Understanding Plays

Plays empower you to proactively engage with your Contacts and Accounts at the right times based on a wide variety of factors. This could be usage of your product, their point in the customer life cycle, or their overall health as determined by their ChurnScore. Using Plays, you can automatically target these Contacts and Accounts with relevant content and messages that will help them get more value from your products and service.

ChurnZero offers two varieties of Plays. The first is One-Time Plays, which execute messages and tasks on specific dates and are ideal for date-specific events, like conferences or new feature launches. The second is Continuous Plays, which execute messages and tasks relative to an event occurring and are ideal for ongoing efforts, like onboarding or upcoming renewals.

Like Segments, you can create either Global or Private Plays.
Global plays can be used by any ChurnZero User, while Private Plays will only be available for use by the User who created them.

Note: A Private Play can only send messages to contacts that you own (via being either listed as the Owner, or holding a Role on the account).  Even if you use a segment that contains multiple contacts of different owners, only your owned contacts will receive the message.

Plays can target entire Accounts, or only specific Contacts:

• Contact plays will target all contacts that enter the play. Only play steps that can apply to contacts will be available.
• Account plays will target all accounts that enter the play. Only play steps that can apply to accounts will be available.

To access Plays, go to Admin > Playbooks. You will see two options: Drafts or Active. Drafts are where your plays sit if they have never been turned on. Once they are turned on at any time, they will move to the Active Tab.

From either of the Plays pages, you can create a new Play by clicking "New Play" at the top of the screen. Then you can decide which type of play you want to create.

Note: These settings are final once 'Create Play' is clicked.

Once you have determined what type of Play you are going to create, you can then go into customizing the details in the Play Edit page.

The Play Edit page has four sections: 

1. Play Settings

Set up the basic settings for your Play, including name, description, and time frames. These settings vary depending on whether you are working with a One-Time or a Continuous Play.

2. Entry Criteria

Entry Criteria lets you automatically enter Accounts or Contacts into Plays. Learn more about Entry Criteria here.

3. Play Steps

Set up the content of your plays by creating Play Steps. Since Plays can target Contacts or Accounts, the chosen target type will determine which Play Steps are available to be used:

When configuring Play Steps, Drag and drop the steps to reorder. 

Click on the black box above each step to duplicate, delete, or add new steps.

4. Exit Criteria

Exit Criteria allows you to remove Contacts or Accounts from Plays automatically when they either meet a Goal or no longer qualify for the Play. Learn more about Exit Criteria here.