Customer stories from the world’s leading revenue teams

The Challenge

Robert Sangco, Commissions Manager at Starburst, manages incentive compensation for a broad cross-functional group. From Account Executives, Solutions Architects, Partner teams, and SDR/BDRs, they process monthly payouts which are tied directly to their Salesforce CRM.

The most pressing issue they faced with their previous vendor SPIFF was the absence of native Draws functionality. Draws are a standard component of most sales compensation structures, but SPIFF had no built-in support for them. Robert was forced to build Draws logic from scratch using Excel-style formulas inside the platform which was a fragile, time-consuming workaround that he shouldn't have had to create in the first place.

Comp plan management was equally painful. SPIFF had no integrated e-signature or routing capability, forcing Robert to manage the entire signing workflow through an external DocuSign instance. Uploading templates, routing for approvals, tracking who had signed, and retrieving stored copies all had to happen outside the tool. Getting a simple status report on outstanding comp plan approvals was unnecessarily complex.

Perhaps the most operationally damaging issue was the inability to safely clone comp plans across fiscal years. Formulas in SPIFF were tied to a specific plan, and copying them risked contaminating the original. Any change to a cloned plan could inadvertently affect reps still on the prior version. Without proper guidance and support, Robert had to rebuild every comp plan from scratch at the start of each new year, and again any time a mid-year change was needed.

On top of all this, SPIFF's CSM model offered no continuity. A new customer success manager arrived roughly every six months, each requiring a full re-briefing on Starburst's configuration and compensation structure. The support team operated separately from the CSM, so institutional knowledge didn't carry over when it mattered most.

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“Roughly every six months, unfortunately, we'd be assigned a new CSM with SPIFF, which wasn't ideal. It meant that I'd have to re-explain our configuration and where we stood as a business each time. On top of that, their CSMs didn't work closely with their support team most likely due to the changes in the team structure.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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The Solution

Native Functionality That Eliminates Workarounds

From day one on Everstage, Robert noticed an immediate shift. Draws and comp plan management were built directly into the platform with no Excel formula hacks or external DocuSign routing. The entire comp plan lifecycle now lives in one place: uploading templates, populating data fields, routing for signatures, tracking approvals, and storing signed copies.

Crucially, Everstage allows plans to be properly cloned at the start of each fiscal year. Changes made to a new plan don't cascade back to prior versions, giving Robert the confidence to iterate quickly. What used to require full plan rebuilds from scratch now takes a fraction of the time.

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“Everything took place within Everstage. From uploading comp plan templates, managing the data, routing, and storage all in one place. It's also much easier for me to download a status report or retrieve comp plans compared to going through an external application (Docusign), saving me a ton of time.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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Powerful Built-In Dashboards 

Unlike tools that require admins to build dashboards from scratch, Everstage ships with a rich set of built-in views that reps can access when they log in. This out-of-the-box visibility eliminated a common support burden: reps reaching out to Robert with questions the platform can now answer on their behalf. 

Beyond the defaults, Everstage also gives admins the flexibility to build custom views without requiring developer involvement or complex formula configuration.

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“I like that the tool comes with a lot of built-in functionality, so I'm not building things from scratch. It lets me easily display monthly, quarterly, or annual quota values. Not just quotas, but payments as well right on the main menu when a rep signs in.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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A Support Model Built on Continuity

The contrast in customer success experience between SPIFF and Everstage was stark. At SPIFF, Starburst cycled through a new CSM roughly every six months, each transition requiring Robert to start from scratch in re-explaining the company's commission structure. The support and success teams were siloed, so knowledge rarely transferred.

At Everstage, the implementation and ongoing support was seamless. Whatever configurations were built from scratch during implementation, the support team already understood the ins and outs of it without needing to be onboarded.

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“With SPIFF, we'd get a new CSM every six months — not ideal, since it meant constantly re-explaining how our configuration works. With Everstage, our CSM has stayed the same from day one. As for support, I expected them to be less knowledgeable than the implementation team, but I was completely wrong! Since the day we transitioned, I've been genuinely impressed by the customer support we've received.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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The Results

Faster Plan Administration 

With comp plan management, signatures, and routing all handled natively within Everstage, Robert estimates a time saving of around 50% compared to the external DocuSign workflow he managed at SPIFF. More importantly, the risk of errors has been significantly reduced.

At the start of each fiscal year and whenever mid-year plan changes arise, Robert can move faster and with far greater confidence than before.

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“With SPIFF, there's no copy-and-paste — you have to build everything from scratch, which is highly inefficient. Everstage solves that problem entirely. And having draw and comp plan management built right in? Those are huge wins for any admin.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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Seamless Rep Adoption 

When Starburst rolled out Everstage to their field teams, the response was something Robert hadn't expected: near silence. Reps received a walkthrough video, logged in, and figured it out on their own. Explanation on how payment calculations are surfaced and done through Trace AI meant the usual flood of onboarding questions simply didn't come.

The mobile app extended the experience further, allowing reps to check their commission numbers on the go without any additional configuration required from Robert's side.

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“When we rolled out Everstage to the field, we barely got any questions. It's intuitive enough that reps could just log in and easily see their payments and how everything is calculated. All in all, questions were minimal.”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager

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Platform That Scores Above Every Previous Tool

Robert has worked with multiple tools like Xactly, SPIFF and CaptivateIQ before Everstage. Out of all the tools, he rates Everstage the highest, reflecting a combination of product depth, ease of administration, and the quality of the ongoing partnership.

What's already apparent to Robert is that Everstage has room to grow alongside the business in ways that none of the other tools could offer.

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“I've worked with a number of different ICM vendors in the past, and honestly, Everstage really stands out. Very impressive!”

Robert Sangco

Commissions Manager