The customer success glossary.

Churn rate

Customer churn rate · Attrition rate

Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop paying for a product during a given period. It is calculated by dividing the number of customers lost during the period by the number of customers at the start of that period.

Customer acquisition cost

CAC

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing expense required to acquire one new customer over a given period. It is used alongside customer lifetime value to judge whether growth is economically sustainable.

Customer effort score

CES

Customer effort score (CES) measures how much effort a customer had to expend to complete a task, typically by asking them to rate their agreement with a statement such as "the company made it easy for me to handle my issue" on a 1–7 scale. Lower effort correlates strongly with loyalty and repeat purchase.

Customer lifetime value

CLV · CLTV · LTV

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is the total gross profit a business expects to earn from a customer over the entire course of the relationship. It is used to decide how much can profitably be spent acquiring and retaining customers.

Customer satisfaction score

CSAT

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures how satisfied a customer is with a specific interaction, product, or service, usually by asking them to rate it on a scale of 1 to 5. It is expressed as the percentage of responses that are satisfied — typically the top two ratings.

Net promoter score

NPS

Net promoter score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric based on a single question: how likely are you to recommend this product to a colleague, on a scale of 0 to 10. It is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors (0–6) from the percentage of promoters (9–10), producing a score between −100 and +100.

Time to value

TTV · Time to first value

Time to value (TTV) is the elapsed time from a customer’s purchase to the moment they realize their first meaningful benefit from the product. Shorter time to value correlates strongly with higher retention and faster expansion.

Churn analysis

Churn analytics

Churn analysis is the practice of examining lost customers to identify why they left, which segments are most affected, and which signals preceded the loss — so that retention effort can target causes rather than symptoms.

Customer retention rate

CRR · Logo retention

Customer retention rate is the percentage of customers you keep over a given period, excluding new customers acquired during that period. It is the complement of customer churn rate.

Renewal rate

Renewal rate is the percentage of contracts up for renewal in a given period that were actually renewed. Unlike retention rate, it measures only the population whose contracts came due, which makes it the more actionable operating metric for teams managing a renewal book.

Annual recurring revenue

ARR

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the value of a subscription business's recurring revenue normalized to a one-year period. It is the standard headline metric for B2B SaaS companies selling annual contracts.

Expansion revenue

Upsell revenue · Account expansion

Expansion revenue is additional recurring revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, seat additions, or tier upgrades. It is the component of net revenue retention that allows NRR to exceed 100%.

Gross revenue retention

GRR · Gross dollar retention

Gross revenue retention (GRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, counting churn and contraction but excluding all expansion. GRR can never exceed 100%.

Monthly recurring revenue

MRR

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the predictable revenue a subscription business expects to receive every month, normalized to a monthly figure. It excludes one-time charges such as setup fees, professional services, and overages.

Net revenue retention

NRR · Net dollar retention · NDR

Net revenue retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion, contraction, and churn, but excluding new customer revenue. NRR above 100% means existing customers grew enough to more than offset all losses.

Customer advocacy

Customer marketing

Customer advocacy is the practice of identifying satisfied customers and enabling them to publicly support a company — through references, case studies, reviews, testimonials, and referrals. It converts delivered value into acquisition and retention leverage.

Customer health score

Health score · Account health score

A customer health score is a composite metric that summarizes how likely an account is to renew, expand, or churn, calculated by weighting signals such as product usage, engagement, support history, and relationship strength into a single value.

Customer onboarding

Client onboarding · Implementation

Customer onboarding is the process of guiding a new customer from purchase to their first meaningful business outcome with the product. It is the phase of the customer lifecycle with the strongest measured influence on long-term retention.

Customer success manager

CSM

A customer success manager (CSM) is responsible for ensuring customers achieve their intended outcomes with a product, and for protecting and growing the revenue those customers represent. The role combines relationship management, product expertise, and commercial accountability for retention and expansion.

Customer success qualified lead

CSQL

A customer success qualified lead (CSQL) is an expansion or upsell opportunity identified by the customer success team based on evidence from the customer relationship, then handed to sales to pursue. It is the post-sale equivalent of a marketing or sales qualified lead.

Product adoption

User adoption · Feature adoption

Product adoption is the extent to which customers actively and habitually use a product to accomplish their work. It is measured through breadth (how many users), depth (how much of the product), and frequency (how regularly) rather than by logins alone.

Quarterly business review

QBR · Executive business review · EBR

A quarterly business review (QBR) is a scheduled strategic meeting between a vendor and a customer to review progress against the customer’s goals, quantify delivered value, and agree on priorities for the coming quarter. It is a business conversation, not a product training or status update.

Customer 360

Customer 360 view · Single customer view

A customer 360 is a consolidated view of everything an organization knows about a customer, assembled from every system that holds relevant data — CRM, product usage, support, billing, email, and meetings — into one place.

Customer journey map

Customer journey mapping · Lifecycle map

A customer journey map is a structured representation of the stages a customer passes through with a product — from evaluation through onboarding, adoption, renewal, and expansion — documenting the customer’s goals, the actions they take, and the friction they encounter at each stage.

Customer segmentation

Account segmentation · Touch model

Customer segmentation is the practice of grouping accounts by shared characteristics — contract value, company size, use case, or lifecycle stage — so that service model, engagement frequency, and resourcing can be matched to each group's value and needs.

Customer success platform

CSP · Customer success software

A customer success platform is software that consolidates customer data, health scoring, lifecycle workflows, and engagement history so that teams responsible for retention and expansion can identify risk, prioritize accounts, and act. It sits alongside the CRM rather than replacing it.

Digital customer success

Tech-touch customer success · Scaled customer success

Digital customer success is the practice of delivering customer success outcomes through automated, in-product, and self-serve channels rather than scheduled human engagement — enabling coverage of accounts whose contract value cannot fund a dedicated CSM.

Voice of the customer

VoC

Voice of the customer (VoC) is the systematic collection, analysis, and distribution of customer feedback across an organization so that product, service, and strategy decisions reflect what customers actually experience and need.