CBD Customer Onboarding Best Practices

The real reason you're not growing as fast as you could be? A broken sales-to-customer success handoff. In today’s competitive landscape, 25% of churn happens within the first 90 days and a messy handoff between Sales and CS is often the culprit. With onboarding now taking anywhere from 1 week to 3+ months depending on complexity, how you transition customers from “closed won” to “activated” directly impacts your bottom line. ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ Why the Handoff Matters More Than Ever 1. Churn Starts at Day One • Companies with poor transitions see 2.5x higher early churn • 63% of customers cite “disjointed onboarding” as a key reason for leaving. 2. Time-to-Value (TTV) is Non-Negotiable • 74% of customers expect to see value within 7 days of signing up. • Slow TTV reduces expansion potential by 40% and delays revenue recognition. 3. Value Realisation Drives Retention • Customers who achieve their first “win” within 30 days are 68% more likely to renew. ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ Best Practices for a Seamless Handoff? 1. Introduce CS Early - Before the Deal Closes Bring CS into final sales calls to: • Build trust by showing long-term commitment. • Align expectations on implementation timelines and success metrics. 2. Standardise the Handoff Process Use a shared template to transfer: • Customer goals and pain points • Key stakeholders and decision-makers • Promised outcomes and SLAs 3. Collaborate on Shared Metrics Align sales and CS around: • TTV benchmarks - e.g., 80% of users complete onboarding in 14 days • Expansion targets - e.g., Upsell 30% of accounts by Month 6 • Churn risk indicators - e.g., low product usage in Week 1 ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ How AI Supercharges Handoff Prep 1. Predict Churn Risks Early • Tools like Hook or ChurnZero analyse usage patterns and flag at-risk accounts pre-handoff. 2. Automate Research with ChatGPT/Perplexity Prompt example: “Analyse [Company X]’s Q3 earnings call transcript and identify their top 3 operational challenges. How does our product address these?” Output: Summarised insights for hyper-personalised onboarding. 3. Personalise Onboarding at Scale AI platforms like Intercom segment customers by: • Tech stack - e.g., “Slack-first users get chatbot tutorials” • Behavioural data - e.g., Power users receive advanced feature demos ⎯ ⎯ ⎯ The Bottom Line? A seamless handoff isn’t just about process - it’s about positioning CS as the customer’s long-term ally, not just a post-sale checkbox. By bridging the gap between sales promises and delivery, you turn onboarding into a growth engine. Your competition isn’t other SaaS tools - it’s the 37% of customers who churn because they never saw value. What’s your biggest handoff challenge? Add your comments 👇

🛑 Solving the CS foundation gap - The customer onboarding lifecycle Customer onboarding is a crucial CS foundation we aim to be gap-free. In previous posts, I addressed the Sales-CS handshake as a preliminary step for onboarding. First, I want to tear apart a belief I see in many places by CSMs, and executives: "The onboarding is the process to make the customer use the product." ❌ WRONG ❌ The truth is that onboarding demonstrates the business value our service can bring them, connects the value to the reasons for buying and business pains, and builds confidence in the users, buyers, and champions that we are the right solution for them. The onboarding is the dating period between the customer, the CSM, and the service. But this dating is challenging. We, the service provider, know we want to continue to date, but for the customer, this dating is blind. They saw a picture of us (the POV or trial) and were still afraid and unsure if we were the chosen one or maybe they should date others. So, like dating, the goals of the onboarding process are: 1️⃣ Build rapport with the executive buyer, champion, and early users. 2️⃣ Demonstrate the business values, connect them to the reasons for buying, and validate the ROI as an outcome of time and money savings. 3️⃣ Build the trust of the buyers that they chose the right solution. 4️⃣ Show the end users that our service improves their lives. The results of a good onboarding life cycle and process are: 💰 Shorter time to value 💰 Increase upsell and cross-sell opportunities 💰 Reduce churn risk 💰 Reduce customer frustration Onboarding can vary and depends on the touch level, the product, the complexity, and the customer segment (SMB, mid-market, enterprise). Here is a simple suggestion for an onboarding life cycle template: 🛫 Onboarding Kickoff - with the executive buyer and champion to remind the reasons for buying, understand which teams will be involved, and plan the onboarding project plan. 🛫 Integration - set up all the needed integrations and settings. 🛫 Admins setup & training - setting up the needed admins and training them. 🛫 End users setup & training - setting up and training the needed end users. 🛫 Value perceived - Customer sees the value and understands its ROI and how it resolves its business issues. 🛫 Onboarding retrospective - Reminding the reasons for buying, providing proof of the business value, sharing the ROI, and planning the next six months together (until the QBR). The meeting must include the executive buyer and not just the champion. During the onboarding period, we want to meet with the champion at least once a week, ensure we address their business and technical questions, hold both sides accountable for the next steps, and continue building rapport. Onboarding is the foundation for the rest of the year. Investing in closing the gap will increase the probability of long relationships. #clg #customerledgrowth #sales #customersuccess

