While most CS teams see renewal as the end goal, Okta’s Customer Success (CS) team views it as something that happens naturally when you focus on the right things.
Chael Banks, SVP of Customer Success at Okta, recently spoke with host Josh Schachter on the [Un]Churned podcast episode, “188. Here’s What Happens When CS Teams Cross the Commercial Line.” He explained how his team focuses on helping customers progress in their maturity, not just manage renewals, and why this approach is important when working with over 20,000 customers.
Key Takeaways
- Value realization is only effective if it connects to something the customer already cares about. Okta focuses customer conversations on identity security maturity benchmarks instead of just product features. Customers need to improve their security posture, whether or not they renew.
- The CS conversation and the commercial conversation should be handled by different people. Banks make it clear that once CSM conversations take on a financial tone, customers will interpret their advice differently, even if the advice itself stays the same.
- Maintaining consistent quality for all customers is more challenging than just being efficient. At Okta, AI helps junior reps access the same context and benchmark data that experienced reps have, so every customer receives the same quality of conversation, no matter who they speak with.
- AI governance is often a bigger challenge than it seems. If everyone on a team can create their own solutions, you might end up with many different answers to the same problem. Banks is working to consolidate efforts and build specific agents linked to OKRs, instead of giving everyone unlimited access.
What Value Realization Actually Means at Okta
Okta is a cloud identity platform. Customers use it to control who can access different parts of their organization and to keep things secure. What sets Okta’s CS model apart is that the team focuses on guiding customers through an identity security maturity journey, rather than just pushing product adoption.
Identity security maturity measures how well an organization controls access and secures its environment using specific capabilities. Examples include phishing resistance, NIST compliance, and governance controls. Each capability has a measurable outcome, and every customer is compared to a benchmark based on data from Okta’s customer base.
“Customers want to buy from tour guides and not taxi drivers,” Chael said. His team’s job is to know the path, lead customers along it, and tell them clearly where they are relative to their peers.
In practice, CS conversations at Okta focus on the customer’s security posture and how to close their maturity gap, not on the product itself. By centering conversations on the customer’s security posture and progress toward maturity, Okta’s CS team ensures its value is clear and relevant at all times—not just at renewal. Customers benefit from insights and recommendations that help them reduce risk and improve outcomes, creating trust and loyalty that naturally lead to higher renewal rates.
Why the Commercial Line Stays Where It Does
Chael has a strict rule: his CS team never handles commercial conversations. They don’t manage renewals or close expansion deals. As soon as a customer is ready to buy more, a sales rep steps in.
This approach isn’t just about team structure. It also affects how customers see the person they’re speaking with.
Chael has spent most of his career in consultative roles and has seen what happens when a trusted advisor also has a sales target. Customers notice the difference. They share less, question advice more, and trust less when they think someone has a financial interest in their recommendations.
“There’s a level of trust that you tarnish,” he said. “If the motivation is really money.”
In identity security, customers are responsible for protecting sensitive data, so a lack of trust can be costly. That’s why Okta keeps roles separate: CS builds the case and brings in a sales rep when needed. The commercial conversation is handled by the right person.
For CS teams considering this tradeoff, trust is built during onboarding. The New Rules of Retention: Onboarding Outcomes playbook explains how top teams set this foundation from the very first customer conversation.
How Does AI Scale Maturity Conversations?
The maturity model is only effective if everyone uses it consistently. If a veteran CSM can explain it well but a newer rep cannot, it won’t scale. At Okta, reps include both experienced security professionals and those just a couple of years out of school.
Chael describes what his team is building as tools that surface product telemetry and benchmark data in real time during customer conversations. “A little thing in your ear,” he calls it, “telling you what to say, where to go.”
The main goal is not efficiency, but consistent quality. This way, a rep with four years of experience in identity security can have the same benchmark conversation as someone with twenty years in the field. This is a different design goal than most AI projects in CS, and it ties directly to value realization. If conversation quality varies by rep, the benchmark isn’t working as intended.
Chael is open about the challenges of AI governance. If everyone on a 140-person team can create their own AI tools, it leads to duplicate solutions and inconsistent customer experiences. His solution is to build specific agents linked to OKRs, instead of letting everyone experiment freely.
Hear More From CS Leaders on What’s Actually Working
Every week on [Un]Churned, host Josh Schachter interviews CS and revenue leaders about retention, expansion, and managing a modern post-sales team. You can listen to the full episode with Chael Banks here.
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