How Customer Success and post-sales changes with consumption based revenue - Part 2

In Part 1, we talked about how the role changes for post-sales teams like customer success, account management and how the operating model changes.

Earlier this week I was in NYC for Customer Success Week and a big part of the conversation was to get post-sales teams like Customer Success ready for a world in which revenue is based on usage or outcomes.

So in this part we’ll cover topics we hadn’t touched on last week - like how incentives change, what playbooks to use to continue driving product adoption, what good looks like and why is all this worth it. Let’s dive in.

Incentives and structure that fit the job

Compensation that only rewards expansion produces the wrong behavior in a usage model. Tie the bulk of variable pay to retention, adoption depth, and stability of draw inside the target band for the account. Pay a smaller portion on expansion once usage is healthy and predictable. This nudges the team to solve activation and cost predictability first, then scale thoughtfully.

Structure matters too. Give the CSM clear ownership of value realization. Pair them with a technical counterpart who can change the trajectory in days, not quarters. On large accounts, nominate a Field CTO as the executive face of architecture, risk, and cost hygiene. The effect is a calmer customer who stays longer and grows with you.

The playbooks that actually drive product adoption

Onboarding is measured by the first billable event, not by the end of a checklist. Make that explicit on day one. Publish an adoption ladder with the two or three workflows that will matter each quarter. For AI and data-heavy products, include a reliability chapter: eval harnesses for quality, clear guardrails, and changes that reduce unit cost without reducing outcomes.

Run weekly usage clinics across Customer Success, Product, and FinOps to review the funnel from first billable event to steady draw. If burn is too slow, unblock data, automate the second workflow, or add in-product guidance. If burn is too fast, review rate limits, caching, or routing to a cheaper path. Tie each trigger to an action so the team does not debate the basics every week.

Advocacy stays on the list, just with evidence. The best references in 2025 do not tell a story about relationships. They show the math: outcomes, reliability, and spend predictability. Highlighting GRR, early warnings, and cost structure is a useful lens for how to prepare those stories. 

What good looks like

A strong post-sales engine produces a few patterns you can see and measure. Time to first billable event is short and getting shorter. The daily usage line for top accounts is smooth, which means customers can plan and finance can forecast. Commit utilization sits in a healthy band, not at zero and not in constant overage. The number of production workflows per account climbs over the first two quarters and then keeps climbing at a reasonable pace. Executive reviews are calm because everyone sees the same numbers.

A practical 60-day reset

If your current model still leans on expansion pushes and last-minute saves, use two months to reset. Week one, publish the handful of metrics that define usage health and make them visible to every CSM. Week two, rebuild onboarding around the first billable event and a two-workflow ladder. Week three, enable budgets and alerts for all new customers and the top ten existing ones. Week four, run a value review with unit economics for three key accounts and copy the format. Weeks five through eight, institutionalize the weekly usage clinic, line up a technical counterpart for each strategic account, and shift variable pay to favor retention, adoption depth, and stability.

Why this is worth the effort

Consumption businesses reward teams that help customers achieve more value per dollar, then make that pattern repeatable. Customer Success and Post-Sales sit at the center of that work. Get the incentives right, wire in the telemetry, teach cost hygiene without being penny-pinching, and pair relationship skills with technical muscle. Do those things and usage grows on purpose, renewals feel justified, and expansion becomes a byproduct of trust rather than pressure.

As always, if you’re looking for a post-sales customer intelligence platform that can make you consumption ready, please reach out: cal.com/chandrika