Retention refers to a company’s ability to keep its existing customers or users over time. In sales and customer success, retention is a performance metric that reflects how well a business delivers ongoing value, satisfaction, and support to prevent churn (customer loss).

Strong retention signals healthy product/service adoption, loyalty, and long-term revenue stability.

There are different forms of retention, such as:

• Customer retention: The percentage of customers who continue doing business with you over a given period.
• Revenue retention: The amount of recurring revenue preserved from existing customers (e.g., NRR - Net revenue retention).
• User retention: In product or app usage, how many users return and stay active after sign-up or installation.