Challenge
A $22M ARR horizontal SaaS company with strong logos and weak expansion. GRR was healthy at 92%, but NRR was sitting at 104%, almost all of that from a handful of strategic accounts that expanded on their own.
The CS team was thirteen CSMs, organized by book size, paid on retention with a small upside bonus on expansion that nobody could clearly explain. Expansion wasn't a motion. It was a tax CSMs paid when accounts asked for more seats.
The new CRO believed they were leaving 5–7 points of NRR on the table. The CFO was skeptical it could be moved. The board wanted to know which one was right.
Approach
We ran a Health Check, with a deliberately tighter scope around the expansion motion specifically.
The diagnostic landed three findings:
-
No discovery layer. CSMs were running QBRs but not actually surfacing expansion opportunity. No structured framework, no expansion-trigger detection, no defined motion.
-
Comp was perverse. The retention-heavy comp plan made expansion conversations feel like risk. A CSM with a renewable account was strictly better off avoiding any conversation that could destabilize the renewal.
-
No play to actually close. Even where expansion opportunities were surfaced, there was no defined motion to take them across the line. CSMs handed off to AEs ad-hoc, with no shared playbook.
The 90-day roadmap had two workstreams, sequenced:
- Comp redesign and discovery model. New comp plan splitting retention and expansion 60/40 by Q4, with clear accelerators. Discovery framework (TRUST, modeled on what the StratX team has shipped at three prior engagements) rolled into QBR cadence.
- Expansion play. A defined motion: trigger detection → CSM discovery → joint CSM/AE working session → CSM-led close on books under $250K ACV, joint close above. Operating model documented, role boundaries clear.
We ran a Project engagement to ship both workstreams: fourteen weeks, with the comp plan landing first (to give CSMs runway to respond before discovery cadence kicked in).
Outcomes
Two quarters post-engagement:
- NRR up from 104% to 109%.
- Expansion contribution to NRR went from 4% to 9%, more than doubled.
- Expansion velocity (time from trigger to close) down 57%, from 71 days to 31.
- Renewal rate held. The fear that an expansion focus would damage retention turned out to be wrong.
- CSM satisfaction with the comp model went from "confusing" to "clear" in the post-shift survey.
The CFO became the loudest internal advocate for the new model.
Engagement model
- 3-week Health Check ($7,500)
- 14-week Project engagement (Comp Redesign + Expansion Motion) ($58,000 fixed)
- Quarterly check-in with a senior StratX operator for the year following
The client subsequently retained a fractional StratX leader to embed in their Customer Success org for a 9-month engagement to drive ongoing operational improvement.