Retain Champions Agent — Lantern

Grow Customers

Retain Champions

Track the contacts who made you a vendor — and keep them close.

Champion Departure and Churn
Champion departure is one of the most predictable causes of churn and failed renewals in B2B SaaS, and most teams don't find out until the renewal call. The Retain Champions agent monitors every key contact at customer accounts for job changes, role transitions, and engagement decay — then alerts the team and triggers relationship maintenance actions before the relationship goes cold.

Identifies and tags champion contacts across accounts

Not every contact at a customer account is a champion. The agent identifies champions by analyzing CRM engagement history, deal influence, email response patterns, executive sponsor status, and product usage attribution. Contacts who drove the original purchase decision, advocated internally, or are named in contract documents get tagged as champions automatically. The tagging logic is configurable — teams can define what 'champion' means for their business, whether that's the economic buyer, the power user, or the internal sponsor. Champion tags are maintained as org structures change and contacts shift roles.

Champion tagged: Rachel F., VP Revenue Operations, Stackline Inc. — tagged based on: original deal champion (CRM), 14 product logins in past 30 days, named in renewal contract, 3 referral introductions made.

Monitors for job changes and departure signals

LinkedIn updates, email bounce patterns, org chart changes, and third-party data providers all carry early signals of a champion transition. The agent monitors all of them continuously. When a champion updates their LinkedIn title, goes quiet on email, or appears in a new org chart, the system flags it immediately — not in the next monthly CRM audit. For accounts approaching renewal, champion risk is elevated to the CSM and AE automatically, with a recommended action: reach out now, identify a backup champion, or escalate to the executive sponsor. The goal is to act while there's still time to build a relationship with the incoming contact.

Alert: Daniel H., Director of Sales Ops, Vertex Analytics — LinkedIn title updated to 'VP Revenue Operations at Harmon Capital.' Departure confirmed. Account: Vertex Analytics. Renewal in 47 days. CSM notified. Backup champion: none identified.

Maintains relationships with warm outreach triggers

Relationship maintenance doesn't mean sending the same QBR recap every quarter. The agent monitors champion activity — job anniversaries, company funding, published content, LinkedIn posts, conference mentions — and triggers personalized outreach at moments that feel natural rather than transactional. When a champion posts about a new initiative that Lantern is relevant to, the CSM gets a suggested message drafted and ready to send. When a champion's company raises a round, the account gets flagged for an expansion conversation. The intent is to keep the relationship warm between renewal cycles, not just reactive when the contract is up.

Outreach trigger: Elena V., SVP Customer Success, Novara Health — published LinkedIn article on CS team scale. CSM draft ready: 'Elena — great post on CS team structure. We've seen similar patterns with [customer example]. Would love to show you how others are handling this at your stage.'

Tracks champion health scores across the account portfolio

At the portfolio level, the agent produces a champion health score for every account — a composite of champion tenure, engagement frequency, product usage activity, and job change risk. CSMs use this score to prioritize proactive outreach: accounts with declining champion health scores get attention before the renewal conversation surfaces a problem. The score updates weekly and feeds directly into the renewal risk model. Accounts with multiple champions and strong health scores are flagged as expansion candidates — healthy champion networks are the strongest leading indicator of upsell success.

Champion health summary: Q2 portfolio. 48 accounts. 12 accounts flagged below threshold. Top at-risk: Crestwood Logistics (champion health: 32/100, renewal in 61 days), Anfield Capital (61/100, no backup champion), Orbis SaaS (44/100, champion on parental leave).

Today vs. With Retain Champions

Today

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