Glossary of key terms for revenue operations and customer success leaders

A metric used by subscription-based businesses to show the value of contracted recurring revenue normalized over one year.

The speed and extent to which customers begin using a product's features post-implementation. A high adoption rate often correlates with stronger customer engagement and retention.

Growing revenue from existing customers via upsells, cross-sells, and additional products.

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that operate autonomously to complete tasks, make decisions, and adapt based on goals — without constant human direction.

In the context of Customer Success, Agentic AI can act like a digital team member: triggering actions, running personalized campaigns, resolving issues, or optimizing workflows based on changing customer data. Unlike predictive AI, which forecasts outcomes, Agentic AI takes initiative to achieve them —driving scale and efficiency in CS and RevOps functions.

Calculated by dividing total revenue by the number of customers, ARPU indicates the average revenue generated per customer.

Accounts showing signs of dissatisfaction or disengagement, flagged by health scores, usage drops, or support issues.

Quarterly or Executive Business Reviews are strategic meetings between vendors and customers to align on business outcomes, review metrics, and plan next steps.

The set of customer accounts assigned to a customer success manager (CSM) or account executive (AE). It includes ownership of relationship, retention, and growth.

The percentage of customers or revenue lost over a specific time period. Can be customer churn (logos) or revenue churn (dollars).

How to calculate Churn Rate:

Churn Rate = (Customers Lost During Period / Customers at the Start of Period) x 100

A role focused on driving adoption, value realization, and renewals/expansion by guiding customers to achieve their goals.

The cost associated with acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses. A key metric for measuring sales efficiency.

How to calculate CAC:

CAC = Total Sales and Marketing Expenses / Number of New Customers Acquired

A short-term sentiment metric that measures customer happiness with a specific interaction or overall experience, providing direct insights into how satisfied they are.

How to calculate CSAT:

CSAT = (Number of Satisfied Customers / Total Number of Respondents) x 100

Grouping customers by shared characteristics or behavior over time (e.g., signup month) to identify retention or growth trends.

The total revenue expected from a customer over their entire relationship with a business.

How to calculate CLV:

CLV = [(average revenue per account (ARPA) + upsell ARR + cross-sell ARR + expansion ARR) x average account lifespan] - total acquisition and service costs

A methodology that puts customers at the center of revenue growth. It drives a go-to-market strategy to maintain and grow customer revenue from your base — aligning marketing, product, sales and CS to customer needs and goals.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategic approach and supporting technology designed to help companies build, manage, and grow lasting relationships with their customers. In the context of Customer Success, CRM goes beyond sales tracking — it becomes the connective tissue that aligns teams around the customer journey, enabling proactive engagement, personalized experiences, and measurable value delivery at every stage of the lifecycle. A well-integrated CRM empowers teams to not only understand where a customer is today, but to anticipate what they’ll need tomorrow.

When satisfied customers actively promote your brand (e.g., case studies, referrals).

A composite score that indicates customer sentiment and likelihood of renewal/expansion. Customer health includes metrics like usage, support tickets, NPS, and survey feedback. A myth about customer health is that it is the responsibility of the customer success team only, versus addressed collectively by the sales, customer success, marketing and product teams.

The process of dividing customers into groups based on attributes like size, industry, spend, or behavior to tailor outreach and service.

The full lifecycle of a customer’s engagement, from first touch to renewal or churn, often mapped across stages like onboarding, adoption, and advocacy. Here is a template to help map key touch points, pain points, and opportunities, so you can create a seamless experience.

Customer Success is a business function and strategic approach focused on helping customers achieve their desired outcomes while using a product or service — leading to higher satisfaction, retention, and revenue growth.

Customer churn is the percentage of customers lost over a given time frame, typically a month. It is sometimes called customer attrition, customer turnover or customer defection. You can also think of customer churn as the opposite of customer retention.

The practice of maintaining clean, accurate, and up-to-date data within systems and tools, especially customer relationship management (CRM) and customer success platforms. Good data hygiene ensures that customer information is free of duplicates, errors, outdated entries, and inconsistencies, enabling better decision-making, more effective automation, and reliable reporting.

DAU is a high-value metric used in SaaS and Customer success. The number of unique users who log in and engage with your product in a single day. DAU helps Customer Success teams measure consistent usage and identify accounts that may need re-engagement. A low DAU-to-MAU ratio (a.k.a. stickiness score) could indicate that users are churning or only occasionally find value.

Stickiness Formula = DAU ÷ MAU A higher result (closer to 1) suggests more habitual use.

A scalable CS model using automation, content, and product-led strategies for engagement.