We once spent weeks building a really sophisticated onboarding process (which I was really proud of). But I later find out that our clients HATED it. They felt like there was too much forms for them to fill and they would much rather speak to us on the phone. Sure, the onboarding process I had built out made things more organized. But I had to ask myself: Is this onboarding process actually serving my customer? I realized it did not, so I just scrapped it. I've learned with time that every question you ask in your onboarding form pushes your customer further from the result they signed up for. So only keep a question if it truly helps you deliver better results. For example, we run a cold email service at ListKit. If we don't collect information from our clients about their ideal customer profile, their offer, their goals, we can't build their leads list or write their scripts. That onboarding form saves us hours of back-and-forth later. But if you're asking questions just for the sake of having an onboarding process, you're only creating friction. Here's how to fix your onboarding right now: Step 1 - Open your current onboarding form Step 2 - Go through every single question and ask yourself: "Do I actually use this information to deliver the service?" If the answer is no, delete it immediately. Step 3 - For questions you keep, write down exactly how you use that information Example from our cold email service: - Question: "Who is your ideal customer?" → We use this to build their leads list - Question: "What problem does your offer solve?" → We use this to write their scripts - Question: "What's your revenue goal?" → We use this to set campaign targets Step 4 - Test your new form on the next three customers Ask them: "Was this onboarding process helpful or annoying?" If they say annoying, cut more questions. Your onboarding process should establish trust and set your customer up for success. Not make them regret buying. Start this audit today. It takes 15 minutes max and will save you from losing customers who feel overwhelmed before they even start.

I improved retention and onboarding success by making a change to the first step in the onboarding process. A few years (and a few companies) ago, I made a small tweak to the way we onboarded new customers—a tweak that ended up making all the difference. We stopped diving headfirst into the technical implementation. Instead, we started with what I called a Partnership Kickoff. This one shift transformed the customer experience, boosting retention and improving onboarding success rates. Here’s why: The Partnership Kickoff brought intention to the relationship right from day one. Instead of rushing to “get things done,” we: 1️⃣ Engaged all the key stakeholders in the partnership 2️⃣ Discussed goals and confirmed success criteria upfront 3️⃣ Set proper expectations on BOTH sides 4️⃣ Clarified roles and responsibilities for onboarding and beyond 5️⃣ Created space to ask questions and address concerns This wasn’t just a feel-good meeting. It was about getting ahead of risks, ensuring alignment, and setting the stage for success. Here’s the secret sauce: ⚫️ Set expectations early Sales aligned on the importance of this meeting, and CSMs communicated the who, what, and why in their first email. ⚫️ Use a New Customer Intake Form We asked customers to provide key information upfront—no assumptions or overreliance on Sales handoffs. ⚫️ Prep the right way Sending the kickoff deck in advance meant our meeting focused on conversation, not presentations. ⚫️ Lead with goals and expectations Capturing customer goals was the priority, setting the tone for how we’d measure success. ⚫️ Clarify next steps We left every kickoff aligned on what happens next and who’s doing what. The result? Customers felt heard, understood, and set up for success. It wasn’t magic, but it sure felt like it. That small change? It delivered BIG impact—the kind every CS leader dreams about. Are you being intentional about how you’re starting your partnerships? If not, maybe it’s time to rethink step one. ________ 📣 If you liked my post, you’ll love my newsletter. Every week I share my learning, advice and strategies from my experience going from a CSM to CCO. Join 12k+ subscribers of The Journey and turn insights into action. Sign up on my profile.

Stop building 90-day onboarding programs. You don’t have 90 days. You don’t even have 45. In today’s world, you have 2–3 weeks before frustration creeps in and your customer starts second-guessing their decision. Why? Because AI has reset expectations. 👉 Sign up for ChatGPT: get answers instantly 👉 Fathom: meeting notes summarised immediately 👉 Gamma: presentations from one upload and one prompt Customers are being trained to expect immediacy. They don’t want to “wait for onboarding.” They want to see value the moment they hit Sign Up. And this is where most traditional onboarding playbooks fail: They’re built around the vendor’s process and team capacity, not decreasing TTV. So what should CS leaders do? 1️⃣ Redefine Day 1 Value Forget “full rollout.” Define the first outcome your customer can see in 14 days that validates their decision. 2️⃣ Compress the critical path Cut ruthlessly. If a step doesn’t lead to visible progress in the first 2 weeks, move it to later. 3️⃣ Agentify Onboarding Any set-up that can be done by an agent from prompting and existing documentation, shouldn't be done manually. 4️⃣ Stack the team early Invest your best effort upfront. Highest-touch in the first 2–3 weeks prevents costly churn rescues later. 5️⃣ Measure value, not just milestones Track the time to the first “aha” or the first outcome, not just task completion. ⚡ AI has changed the clock speed of customer experience. If you’re still anchoring onboarding around 90 days, you’re too slow. And this is for our product teams too. You can't keep building products that take 6 months to get any value from. We need to find smart ways to unlock value from day one. Because the countdown doesn’t start when onboarding ends. It starts the second your customer signs. And we should get comfortable with the fact that onboarding never really ends. New tools come out, and we want customers to always be deploying, adapting, evolving. It's what we call everboarding. The old 90-day onboarding framework isn't built for the speed our customers need to see value today. It's time to throw it out and reinvent it. 📩 Want more tips on how to build an AI-first CS team? Then you’ll love my newsletter. Unconventional Growth is for the CS pro who wants to deliver results and have real impact in the age of AI. There’s over 17k of us (and growing!). #CSM #onboarding #CustomerSuccess #RevOps #CustomerRetention