What is adoption?
Adoption is how fully a customer's people use what they bought. Forrester describes product adoption as the process by which customers begin to use an offering and work it into their daily routine. In services, adoption shows up as the customer granting site access on schedule, reading and acting on inspection reports, using the service portal, and approving the follow-up work the reports recommend.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
TSIA states that customers who do not use what they bought do not renew or expand their spending. Its Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew (LAER) model places adoption between the first sale and every later dollar for that reason. In a services company, low adoption hides in operations data: rescheduled visits, reports nobody opens, deficiencies left unquoted. Those signals arrive months before the renewal conversation, which is when a revenue leader can still change the outcome, provided operations and sales are looking at the same signals.
Example
Fictitious numbersA fire and life safety company reviews 200 agreements due to renew in the next six months. In 35 of them, the customer has approved no deficiency quotes in the past year and has rescheduled at least one inspection. Those 35 customers are paying for compliance work they are only half using. The account managers visit them first, before the renewal notices go out.
"Which customers paid for service last year but barely used it, and who is talking to them before the renewal?"
Sources
- How Well Are You Protecting Existing Customer Revenue? (Forrester) checked 9 Oct 2026
- 4 Phases of Becoming LAER Efficient, Summarized (TSIA) checked 9 Oct 2026