Are you measuring customer success the right way? Many teams rely on outdated metrics like churn and retention that only scratch the surface of how well your efforts are actually driving business growth. If you’re not aligning your customer success activities with measurable business outcomes, you’re missing a big opportunity.

The AMPM framework, introduced by Sue Nabothmore, changes that. It helps you track not just what your team is doing, but how those actions impact the bigger picture - like revenue growth and customer satisfaction.

In this article, we explore the components of the AMPM framework, discuss its application, and offer practical strategies for customer success teams seeking to enhance their impact. So, if you’re looking for a way to turn your customer success efforts into real growth drivers, keep reading.

Outline

1. Introduction
2. The Need for a New Framework
3. Breaking Down the AMPM Framework
   • Activity Measurement (AM): Tracking Customer Success Efforts
     • Onboarding Processes
     • Customer Touchpoints
     • Proactive Support
   • Performance Measurement (PM): Connecting Actions to Outcomes
     • Customer Health Score (CHS)
     • Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
     • Customer Outcome Achievement (COA)
4. Implementing the AMPM Framework
   • Define Clear Activities and Metrics
   • Set Performance Goals
   • Regularly Correlate Activities with Outcomes
   • Use Customer Success Platforms for Data Analysis
5. Benefits of the AMPM Framework
   • Proactive Engagement
   • Alignment with Business Objectives
   • Informed Decision-Making
6. MeltingSpot: Enhancing Customer Education for Better Outcomes

The Need for a New Framework

Customer success has evolved far beyond its original role of simply resolving issues. Today, it’s a critical driver of business growth, and that means the way we measure success must evolve too. As Sue said, “If we’re only tracking customer health and churn, we’re missing the bigger picture - how customer success directly impacts business growth and long-term value.”

Relying solely on churn or retention numbers gives you a limited view of the customer experience, leaving out how customer success activities actually contribute to revenue and loyalty. This gap is where the AMPM framework comes into play. It offers a two-part approach that not only tracks the actions taken by CS teams (such as onboarding, customer training, and engagement) but also links those actions to measurable business outcomes, like increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and advocacy.

The AMPM framework moves away from reactive metrics and offers a proactive, value-driven approach, helping customer success teams prove their contribution to overall business strategy.

Breaking Down the AMPM Framework

The AMPM framework is built on two key components - Activity Measurement (AM) and Performance Measurement (PM) - that work together to provide a complete view of customer success. Here’s how each part helps align customer success efforts with business goals:

1. Activity Measurement (AM): Tracking Customer Success Efforts

Activity Measurement involves tracking the daily efforts of your customer success team; everything from customer interactions and onboarding to educational sessions and proactive outreach. By measuring these actions, teams can pinpoint what’s working and where improvements are needed. This gives customer success leaders real data to refine their strategies, ensuring that every effort moves customers closer to their goals.

• Onboarding Processes

Onboarding sets the tone for the entire customer relationship. Tracking how many training sessions are completed or how long it takes to onboard new customers helps refine this process. For example, if you notice that customers who complete two training sessions within the first month are more likely to renew, you can prioritize those sessions to boost success. As Seb puts it, “A strong onboarding process sets the foundation for long-term success and product adoption.”

Want to know more about effective customer onboarding? Check out our cheat sheets for valuable tips and advice to help you get started!

• Customer Touchpoints

Regular touchpoints like health checks, product training, and Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) keep customers engaged. By tracking how often and how well these touchpoints are handled, your team can ensure customers feel supported. For example, if a customer hasn’t attended a training session or a QBR, it might be a sign they need extra attention to stay on track.

• Proactive Support

Rather than waiting for customers to raise issues, proactive support means anticipating potential problems before they arise. Tracking customer queries and support interactions allows teams to spot recurring issues. So, if multiple customers are struggling with a specific feature, it could highlight the need for better training or product adjustments from your end. Sue explained this perfectly, “Proactive support is about anticipating customer needs before they become problems.”

Curious about which KPIs can elevate your customer success strategy? Dive into Key Performance Indicators for Customer Success: Moving Beyond Traditional Metrics for advanced insights on metrics that align with AMPM’s focus on measuring activities and performance.

2. Performance Measurement (PM): Connecting Actions to Outcomes

While Activity Measurement tells you what your customer success team is doing, Performance Measurement focuses on how those actions are driving results. As Seb rightly put it, “Activity without performance insights is like driving with your eyes closed.” Without knowing whether your actions are truly helping customers and growing the business, it’s hard to refine your strategy or prove your team’s impact.

Here are the key performance metrics to focus on:

• Customer Health Score (CHS)

CHS is like a health check for your customers. It combines different factors, such as how often they use the product, their interactions with your support team, and feedback from surveys, to give you a clear view of whether a customer is thriving or struggling.

For example, if a customer’s usage suddenly drops, it might be a sign they’re disengaging. Tracking CHS allows you to proactively step in before things go wrong, ensuring that your actions are truly helping customers get the most out of your product. Regularly improving CHS could mean you're preventing churn before it even happens.

• Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

NRR measures how much revenue you're retaining from your existing customer base, but it goes beyond that. It also includes any growth in revenue from upsells and cross-sells. Essentially, it shows you how much more value you’re driving from customers over time. As Sue explains, “NRR is our guide to where customer success is actively fueling growth, not just retention.” An NRR above 100% is ideal because it means your existing customers are spending more with you over time.

