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FDE & post-sale

Terms for forward deployed engineers, solutions engineers and post-sale teams who deploy, integrate, drive adoption and protect renewals.

31 terms

Adoption

How widely and deeply customers actually use a product after purchase. It is a leading indicator of renewal.

Change management

The people side of a rollout: communication, training and leadership support that help an organization adopt a new way of working.

Churn

Customers or revenue lost when accounts cancel or don't renew.

Customer health score

A composite score, built from usage, engagement, support and sentiment data, that predicts whether an account will renew or churn.

Customer onboarding

The process of getting a new customer configured, trained and to first value quickly after the contract is signed.

Deployment

Rolling a product out into a customer's environment by configuring integrations, users and workflows for production use.

Escalation management

The process and communication skills for handling a customer issue that has become urgent, keeping trust while the fix is underway.

Expansion revenue

Additional revenue from existing customers through more seats, new use cases or upgraded plans.

FDE enablement

Preparing forward deployed engineers with product depth, deployment playbooks and customer-facing communication skills, from running technical discovery to presenting to executives.

Forward deployed engineer (FDE)

An engineer embedded with customers to deploy, customize and integrate a product in their environment, bridging product, engineering and the customer.

Handoff

The transfer of an account from one team to another, typically AE to CSM or implementation, with context on goals, stakeholders and commitments.

Implementation

The project of setting up a product for a customer, including configuration, integrations, data migration and training.

Net revenue retention (NRR)

Revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion and minus churn and contraction. Also called net dollar retention (NDR).

Pilot

A limited, time-boxed rollout to a subset of users to prove value before a broader purchase or deployment.

Proof of concept (POC)

A focused technical evaluation that shows a product can meet a customer's specific requirements in their environment.

Renewal

The point where a customer decides whether to continue a subscription. Strong adoption and proven value drive renewals.

Scoping

Defining exactly what a project will and won't include (requirements, timeline, resources and success criteria) before work begins.

Solutions architect

A technical expert who designs how a product fits into a customer's systems and advises on architecture, security and scale.

Solutions engineer (SE)

A technical seller, also called a sales engineer, who partners with AEs on discovery, demos, POCs and technical objections.

Stakeholder mapping

Identifying everyone who influences a deal or deployment, what they care about and how much they support it.

Statement of work (SOW)

A document defining deliverables, timeline, responsibilities and cost for a services engagement.

Success criteria

The measurable outcomes a customer and vendor agree will define a successful pilot, POC or deployment.

Success plan

A shared plan between a customer and the vendor's CSM that documents goals, milestones and how success will be measured.

Technical discovery

Discovery focused on a customer's systems, data, security requirements and integration needs.

Technical objection handling

Answering security, integration, scalability and architecture concerns clearly enough for both technical and business audiences.

Time to value (TTV)

How long it takes a new customer to realize the first meaningful outcome from a product.

Use case

A specific problem or workflow a customer uses the product for, such as onboarding new reps or certifying partners.