Keep and grow the customers you win

What founders use for keep and grow the customers you win, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. Direct answers to the timing question: first CS hire in your first 5 to 10 employees, full time once you have two big... SaaStr Article · 6 min read Dear SaaStr: How Should Founders Build Their First Customer Success Team? Jason Lemkin In 2 answers
2. Unfashionable and effective: name an owner per customer, segment CS by customer size, do not close deals you cannot support,... SaaStr Article · 8 min read 11 Basic Tips to Lower Your Churn Rate Jason Lemkin In 2 answers
3. Gets specific about timing (introduce CS just before close, or within 48 to 72 hours after) and about documenting the... ChartMogul Article · 7 min read 4 Tips on Creating a Best in Class Sales to Customer Success Handoff Alex Weihmann In 2 answers
4. A three-step forecasting framework plus the honest list of what breaks it (cross-team data gaps, non-recurring revenue, scale).... ChurnZero Article · 10 min read A data-driven framework for customer success renewals forecasting Chris Pilbeam In 2 answers
5. The primary-source teardown behind the famous 158 percent net dollar retention, including the detail most people miss: it was... Public Comps Article · 18 min read Snowflake S-1 and IPO Teardown Jon Ma In 2 answers
6. How to cover a long tail without a named CSM per account, with two working models (strategic plus pooled, and centres of... Gainsight Article · 8 min read Pooled Customer Success Management: The Water's Fine Abigail Spear In 2 answers
7. The book that defined the function. Worth reading once if you are building the team, mostly for the ten laws and the argument... Wiley Book · 256 pages Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue Nick Mehta, Dan Steinman and Lincoln Murphy In 2 answers
8. Separates time to activation (finished setup) from time to value (solved the problem), which is the distinction that explains... Amplitude Article · 10 min read Time to Value: The Key to Driving User Retention Michele Morales In 2 answers
9. An Indian SaaS company arguing that NDR, not growth rate, is the metric that survives a tight funding market, with the Ford... Chargebee Article · 10 min read Ford, Net Dollar Retention, and Bringing Objectivity to Revenue Growth Arijit Bose
10. Makes the counterintuitive argument that a frictionless cancellation flow increases loyalty, and backs it with cancel-moment... Chargebee Article · 12 min read Customer Retention For SaaS: Strategies To Ensure Continual Growth Sriya Srinivasan
11. Seven specific dunning practices (retry timing, self-serve card update, failure-reason-aware messaging) from the team that... Chargebee Article · 9 min read Dunning Best Practices to Combat Involuntary Churn Haris Kumar
12. Gives per-industry churn thresholds so you can answer 'is my churn bad' with a number instead of a feeling. Software sits... Chargebee Article · 8 min read Churn Benchmarks: Enhancing Customer Retention Shaoli Paul
13. Real cancellation-reason data across a large subscription base: pricing is 31 percent of cancellations, and discounts get... Chargebee Report · 10 min read Navigating the Retention Landscape: Key Takeaways from Chargebee Subscription Data Fatima Qadiri
14. Written in a real downturn, so the save tactics are the practical ones: payment deferrals, pause instead of cancel, temporary... Chargebee Article · 8 min read Customer Success Strategies to Tackle COVID Successfully Smuruthi Kesavan
15. A plain reference for the retention metric set (retention rate, revenue churn, CLTV, NPS) with formulas, from an Indian SaaS... Freshworks Article · 14 min read What is Customer Retention? Key Metrics and Strategies Freshworks
16. Practical on how to measure TTV with cohort analysis and what to cut from onboarding, with the aha moments of Dropbox, Slack,... Baremetrics Article · 9 min read What Is Time to Value (TTV) and How to Shorten It Baremetrics