Also called Gross Revenue Retention (GRR), this measures the percentage of revenue retained over a period, excluding upsells and expansion. GRR is different from NRR, although both can be important indicators of business health.

When a customer reduces their service tier or subscription level. A leading indicator of churn risk.

A metric indicating how actively a customer interacts with your product or team. Can include logins, feature usage, or meeting frequency.

The process of equipping customer-facing teams with the content, tools, and training needed to engage customers and drive outcomes. Many go-to-market teams have an enablement manager to lead this alignment and activation.

The process of managing urgent or high-impact issues to resolution, often involving executive stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

Expansion signals are data-driven triggers designed to help customer success and sales teams identify and act on growth opportunities within existing accounts. These signals leverage customer goal attainment, product usage, and sales data to automatically alert teams to potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities. By integrating these signals into workflows, teams can proactively engage with customers who are most likely to benefit from additional products or services, ensuring a strategic approach to revenue expansion.

Revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, or additional users/licenses.

The ability to predict future revenue with precision, typically measured by comparing actual versus forecast renewals or upsells.

Also called Time To Value (TTV). The moment a customer first experiences tangible value from your product, a key milestone in onboarding.

How to calculate First Value Delivered (FVD):

TTV = Date customer realized value - Date of onboarding completion

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Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that creates new content—such as text, images, or insights—based on patterns learned from data.

In customer success and revenue operations, generative AI can be used to draft personalized emails, summarize customer conversations, create QBR decks, or suggest playbooks. It accelerates productivity and enhances personalization by turning raw data into meaningful, action-ready outputs.

Revenue retained from existing customers, excluding expansion. Shows the impact of churn and down-sells. GRR is different from NRR, although both can be important indicators of business health.

How to calculate GRR:

GRR = [ (MRR from renewals – MRR lost from churn – MRR lost from downgrades) / MRR at the beginning of the month] x 100

Key strategies or actions (like adoption campaigns or usage reminders) used to drive revenue growth within the existing customer base.

A methodology for evaluating customer status using key indicators like NPS, product usage, support tickets, sentiment, and renewal history. It’s important to identify the metrics that have the strongest indicators to the quality of customer health.

A detailed description of the company type most likely to benefit from your product, often used in segmentation and targeting.

The process of setting up a new customer in your system or product. Successful implementation is essential for long-term retention.

Customer churn that occurs due to factors outside of satisfaction, like failed payments or business closure.

Journey Mapping is the process of visually outlining the full experience a customer has with a company — from initial awareness through onboarding, adoption, renewal, and expansion. In customer success, journey mapping helps teams understand key customer touchpoints, goals, emotions, and potential friction at each stage of the lifecycle. The goal of journey mapping is to create a customer-centric view that informs proactive engagement strategies, improves onboarding, enhances product adoption, and identifies opportunities to reduce churn. It often involves cross-functional collaboration between customer success, product, sales and marketing to ensure a seamless and consistent customer experience.

Quantifiable measures that indicate how well an individual, team, or business is performing against its objectives. Here is more information on key metrics that matter for customer-led growth.

The percentage of customers retained, regardless of revenue amount. Especially relevant in segmentation and retention reporting.

A performance metric that reflects past results, such as revenue booked or churned. Often used alongside leading indicators for forecasting.

Metrics that signal future outcomes. For example, a drop in logins or decreased utilization might precede churn.

Recurring revenue normalized to a monthly basis. Used in SaaS to monitor financial health and customer contracts.

How to calculate Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR):

MRR = Total Number of Active Accounts × Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA)

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A Marketing Qualified Lead is a potential customer who has shown a high level of interest in a company’s product or service through marketing interactions and meets specific criteria set by the marketing team. MQLs are considered more likely to become paying customers compared to other leads and are typically passed to the sales team for further engagement. While MQLs are primarily a focus for marketing and sales, they’re relevant in Customer Success because they influence the quality and expectations of future customers. Strong alignment between Marketing, Sales, and Customer Success ensures that the leads being converted are a good fit for long-term success, helping reduce churn and improve lifetime value.

Key points in the customer journey that shape perception, such as onboarding, support interactions, or executive reviews.

The total number of unique users who actively engage with your product within a 30-day period. In Customer Success, MAU is a leading indicator of adoption and retention — high MAU relative to your total user base often signals healthy engagement. Tracking MAU helps CS teams monitor product stickiness and identify trends in usage at the account level.

NPS tracks customer loyalty by gauging how likely clients are to recommend your business. For enterprise B2B, NPS reflects how well you’re meeting the unique needs of your accounts and identifies potential expansion opportunities.

