Best Practices For Onboarding High-Value Clients

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.

𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸 “𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲.” But no one ever explains how. So let’s break it down. First, forget the word “value.” It’s vague. It’s subjective. It’s hard to measure. Instead, ask: 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝙢𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙪𝙡𝙩 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲?  • “More leads per week”  • “Faster deal close times”  • “Fewer security incidents per month” That’s your destination. But getting there might take weeks (or even months). So here’s the real key: 𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 “𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁” 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲.  • First lead from your system  • First deal closed using your platform  • First security incident prevented through your product Because 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘶𝘦 is really just: 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁. And if you get that right — engagement skyrockets. Adoption improves. Churn drops. 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: I worked with an ecommerce email marketing SaaS company. Their product helped brands drive more sales through email. Sounds clear, right? But many new customers spent their first month building social proof or welcome emails — the ones that don’t drive sales. So their first email sale? Didn’t happen for weeks, if at all. The result? High churn. 𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗮𝗺𝗲: In the first 7 days, the entire onboarding focused on 3 steps:  1. Create a sales email campaign  2. Send it out  3. Make their first dollar Retention improved. Expansion grew. All because we shifted focus from features… to 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 “𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁” 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗲? #customersuccess

Invest in human-in-the-loop onboarding if you are a platform SaaS company. The value of human in the loop in onboarding customers on to "platform" SaaS products is under appreciated and under-utilized and quite contrary to the meme of AI everything. The fundamental premise is: adopting platform SaaS products involve not just a change in the tech-stack, but a change in the process of an organization itself. It is really hard for a product by itself to change an organization's processes. If you take a new all in one HR platform for instance: some part of the solution is eliminating inefficiencies in recruiting/hiring and compensation planning. Where you needed people before, you need fewer people and a different process. Some teams think that the product alone can help onboard the customer onto this complete people + tool change and end up with really poor activation rates. IMO that has never worked for anything more than a point solution SaaS product. The math on past platform companies that I have worked at to support this: - At Qualtrics - having a TAM (technical account manager) in an account led to 150%+NRR (and anecdotally, I have worked with some stellar TAMs with customers such as Adidas and Caterpillar and single handedly seen the impact to account adoption and expansion) vs 110% NRR on accounts without a TAM - At Apollo - having a 1:1 onboarding for accounts > certain threshold in ARR, ensured that we onboarded them on the "new way" of doing things, hooking up their CRM, etc, which led to nearly 40-50 BPS (literally 60% retention vs 110% retention) higher Month 12 retention than if not led with a human in the loop. For increasing activation rates & eventually NRR - divide up your customer base into ARR chunks and determine at what threshold do you want 1. 1 human:1 account , not just onboarding but also value realization at the end of a certain period of time 2. 1 human:many accounts, where onboarding happens in cohorts 3. In-product onboarding: for free users as well as a accounts below a revenue threshold, where the setup process is identical to what an onboarding rep would do. Over a period of time - maybe LLMs and agents could own this process (idea for a company?), but for now this is a vastly under-rated tactic, but something that always works.

Good Morning ☕ 67% of expansion opportunities die during onboarding. Not in renewal. Not in year 2. In the first 90 days. Here's why 👇 Traditional onboarding focuses on: ❌ Feature adoption ❌ User training ❌ Technical setup ❌ "Success" metrics Revenue-focused onboarding focuses on: ✅ Business outcome mapping ✅ Expansion roadmap creation ✅ Stakeholder expansion ✅ Growth conversation timing The difference is massive: Traditional approach: "Let's get you using the platform!" → 23% expansion rate in year 1 Revenue approach: "Let's map your growth goals to our capabilities" → 67% expansion rate in year 1 My Revenue Onboarding Framework: Week 1: Business case documentation  Week 2: Stakeholder expansion mapping Week 3: Growth goal alignment  Week 4: Expansion timeline creation Month 2: First expansion conversation  Month 3: Pilot expansion deployment The companies that expand aren't the ones who use your product best. They're the ones who see your product as their growth engine from day one. How does your onboarding set up expansion conversations? #CustomerOnboarding #RevenueGrowth #ExpansionRevenue #CustomerSuccess