What are the most important customer success metrics for the table?

Customer success has become a cornerstone of modern business strategy, moving beyond traditional customer service to become a proactive approach for ensuring clients achieve their desired outcomes. To effectively measure and optimize these efforts, organizations must track specific customer success metrics that provide actionable insights into customer health and business performance.

The most critical metrics to monitor include Customer Retention Rate, which measures your ability to keep customers over time. A high retention rate typically indicates strong product-market fit and effective customer success practices. Equally important is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), which calculates the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer throughout their relationship. This metric helps determine appropriate acquisition costs and informs long-term business strategy.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR) has emerged as a particularly vital metric for subscription-based businesses. NRR accounts for expansion revenue from existing customers (upsells, cross-sells) while subtracting revenue lost to churn and downgrades. A rate above 100% indicates that growth from your existing customer base outweighs any losses, signaling strong product value and customer success.

Customer Health Score provides a composite view of customer engagement and satisfaction, typically incorporating product usage data, support ticket volume, and survey responses. This proactive metric allows teams to identify at-risk accounts before they churn. Meanwhile, Gross Revenue Retention focuses solely on the revenue you retain from existing customers, excluding any expansion revenue, thus measuring your ability to maintain your current revenue base.

The Customer Effort Score measures how easily customers can accomplish their goals with your product or service. Research shows that reducing customer effort strongly correlates with increased loyalty. Regular tracking of these metrics enables organizations to make data-driven decisions, align resources effectively, and ultimately build stronger, more profitable customer relationships that drive sustainable business growth.