What Consumption-Based CS Looks Like Inside a $100B Company ft. Jared Collins (Dell)

Ready to churn less and win more? 🏆 Subscribe for a simple, once-a-month rundown of the episodes at gainsight.com/unchurned

What happens when you bring consumption-based customer success into a company?

In this episode of Unchurned, Jared Collins, Senior Director of Customer Success at Dell Technologies, shares how the Apex team is building a modern CS engine inside a $100B infrastructure giant.

Unlike SaaS companies that can deploy value instantly, Dell Apex operates in a world of physical logistics, supply chain constraints, and long hardware lead times. That means customer success isn’t just about adoption — it’s about anticipation.

Jared breaks down how his team connects data sources across the enterprise, builds trigger-based playbooks, partners deeply with sales, and prepares for an AI-driven future where customer signals surface before customers even recognize the need.

--- Timestamps 0:00 - Preview & Introduction 1:25 - Meet Jared Collins & Overview of Dell Apex 3:55 - The operational reality of shipping infrastructure 5:52 - Why CS must anticipate months ahead (lead times + forecasting) 8:20 - Working inside a $100B company: complexity vs opportunity 9:53 - Enabling CSMs for success to build strategic relationships 11:20 - Becoming data strategists: Building health scores across multiple business units 13:15 - Data → Triggers → Playbooks: the operational CS framework 16:46 - AI in CS: why foundations matter more than hype 19:20 - What success looks like for Apex CS in the next 1–2 years 21:55 - What Jared loves about Dell

--- What You’ll Learn * Why hardware logistics fundamentally changes how CS operates * How to build proactive CS using data triggers and standardized playbooks * How to integrate CS inside a massive enterprise organization * The difference between CapEx and consumption-based thinking * Why AI only works if your data foundations are clean * How to free CSMs to focus on strategic relationship-building * What “good” looks like for CS inside infrastructure businesses

--- Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.

--- Where to Find Jared Collins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredrcollins/

--- Where to Find Josh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/ Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/