CS Incentives for Upsell identification

Jeremy Katz

Hello!

Our CS team is focused on managing existing accounts, with no responsibility for account growth (not beyond just managing small increases in the number of licenses within our existing scope). We want to keep it that way, but also are looking to set up some incentives for CSMs to identify new opportunities that AEs can then pursue.  

I'm wondering in particular about:

• Making this a small part of the VC structure directly, or an above-and-beyond bonus 
• incentivizing by identified oppy vs. incentivizing based on closed deal
• incentivizing for all oppy identified the same, or differentiating depending on deal size (actual or projected)

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts!

Ed Powers

Jeremy-

We recently implemented an Opportunity ID incentive of $300 per qualified lead, validated by the salesperson. Marketing paid for it, and these were the highest quality, fastest-closing, highest ROI leads reported. Some pointers:

• We established no goals or quotas for CSMs. Their job was to serve, not to sell, and we did not want to change the nature of the relationship with the customer.
• I delivered skills-based training so CSMs would be able to verify and qualify the opportunities properly, with the customer's consent, before handing them to the salesperson. 
• We managed change along the way, including skills reinforcement from their manager. 
  

We generated a 6% lift in ARR in the first year alone, made the sales team very happy, and created a career path to sales for CSMs who wanted to explore it. 

Hope that helps. Happy to give you more details.

Ed