The Customer Success Glossary

The customer lifecycle is the repeating series of stages a customer moves through during their relationship with a company, from initial onboarding through adoption, expansion, renewal, and advocacy. For CS teams, lifecycle stage determines engagement model, playbook triggers, and health score weighting at every phase of the post-sale relationship.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a metric that predicts the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer account over the entire duration of their relationship. Also known as LTV or CLTV, it combines average revenue, retention rate, and customer lifespan to give CS and finance teams a forward-looking measure of account worth.