• Customer Outcome Achievement (COA)

COA digs into whether customers are actually achieving their goals with your product. It's not enough for customers to use the product - they need to see tangible results. For example, if your product promises to reduce costs or improve efficiency, COA measures how effectively your customers are reaching those goals. By tying customer success activities (like training or personalized support) to these outcomes, your team can figure out which efforts are driving success and refine their approach accordingly. If COA scores improve after implementing a new training program, you will know that your efforts are working.

Looking to benchmark your team’s customer success progress? Customer Success KPIs: Metrics & Benchmarks provides key standards for areas like onboarding completion and NRR to help you assess your impact with precision.

Implementing the AMPM Framework

Putting the AMPM framework into practice involves several steps to ensure alignment between customer success activities and business objectives:

1. Define Clear Activities and Metrics

Start by identifying the core actions your customer success team takes, such as onboarding, customer training, and regular support. For each activity, establish measurable customer success metrics. For example, track onboarding completion rates, customer health scores, or the frequency of touchpoints with your customers. The goal here is to measure what really matters so you know which activities are moving the needle.

2. Set Performance Goals

Now that you know what to track, it’s time to set some goals. These goals should tie directly into your overall business objectives. Maybe it’s increasing Net Revenue Retention (NRR) by getting existing customers to upgrade or improving customer satisfaction scores through faster, more helpful support. Setting goals like these will ensure that your team is actively working to grow the business and increase customer value.

3. Regularly Correlate Activities with Outcomes

This is where the AMPM framework will really work. It’s not enough to track what your team is doing, you need to see how those activities are impacting results. For instance, if you’ve improved your onboarding process, check whether that’s leading to higher customer satisfaction or better product adoption. Only by regularly checking how your activities are affecting outcomes will you be able to refine your approach and focus on what’s really driving success.

4. Use Customer Success Platforms for Data Analysis

Technology can make all the difference here. Customer success platforms collect data from every interaction your team has with customers: whether it’s onboarding, support, or training. These tools help you spot trends and make smarter decisions. For example, if customers who have more frequent touchpoints tend to stay longer, you can adjust your strategy to focus more on regular check-ins. Using data this way will help you stay proactive and continuously improve your customer success efforts.

Did you know? Choosing the right customer success platform isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. To make sure your team doesn’t pick the wrong one, check out our How to Choose Your Customer Success Platform article for helpful tips.

Benefits of the AMPM Framework

Implementing the AMPM framework offers several advantages:

• Proactive Engagement

With activity measurement, your team can identify at-risk customers early and take action. This proactive approach will help your customers feel supported, improving their experience and boosting product adoption. For example, if a customer isn’t completing onboarding, your team can step in and guide them back on track, preventing potential churn and driving deeper engagement.

• Alignment with Business Objectives

With performance measurement, every customer success action can be linked directly to business objectives. This means your team’s efforts, whether it's support or training, will directly contribute to revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and overall business success. The AMPM framework will make sure that your team is working in line with your business goals, not just maintaining customer relationships.

• Informed Decision-Making

With the AMPM framework, your team will have the clarity needed to adjust strategies and make smarter choices based on real data. You’ll know exactly which actions are driving success, allowing you to direct resources where they’ll make the biggest impact. Whether you’re aiming to retain more customers or increase upsells, this framework will help your team make confident decisions that directly fuel your business’s growth.

Wondering how to measure the ROI of customer education? Measuring the ROI of Customer Education: Key Metrics and Insights explores critical metrics that align with AMPM’s emphasis on linking customer education efforts to revenue growth and customer satisfaction

MeltingSpot: Enhancing Customer Education for Better Outcomes

At MeltingSpot, we recognize that customer education is critical to success, especially when it comes to aligning with the AMPM framework. Our comprehensive platform provides the tools needed to streamline and elevate key activities like onboarding, ongoing training, and in-app support, making it the perfect solution for customer success teams aiming to implement and measure success with the AMPM framework.

With MeltingSpot’s Course Builder and in-app course widgets, you can create and embed personalized training directly into your product, ensuring customers can learn at their own pace while seamlessly engaging with the material. Features like Smart Cohorts and Audience Management let you tailor training to different customer segments, while workshops and live sessions powered by our Built-in Studio allow you to deliver interactive, hands-on learning experiences.

By leveraging 1:1 discussions, group threads, and forums, your team can proactively support customers, guiding them through onboarding and troubleshooting before issues arise. Cohorts insights and content performance dashboards provide the data needed to see how well your efforts are driving customer success outcomes, such as increased NRR and customer satisfaction scores.

To facilitate ease of use and integration, MeltingSpot also offers multiple integration features (webhooks, in-app widgets...), ensuring our platform fits seamlessly into your current systems. With detailed member activity tracking, education scores, and cohort imports, you gain a clear picture of engagement and learning effectiveness across all users.

When it comes to implementing the AMPM framework, MeltingSpot is more than just a customer education platform. It’s a complete solution that empowers your team to track and align every action with measurable customer success outcomes, setting the foundation for growth and lasting customer relationships.

So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at our top three solutions to see exactly how we can help your business thrive!