Renewals Reporting: Busy ≠ Successful
David Pinto | Principal Consultant | RenewalsHub
August 2025
Why renewals activity metrics mislead - and why outcomes matter most.
In the renewals world, there’s a common trap that even seasoned leaders fall into: measuring activity instead of outcomes. Dashboards glow with numbers - calls logged, emails sent, quotes issued - and teams feel like they’re making progress. But activity is not the same as success.
A renewal team can be incredibly busy yet still miss its targets. And when executives confuse activity metrics with true business outcomes, they risk making poor decisions, misallocating resources and ultimately missing the chance to turn renewals into a predictable growth engine.
The Allure of Activity Metrics
Why do organizations rely so heavily on activity metrics? Three reasons stand out:
1. They’re easy to measure. Calls, emails and quotes flow automatically into CRM reports. They create the illusion of transparency.
2. They look good on dashboards. Leaders like to see upward-trending charts, even if they’re not tied to real results.
3. They feel like momentum. Busy teams give the impression of progress, even when the work doesn’t convert to retained revenue.
The problem? Activity metrics often measure effort, not effectiveness. They don’t answer the only question that matters: Did the renewal close and at what value?
The Hidden Costs of Measuring the Wrong Things
Relying too heavily on activity data can quietly erode renewal performance in several ways:
False sense of progress. A team might celebrate 1,000 calls made, but if only 20% of those calls were to at-risk accounts, the effort isn’t moving the needle.
Misaligned incentives. Reps focus on checking boxes (“send 10 renewal reminders”) rather than prioritizing accounts most likely to churn.
Executive blind spots. Leaders reviewing activity-heavy dashboards may not realize that overall renewal rates are stagnating - until it’s too late.
One global vendor I spoke with last year had entire QBRs where managers celebrated “touchpoint volume” but couldn’t explain why renewal rates were flat. Activity gave them comfort, but it didn’t give them answers.
This isn’t just inefficient. It’s dangerous. Companies that manage renewals through activity reporting risk being blindsided by attrition, because the metrics they’re watching don’t predict outcomes.
The Case for Outcome-Oriented Reporting
Renewals reporting should focus less on the volume of work performed and more on the value of outcomes achieved. That means building dashboards and scorecards that answer: Are we renewing revenue predictably?
Here are the metrics that matter:
- Gross Renewal Rate (GRR). The percentage of recurring revenue retained at renewal, excluding expansions. It’s the baseline truth of customer retention.
- Net Renewal Rate (NRR). The percentage retained after factoring in expansion and contraction. This reveals true growth from renewals.
- Attrition Drivers. Clear data on why renewals were lost - price, product fit, lack of adoption, or poor engagement. This is the “so what” behind the numbers.
- Leading Indicators. Metrics tied to customer value realization, such as ROI achieved, percentage of users adopting key features, or executive sponsor engagement. These tell you before the renewal whether the account is healthy.
Activity can be a useful input, but outcomes must be the headline. A team that makes fewer calls but consistently improves GRR and NRR is far more valuable than one that logs activity without moving results.
Stall Risks for Leaders
Even when leaders know outcome metrics are more important, they often resist the shift. Why?
Comfort with activity data. It’s simple, concrete and immediate. Outcome metrics take more work to track and interpret.
Fear of uncomfortable truths. Outcome-based reporting strips away the “we’re busy” safety net and replaces it with stark clarity on performance.
Legacy systems. CRMs and dashboards are often optimized for activity tracking, not outcomes. Leaders default to what’s already available.
Cultural inertia. Some managers equate “busyness” with discipline. Shifting the narrative requires retraining how success is recognized.
The danger is that executives double down on what’s easy instead of what’s effective. And in renewals, that means missing opportunities to catch churn before it happens.
Strategic Fixes
To shift from activity to outcome reporting, leaders need to make deliberate changes in three areas:
- Redefine success. Make it clear that busywork isn’t the goal - predictable renewals are. Celebrate outcome achievements, not activity quotas.
- Rebuild dashboards. Reorient reporting around GRR, NRR and leading indicators of customer health. Activity can remain, but only as context - never as the headline.
- Reshape incentives. Align performance reviews and bonuses to renewal results, not the number of touchpoints logged. Reward efficiency and impact.
This isn’t just a reporting adjustment. It’s a cultural reset - one that moves teams from “looking busy” to “delivering results.”
Real-World Example
One mid-market software vendor recently shifted from activity-heavy reporting to outcome-focused dashboards.
Before:
- Weekly reports tracked emails sent and quotes generated.
- Renewal managers were praised for “high activity” even though GRR hovered at 79%.
- CSMs felt constant pressure to log touches rather than focus on accounts with true attrition risk.
After:
Dashboards tracked renewal rate by segment, NRR growth and top attrition drivers.
Managers received coaching on accounts most likely to churn, not just activity levels.
Touchpoint data was kept, but reclassified as “supporting context” - never the lead story.
Within two quarters, GRR improved to 89% and NRR grew by 11 points.
The lesson: outcome reporting not only sharpened visibility but also changed behavior, refocusing the team on impact.
What Great Looks Like
Great renewals teams design their reporting with ruthless clarity:
A small set of outcome-oriented KPIs. Clear, simple and directly tied to predictable revenue.
Forward-looking insight. Dashboards that show leading indicators of health, not just lagging activity.
Truth-telling culture. Leaders who welcome uncomfortable clarity, because it drives accountability and action.
Activity as context, not core. Still tracked, but never mistaken for success.
In these organizations, reports don’t celebrate effort. They celebrate results. And that shift cascades through the entire renewals motion, creating sharper priorities, more focused teams and stronger outcomes.
Closing Thought
Activity metrics make teams look busy. Outcome metrics make companies grow.
The difference isn’t cosmetic - it’s existential.
If your renewals reporting focuses on effort instead of results, you may be celebrating the wrong things while revenue quietly slips away. Shift the lens. Remember: in renewals, busy isn’t the goal. Predictable growth is.
Curious How Your Renewals Metrics Stack Up?
At RenewalsHub, we help companies cut through the noise of activity dashboards and focus on the metrics that actually drive growth. If you’re ready to shift from “busy” to “predictable,” let’s talk - or start by checking out our free 2-minute RenewalsHub Renewals Maturity Self-Assessment to see if your reporting is fueling results or just measuring effort.