2026 customer success and retention report: what 20+ CS and revenue leaders told us, tested against 18 studies.
Risqly was founded out of a simple frustration from years in fintech SaaS and growth: teams were surrounded by dashboards, yet nobody could say with confidence which customer needed attention today, or why.
We spent the last few months in conversation with more than 20 of the people who live this challenge: heads of customer success, frontline CSMs, CS operations leads, business development leaders wearing two hats, data specialists and fractional advisors who have built CS functions many times over.
This report shares what we heard, anonymised in full, alongside independent research that supports or sharpens each point.
Retention is everyone's priority and nobody's job.
The customer picture is scattered across systems, finance and AI tools.
Signals arrive after the decision to leave has already been made.
Across full-year 2025 data from 342 SaaS and AI-native companies, median net revenue retention sat at 102%, barely above break-even, while seat-based businesses fell below it.¹ At the same time, acquisition is getting more expensive: one benchmark recorded NRR compressing to 101% as new customer acquisition costs rose 14%.²
Buyers have noticed. In a Gartner survey of 243 chief sales officers, 73% said they were prioritising growth from existing customers, and 57% ranked account retention and growth as a top-three priority.⁵ The question is no longer whether retention matters. It is whether teams have the operating model to deliver it.
Payments are moving from a processing function to a core revenue layer. Payment orchestration is sized at $1.7B in 2024, rising to $6.1B by 2030.¹⁷
Facing low-cost competitors, one team swapped reactive email support for scheduled touchpoints and kept retention positive.
Consumers are shifting to bank transfers and instant rails. KYC steps outside CS control are now a key onboarding stall point.
Consumer credit is "stable-ish" with warning signs. Usage dips in autumn and spikes pre-holiday, so read signals against the calendar.
Put renewals on a calendar 120 days out, not 30, and inspect them like a sales pipeline.
From Ownership →Bring CRM, billing, payments and product usage into one view before investing in complex models.
From Visibility →Start with red, amber and green on a handful of leading signals, measured against an expected customer journey.
From Timing →Failed payments, invoice disputes and expiring cards should trigger action, not sit with finance.
From Visibility →Capture the reason for purchase, agreed outcomes and champion team at kickoff, and flag drift early.
From Timing →Use governed AI to draft, summarise and prioritise so CSMs can spend time on relationships.
From Visibility →A customer intelligence platform for CS and revenue teams who are responsible for existing revenue but tired of stitching it together by hand.
CRM, billing, payments, product analytics and spreadsheet uploads in a single place.
Clear signals on which accounts are drifting, and why, before notice is given.
Suggested steps and in-app prompts, so every CSM knows what to do next.
Renewals, risks and opportunities laid out by week, so time goes where revenue is at stake.
Interview quotes are reproduced with permission and lightly edited for clarity. All participants, employers and identifying details have been anonymised. Third-party statistics reflect the cited publications at the time of writing and are provided for context.
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