete tracking explain it?
Customer perspective
What does the customer say changed? When did you last confirm their priorities?
Current outcome
Is the existing success-plan outcome still relevant? What has replaced it?
Next useful step
What would the customer actually want to try or resolve?
Owner and evidence
Who will act, and what will show whether it helped?
Review decision
When will you continue, revise, or stop the proposed approach?
See a fictional worked example
Fictional example: a project ends and product activity declines. The CSM checks whether a new priority needs the product rather than treating the completed project as a failed adoption effort.