How to Track Key Retention Metrics for Sales Managers

Something I never really thought of evaluating until we did over $100M... Tracking the retention rate of each salesperson.... This helps me understand what salespeople setup deals for long-term success vs. short term commission. Here are the 3 top retention KPIs I'm working on tracking per rep that you can use to your advantage: 1. Net Revenue Retention (NRR) This metric provides a comprehensive view of the revenue impact of an AE's deals, including expansions and churn. It shows whether their customers are growing with you or shrinking over time. Key Insights: - AEs closing high-NRR deals are selling to the right-fit customers with growth potential. - Highlights which AEs drive long-term account value through upsells and renewals. Customer Churn Rate Churn directly reflects the health of customer relationships and whether the AE set proper expectations during the sales process. It’s simple and highly actionable. Key Insights: - High churn rates signal that AEs may be closing poor-fit deals or overpromising. - Helps focus coaching efforts on improving deal qualification and expectation-setting. First-Year Retention Rate The first year is critical for customer success and retention, often reflecting how well the AE positioned the solution to meet customer needs during the sales process. Key Insights: - A low first-year retention rate suggests misalignment in the initial sales process or poor onboarding handoff. - Pinpoints which AEs are delivering deals that are most likely to stick around. Think about you can evaluate and track retention rates of new customers per rep. Any other data you'd want to track to scale your success? LMK below.

Over the years, folks have reached out and asked me about what I measure regularly. I measure a lot regularly, but there are a few key metrics, meetings, and frameworks that I have historically looked at to keep me informed on where we are. Here's what I am consistently looking at: – NRR - Net Revenue Retention – GRR - Gross Renewal Rate – NPS - Net Promotor Score – TTFV - Time To First Value – CSAT - Customer Satisfaction – DSO – Pipeline – New sales closed – New sales forecasted Also, other things I find helpful: – Churn forecast one year out reviewed heavily on a monthly cadence and bi-weekly At-Risk meetings with my CS Leadership. – Monthly: Red, Yellow, and Green meetings with the entire CS team where I get downloaded on the current state of the portfolio. – EBRs - How many executive business reviews have we completed, what's in the hopper, what are we missing? – OKRs - Objectives Key Results - How are we progressing on our projects and/or things we need to achieve for the quarter, and how are those feeding into the things we need to accomplish for the next year (or so). – Health Score that includes the following (but not limited to): usage health, NPS, an adoption scorecard which consists of the current product investment (more purchased, more points), have they completed case studies and so on, customer tenure, engagement with their CSM, manual sentiment set by CSM. – Customer Goals - The customer achieves their goals, realizes ROI, and actively participates in setting new goals. Other things that should be looked at/implemented: – Doing SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunities, threats) for top strategic accounts on a regular cadence. – Having a solid customer maturity model across the entire portfolio. Less is always more, but these things are sure to give you a strong understanding of what’s going on in your customer portfolio.

I used to think I was measuring customer loyalty the right way. Every quarter, I’d report out our NPS score, and every quarter, I’d get the same pushback from leadership: “If our NPS is so high, why are sales down?” “If customers love us, why is churn up?” And honestly? I didn’t have a good answer. I felt dejected as I could feel my credibility and social capital with the execs slip away. I was stuck in the CX trap of measuring advocacy, not behavior. NPS told me customers said they’d recommend us—but it told me nothing about whether they’d actually buy from us again. The lightbulb moment came when I stopped chasing how much customers liked us and started tracking how much they actually spent. That’s when I realized: Loyalty isn’t a feeling. It’s a behavior. So, I pivoted. Instead of leading with NPS, I built our CX strategy around three core metrics that actually predict revenue: 🔺 Likelihood to Purchase Again (Intent) – Are they signaling they’ll come back? 🔺 Repeat Purchase Rate (Behavioral) – Are they actually returning? 🔺 Time to Repeat Purchase (Behavioral) – How long does it take? And guess what happened? 💡 Our CX efforts finally had credibility in the boardroom. When we improved post-purchase experience, I could prove it led to faster repeat purchases. 💡 Marketing and Finance finally saw CX as a growth lever. Instead of reporting on ‘customer happiness,’ I was driving revenue conversations. 💡 We made better investments. Instead of obsessing over ‘improving NPS,’ we focused on shortening the time to second purchase—and sales shot up. The reality is: NPS won’t save you when revenue is down. If you want to be taken seriously as a CX leader, you have to connect the dots between emotion, intent, and action. It’s time to stop measuring how much customers like you and start measuring how much they buy from you. If you’ve had this realization too, let’s talk. Let’s get your CX unf*cked.

A loyal, multi‑year client ends a retainer with barely a goodbye email. Projects hit deadlines, budgets held, and yet the relationship still slipped away... In agency land, client churn rarely arrives as a dramatic flare‑up. More often it is a quiet drift: Slack threads go cold, the next‑quarter brief never shows, and the renewal line stays blank. The danger is that it feels painless until you add up the lost lifetime value, the scramble to backfill revenue, and the referrals that were never even requested. Silent churn hides in the gap between delivery and relationship management. Whenever “no news” is mistaken for “all good,” the countdown has already started. Let's apply a systems approach as we would across our Barrel Holdings agencies: The silent‑churn autopsy: - No quarterly business reviews (QBRs) or formal check‑ins - Value delivered wasn’t documented or celebrated - Leadership lacked a dashboard for account health - Post‑project follow‑ups never happened - Referral and expansion opportunities quietly died on the vine 1. Map the breakdown: - Missing QBR rhythm, feedback loops, health scorecards - No early‑warning indicators or escalation paths - No structured post‑delivery cadence to drive referrals 2. Re‑ground the team in core fundamentals: - Communicate exceptionally: relationships need rituals - Surface value: delivered work must be made visible - Define “healthy” clearly: simple, shared success metrics - Learn fast: lost clients become internal case studies, not mysteries 3. Fix the operational gaps: - Launch quarterly client feedback surveys (explore NPS + open prompts) - Add project debriefs/AARs as a mandatory close‑out step - Assign strategic sponsors to top‑tier accounts and track health scores in a live dashboard - Standardize a QBR template: goals, wins, upcoming risks, growth ideas 4. Reinforce with structure, rhythm, visibility, incentives, feedback: - Every key account has an owner responsible for retention insights - QBRs and health‑score reviews run every quarter, no skips - Account dashboards shared in weekly leadership meetings - Retention metrics baked into performance reviews and shout‑outs - Client survey results drive immediate tweaks to delivery SOPs 5. Watch the ripple effects: - AMs may need coaching to lead strategic conversations - PMs tie delivery metrics to client value, not just deadlines - Strong retention fuels referrals and upsells, compounding growth Success looks like: - 100% of top‑tier clients receive a QBR every quarter - Live health scores flag at‑risk accounts before contracts lapse - Churn rate drops, referral revenue climbs - Relationship health becomes a line item in every leadership review - Silent churn ends when relationship stewardship is systemized, not left to chance. == 🟢 Find this useful? Subscribe to AgencyHabits for weekly systems‑thinking insights. The full Agency Systems Playbook drops in May—subscribers get first access.