16 16 As such, your approach should support the best customer experience, which may require some creativity. Here are four ideas for handling overages: • Maintain the customer’s discount during the overage period. This option is customer-centric and rewards successful adoption and usage. However, you need to balance this strategy against the fact that it could encourage customers to underestimate contracts upfront, knowing they can scale without risk. • Use a pay-as-you-go rate for overage. From a monetization perspective, you achieve the best outcomes with this option, and it should motivate customers to choose a larger commitment in their next contract. It also gives your sales team a chance to engage the customer around additional use cases to consider when creating a new contract. HELP CUSTOMERS OPTIMIZE SPEND: THREE TAKEAWAYS 1. Aim to provide customers with predictability, visibility, and cost transparency. 2. Customers need visibility into their product usage, which should be coupled with monitoring and alerting to avoid surprises or unnecessary overages. 3. Overages happen. Be creative in how you handle them to encourage more consumption, rather than punishing customers financially. • Provide an allowance period before charging for overage. Consumption is designed to manage spikes without requiring huge commitments. This option is one way to demonstrate that benefit by giving customers some clearance before charging overage. • Ask the customer what overage practice works best. During a contract discussion, imagine how empowering it is if the customer is given the ability to determine which overage option would work best, based on budget and situation. This strategy sets the stage for a stronger relationship between you and the customer and adheres nicely to the customer-first attitude. 16 CHAMPION GUIDES