Customer Success Glossary
Every metric, concept, and framework you need to master customer success — with formulas, benchmarks, and practical advice.
21 terms across 4 categories
Core Concepts
Customer Churn
The loss of customers who cancel, don't renew, or stop using your product. Churn is the primary metric CS teams are responsible for reducing.
Customer Segmentation
The practice of dividing your customer base into groups based on shared characteristics (revenue, industry, usage, health) to tailor CS strategies and resource allocation.
Customer Success
A proactive business strategy focused on helping customers achieve their desired outcomes while using your product, ultimately driving retention, expansion, and advocacy.
Digital Customer Success
A scalable, tech-driven approach to customer success that uses automation, in-app messaging, and self-serve resources to manage large customer segments with minimal human touch.
Voice of the Customer (VoC)
A systematic process for collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer feedback from surveys, support interactions, reviews, and behavioral data.
Metrics
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers or revenue lost during a specific period. Measured as customer churn (logo churn) or revenue churn (dollar churn).
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total cost of sales and marketing required to acquire a new customer, including salaries, advertising, tools, and overhead.
Customer Health Score
A composite metric that aggregates product usage, engagement, support interactions, and sentiment data to indicate how likely a customer is to renew, expand, or churn.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV/LTV)
The total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account over the duration of the relationship.
DAU/MAU Ratio
The ratio of Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users, measuring product stickiness — how often users return to your product within a month.
Expansion Revenue
Additional recurring revenue generated from existing customers through upsells, cross-sells, and add-ons beyond their original contract value.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, excluding expansion revenue. GRR can never exceed 100%.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A customer loyalty metric based on a single question: 'How likely are you to recommend us?' scored 0-10, with results categorized as Promoters, Passives, or Detractors.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
A metric that measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion, contraction, and churn.
Product Adoption
The degree to which customers actively use your product's features to achieve their goals, measured through usage depth, breadth, and frequency.
Time-to-Value (TTV)
The time it takes for a new customer to realize their first meaningful outcome or ROI from your product after purchase.
Processes
Customer Onboarding
The structured process of guiding new customers from purchase through initial setup, training, and first value realization to ensure successful long-term adoption.
Customer Success Playbook
A documented set of prescribed actions, templates, and workflows that guide CS teams through specific customer scenarios like onboarding, risk mitigation, or expansion.
Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
A structured meeting between your CS team and customer stakeholders to review outcomes, demonstrate ROI, align on goals, and plan for the next quarter.
Renewal Management
The end-to-end process of preparing, executing, and closing subscription renewals to maximize retention and minimize revenue loss.
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