The Forecast Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Every CRO I know is chasing the same goal: a forecast they can trust. Quarter after quarter, even strong sales teams find themselves just short. The math usually adds up. The problem sits underneath it, in how we read the base business.

SBI’s recent study with QuadSci, Engineering SaaS Account Growth, revealed a pattern that explains this gap.

After analyzing 9,100 SaaS accounts and more than 160 billion telemetry data points, we found that Net Revenue Retention has fallen from 110% to 107% since 2023. Nearly six in ten companies are seeing lower renewal rates than they did two years ago.

This is not a blip. It is a signal that growth engines across the industry are misfiring. And the source of the problem is not in the funnel. It is in the customer base.

Why Revenue Feels Harder to Predict

Most CROs track customer health through broad indicators: ARR growth, renewal cadence, or support ticket volume. Those metrics help, but they do not explain why an account stays, expands, or leaves.

The SBI analysis confirmed what most of us already sense. Customer usage is the strongest predictor of revenue outcomes. It explains 80 percent of renewal and expansion decisions. When usage is strong and consistent, customers renew. When it becomes erratic, revenue starts to slip.

The problem is that usage data, on its own, is noisy. It spikes and dips for reasons that are rarely clear in the moment. A product release, a staffing change, a new initiative on the customer side—each one distorts the picture. The noise makes it almost impossible to see the real signal.

Without that clarity, teams guess.

Account executives spend time on customers who are already gone. Success managers fight fires instead of building expansion. Marketing runs reactivation campaigns while real growth opportunities sit untouched.

Forecasts become defensive rather than confident. It is not a failure of effort; it is a failure of visibility.

A Better Signal for Revenue Leaders

The report found that when you combine two views of usage—level and consistency—the noise fades and a clear signal emerges.

Usage level shows how much a customer engages with your product.
Usage consistency shows how predictably that engagement happens over time.

When you look at both together, patterns appear. Six behavioral groups, or cohorts, become visible. Each cohort reflects how deeply customers have adopted your solution and how likely they are to renew or expand.

Once you see those patterns, forecasting becomes less guesswork and more like reading a tide chart. You know which accounts are moving toward growth, which are starting to drift, and which are already out of reach.

How Cohorts Change the Game

This way of viewing customer behavior does more than explain the past. It reshapes how the entire revenue organization operates.

• Forecasts stabilize. Cohorts predict renewal and expansion with up to 90 percent accuracy, giving revenue leaders a reliable forward view of health across the base.
• Coverage improves. Teams can focus effort where it matters most instead of spreading energy across accounts that will not renew.
• Capacity increases. Managers coach from evidence rather than anecdotes. Conversations about territory and renewal become factual, not emotional.

Companies applying this approach are already seeing an average five-point improvement in NRR. That is meaningful. A five percent lift in NRR adds the equivalent of a quarter’s worth of new pipeline without spending another dollar on acquisition.

Where Top CROs Are Looking Next

Predictability comes from seeing risk early and acting fast. The best revenue organizations are building this into their operating rhythm.

• Weekly reviews track accounts moving up or down across cohorts.
• Coverage models align people to the “Zone of Expansion,” where NRR exceeds 110 percent.
• Comp plans reward positive customer movement, not just closed deals.

When everyone in the go-to-market system sees the same data, the work becomes coordinated. Instead of arguing about which accounts deserve attention, teams can prove it.

From Guessing to Engineering Growth

Revenue used to feel unpredictable because customer behavior looked random. Now we know it isn’t. With the right data, it can be measured, managed, and improved.

The future CRO is not just a motivator or deal coach. They are an engineer of predictability—someone who knows exactly where the next dollar of growth will come from and how to protect it.

Usage consistency provides that signal. It connects activity to outcomes and turns retention and expansion into a reliable source of revenue.

You can explore this idea in detail in Engineering SaaS Account Growth: From Guesswork to Predictable Growth.