How to calculate NPS:

NPS = (Number of Promoters − Number of Detractors) ÷ Total Respondents × 100

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NRR tracks the total revenue retained from existing accounts, accounting for expansions, upsells, and downgrades or losses due to churn.

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NRR= [(Starting ARR + Expansion ARR - Contraction ARR - Churned ARR) / Starting ARR] x 100

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The structured process to get a new customer fully implemented, trained, and engaged with your product.

Refers to how standardized and efficient your customer success or revenue operations processes are.

Identifying potential areas for expansion, cross-sell, or added value based on customer needs and usage patterns. This is often an activity owned in partnership between Sales, Customer Success and Account Planning.

A structured set of steps or best practices for handling common scenarios such as onboarding, renewal, or churn risk.

Predictive AI uses historical and real-time data to forecast future customer behaviors, risks, and outcomes. In Customer Success and Revenue Operations, predictive AI helps teams anticipate churn, identify upsell opportunities, and prioritize accounts by likelihood to renew or expand. By analyzing patterns across customer interactions, usage, and sentiment, predictive AI empowers proactive engagement—turning insights into timely, revenue-driving actions.

Anticipating and addressing issues before they impact the customer, often via alerts or automation.

A strategy where the product drives customer acquisition, expansion, and retention, minimizing reliance on sales-led outreach.

A recurring meeting with customers to align on value delivery, review KPIs, and renew the partnership vision.

The percentage of contracts or customers that renew at the end of a subscription term.

Lost revenue due to inefficiencies like missed renewals, incorrect pricing, or untracked usage.

A function that aligns and integrates sales, marketing, and customer success operations for better forecasting, data governance, and process efficiency.

Key performance metrics for Software-as-a-Service companies, including ARR, MRR, CAC, LTV, and churn. More information on metrics that matter for customer-led drive growth here.

A Sales Qualified Lead is a prospective customer who has been vetted by the sales team and determined to be ready for direct sales engagement. SQLs have typically passed through earlier marketing qualification stages (such as being an MQL) and meet specific criteria indicating strong intent to purchase — such as requesting a demo, engaging in a sales call, or showing budget and decision-making authority. For Customer Success teams, understanding the SQL stage is important because it sets the foundation for future customer relationships. Leads that are well-qualified at this stage are more likely to become successful, long-term customers. Poorly qualified SQLs, on the other hand, may lead to misaligned expectations, low product adoption, and higher churn risk down the line.

Creating targeted strategies based on customer segments (e.g., SMB vs. enterprise), to improve engagement and outcomes.

The use of tools or manual reviews to analyze customer emotion and tone across emails, surveys, and calls.

The process of identifying decision-makers, champions, blockers, and influencers in a customer organization. Multi-threading, is another commonly used term to mean connecting business stakeholders with customer stakeholders across different functions and levels.

A documented roadmap shared with the customer to track business goals, milestones, and success metrics.

The total number of customer-submitted issues or requests—a leading indicator of product friction or satisfaction.

The total market demand for your product or service, often used in strategic planning and goal setting.

The collection of software tools and platforms a company uses to manage customer relationships, operations, and data, such as CRM, analytics, support, and automation systems.

A customer engagement model that uses automation and digital content to serve long-tail or low-revenue customers. This is also sometimes referred to as a digital-touch or zero-touch model.

Time to Value reflects the time it takes for a customer to realize the benefits of your product or service after implementation.

TTV = Date customer realized value - Date of onboarding completion

Any interaction between your company and the customer, including emails, meetings, product usage, or support calls.

Tracking how customers interact with your product to uncover patterns, drive adoption, and signal health or risk.

Selling a higher-tier plan, additional features, or more licenses to an existing customer.

The stage where a customer achieves measurable outcomes from your solution, validating their decision to purchase.

A structured program for collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback to improve products, services, and experience.

The number of unique users who engage with your product over a 7-day period. WAU is helpful for understanding mid-frequency usage patterns, particularly for features or workflows that aren’t used daily but are still critical.

The percentage of sales or deals closed successfully out of the total number of opportunities. Used to measure sales effectiveness and pipeline health.

An outreach effort to re-engage churned customers through targeted offers, updates, or outreach.

Using technology to automate repetitive tasks like sending health check emails, triggering alerts, or updating CRM fields.

The percentage change in a metric — like revenue or customer count — compared to the same period in the previous year, used to track long-term performance trends.

An ideal (often unrealistic) approach to design customer experiences in a way that eliminates all attrition. Typically more aspirational than operational.