How Spotify, Peloton, and HubSpot Build Loyalty and Drive Growth
A Strategic Playbook for Aligning Goals, Measuring Value, and Unlocking Growth
I’ll admit it—I’m a Peloton member, and I love everything about it. The milestones, the in-class shoutouts, and even the friendly competition on the leaderboard make me feel like I’m part of a community. It’s more than just fitness; it’s an experience that keeps me engaged and excited to come back.
Spotify does the same with their Wrapped at the end of the year—it’s like they’re holding up a mirror to my music habits, and I can’t wait to see it. And then there’s HubSpot, which turns customer insights into actionable recommendations, helping businesses like mine uncover new ways to grow.
These brands don’t just deliver a product or service; they create moments that connect, deliver value, and drive loyalty. In this post, I’ll explore what makes their strategies so effective and how Customer Success teams can adapt these lessons to turn everyday interactions into growth opportunities.
Lessons from the Best
1. Spotify: Personalization at Scale
What They Do: Spotify’s Year-End Wrapped is a masterclass in turning data into delight. Every December, users receive a colorful, interactive summary of their listening habits, including top songs, artists, genres, and minutes streamed.
Channel Strategy: Wrapped is shared via mobile notifications, in-app displays, and social media prompts that encourage users to share their results.
Expansion Play: Wrapped subtly drives premium upgrades (e.g., better playlist curation, ad-free listening) while encouraging organic referrals as users share their stats with friends.
Takeaways for CS Teams:
Turn data into a story your customers want to hear.
Build Impact Reports: Like Wrapped, create a visually engaging, data-rich report that highlights the customer’s achievements with your solution.
Channels: Send as a personalized email, showcase it in a dashboard, and share highlights during QBRs.
Example: “This year, you saved 200 hours using our automation tools—equivalent to $10,000 in reclaimed time!”
Encourage Sharing: Make reports shareable so customers can showcase their success internally or externally.
Channels: In-product banners or social media templates.
Example: “Show your team how much you’ve achieved! Click here to share your annual savings report.”
Use Real-Time Alerts: Don’t wait for year-end; send smaller, milestone-based updates throughout the year.
Channels: Push notifications or in-product messages.
Example: “Congrats! You hit your 10th automated workflow. Your team is saving 5 hours per week!”
2. Peloton: Building Community and Celebrating Success
What They Do: Peloton drives engagement and loyalty by celebrating user milestones (e.g., 100 rides) and fostering a sense of community through leaderboards, live classes, and social features.
Channel Strategy: Peloton leverages app notifications, in-class shoutouts from instructors, and community groups to recognize achievements.
Expansion Play: By highlighting progress and connecting users with a community, Peloton primes customers for additional purchases, like new equipment or extended memberships.
Takeaways for CS Teams:
Celebrate milestones and build emotional connection.
Recognize Progress: Celebrate customer achievements tied to their business goals.
Channels: Email, in-product notifications, and social media.
Example: “Congratulations! Your team just completed its 50th project using our platform. Let’s schedule a quick call to showcase this success to your leadership team.”
Create a Peer Community: Foster connections among your customers to share best practices and success stories.
Channels: Private Slack groups, LinkedIn communities, or dedicated forums.
Example: “Join our user group to connect with peers and learn how they’re scaling their success with x product.”
Personalize Engagement: Use every customer interaction to make them feel valued.
Channels: In-app leaderboards, direct messages, or event shoutouts.
Example: “Your team is in the top 10% of [feature usage]! Want to see how others are leveraging this to improve their workflows? Let’s discuss.”
3. HubSpot: Empowering Customers with Insights
What They Do: HubSpot integrates education, automation, and data into their CS strategy. Their dashboards provide real-time visibility into usage, while the HubSpot Academy equips users with the skills to extract maximum value from the platform.
Channel Strategy: HubSpot uses emails, in-app dashboards, and webinars to deliver insights and learning opportunities.
Expansion Play: By surfacing underutilized features and educating customers on new capabilities, HubSpot creates natural upsell opportunities.
Takeaways for CS Teams:
Empower customers with actionable insights and learning.
Proactively Surface Untapped Value: Show customers what they could achieve by using underutilized features.
Channels: Dashboard notifications, email nudges, and in-product tooltips.
Example: “You’re only using 60% of Feature x. Customers who fully implement it see a 20% improvement in key KPI. Let’s schedule a quick walkthrough.”
Educate Continuously: Provide self-serve resources and ongoing training to help customers maximize value.
Channels: Webinars, email campaigns, or on-demand video libraries.
Example: “Join our free webinar: 3 ways to boost productivity with feature x.”
Highlight ROI Regularly: Use dashboards and reports to tie customer actions to tangible business outcomes.
Channels: Live QBRs, email reports, and one-click exportable PDFs.
Example: “In the last quarter, your marketing team generated 500 leads through feature x, contributing $50,000 in pipeline.”
Why Your Executive Team Needs a ‘Wrapped’ Moment Too
Spotify Wrapped, Peloton Milestones, and HubSpot Dashboards don’t just delight customers—they make value visible and worth celebrating. These principles can also help articulate the impact of Customer Success to internal stakeholders, especially when communicating value is more critical than ever.
During times of budget scrutiny, it’s vital to show executives how CS drives measurable outcomes. What better way than to give them a reason to celebrate?
Understand Stakeholder Priorities: Align with what matters to leadership—retention, revenue, expansion, and efficiency. For example, instead of sharing activity metrics (“We onboarded X customers”), tie results to business impact: “We retained $2M in ARR and identified $500K in expansion pipeline.”
Celebrate Wins Visibly: Create quarterly or year-end impact reports highlighting key CS achievements, like revenue retained, major milestones, and customer success stories. Use dashboards or infographics to make the data easy to digest and share.
Proactively Highlight Opportunities: Show where CS can drive even more value with additional investment. For example, “Expanding training could boost adoption by 20%, adding $1M in ARR.”
Give your executive team their own “Wrapped” moment—a reason to champion Customer Success as a strategic growth driver.
The Framework for Driving Customer Value
The strategies all have one thing in common: they align with customer goals, demonstrate measurable value, and naturally create opportunities for growth.
To replicate this, CS teams can adopt a three-phase framework:
Understand Their World:
Map your customer’s current state and goals.
Identify their key challenges and the metrics that matter most.
Ask: What are they trying to solve, achieve, or improve?
Measure and Communicate Value:
Regularly track their progress and connect it to business outcomes.
Celebrate wins and surface insights in a way that feels engaging, not transactional.
Use data to frame both successes and gaps as opportunities for growth.
Expand the Relationship:
Identify logical next steps, whether it’s rolling out to new teams, introducing additional features, or solving new challenges.
Tie these opportunities to the customer’s evolving goals and success metrics.
Wrapping Up: Proven Strategies and Frameworks
This approach mirrors the essence of frameworks like MEDDPICC, COM, SPICED (Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event, Decision), and BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing). These models provide structured ways to align with customer priorities, uncover pain points, and frame opportunities for expansion. By adapting these proven principles to Customer Success, teams can build deeper relationships while consistently driving growth.
By taking inspiration from companies like Spotify, Peloton, and HubSpot, and applying this structured yet flexible framework, CS teams can transform customer relationships into powerful engines for growth.
Your Next Steps:
Design a personalized engagement strategy across multiple channels. (Hint: don’t do this in a silo. Work with your cross-functional peers like Sales, Marketing, etc.)
Build milestone celebrations and shareable reports to spotlight success.
Proactively surface untapped opportunities to deepen customer relationships.
Success isn’t just about retaining accounts—it’s about growing them, one thoughtful touchpoint at a time.