Retention and expansion: a case study playbook
The anatomy of a retention and expansion engagement that worked — what we tried, what we killed, and what we would repeat.
Names removed, numbers preserved. This is a real retention and expansion engagement, reproduced as a playbook. Client had product-market fit, a rev team of eleven, and a stalled pipeline.
Week one: diagnosis. The stated problem was "not enough leads". The actual problem was treating CS as a support cost centre, which had been masked by inbound velocity that peaked two quarters earlier.
Weeks two to three: rebuild the target list from scratch and re-cut the trigger. Retention and expansion works when one point of NRR is worth more than five points of new logo growth; the client had drifted away from that first principle.
Weeks four to six: live at 20% of previous volume, quality bar raised. Gross and net revenue retention moved every week, though absolute numbers stayed modest.
Weeks seven to twelve: ramp. By week ten the number was ahead of the pre-stall baseline. By week twelve it was 40% ahead. Cost per outcome was roughly halved.
What we would repeat: the diagnosis step, the quality bar, and the weekly review. What we would kill sooner: two tools we bought in month one that added noise instead of leverage.
The client's own summary at the end of quarter one: "we thought we needed more of everything; we actually needed less of the wrong things." That is usually the lesson.
Frequently asked questions
Retention — answered
- How long until the case study company saw results?
- The metric moved in week four; the absolute number caught up around week ten.
- What did the client stop doing?
- Running old tools on autopilot and confusing volume with progress.
- What did the client keep doing?
- The Monday plan, the Friday review, and the weekly gross and net revenue retention readout.
- Is this case study repeatable?
- The process is repeatable; the numbers depend on category, team, and starting point.
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