In onboarding, we interact with Sales, Product, CS, Marketing, and Support (and the list goes on depending on your company).
No other team has that view.
Or influence.
The problem I often see with clients is that the information flowing through the onboarding team isn't being used deliberately or strategically.
But Clare, I’m busy firefighting right now, why does this actually matter?
Well, as an example, expectations for onboarding are set during the sales cycle 52% of the time, before you've even met the customer.
That means what Sales and Marketing promises directly shapes your work.
When that promise and the reality don't match, you're the one managing the fallout.
That’s a downstream result of broken feedback loops between departments.
And when 76% of customers expect a consistent experience across all departments, it’s incredibly important to focus on it.
🧪 The Project: Feedback Loop Builder
This is how to turn your valuable cross-department position into a structured source of insight that makes every team better, and makes you indispensable in the process.
Step 1: Map your touch points honestly
Write down every team you interact with and what moves between you.
Information, requests, handoffs, complaints.
Don't make it aspirational. Write what actually happens today.
For example:
Sales hands off a deal - What comes with it? A CRM note? A call recording? A verbal summary? Or nothing?
Product releases a new feature - How do you find out? Slack, a release note, a surprise from a customer?
🔍 Note: Most people discover that information flows in one direction, towards them. That's the gap to recognise. The goal of this project is to make it flow back.
Step 2: Identify what each team needs from you
Think about what would make their job measurably easier if they had it.
Sales needs to know what objections come up in week two that weren't handled during the sale.
Product needs to know which features cause the most confusion, not just which ones are least used.
Marketing needs to know which use cases resonate most once customers are actually using the product because that's where the real value language lives.
Support needs early warning when onboarding leaves gaps that will turn into tickets.
Have a conversation with one person in each team.
Ask: "What would be most useful for you to hear from me on a regular basis?"
Frame this as something you're building, not a favour you're asking.
You're creating a systematic input for them. That changes the dynamic entirely.
Step 3: Create a simple, consistent output
Pick a format you can sustain.
A short written summary shared once a fortnight is more valuable than an elaborate and overwhelming report never shared.
For each team, define one recurring thing you'll share:
Sales - Top three expectation gaps you're seeing in new accounts this month
Product - Two to three friction points with new users, with verbatim customer language where you have it
Marketing - The use case or outcome customers mention most when they describe why they bought
Support - Patterns in early-stage customer questions, before they become tickets
Keep it brief. Send it proactively.
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Step 4: Track patterns, not incidents
A single customer complaint is an anecdote not a feedback loop.
What you're looking for is the same issue appearing across three or more customers.
When a theme appears, you have something worth escalating.
When you share a pattern rather than a one-off, you're no longer the person raising problems. Data is your friend!
Step 5: Close the loop and ask what changed
This is the step most people skip.
You share insight. Nothing happens so you stop sharing.
After sending a summary to other teams continue to ask: "Did anything I flagged last time get used or change anything?"
Sometimes the answer is no.
Sometimes it quietly shaped a conversation or a decision you weren't aware of.
Closing the loop by following up builds the habit on both sides.
They start to expect your input. You start to see the impact of providing it.
That's when the relationship becomes genuinely collaborative rather than transactional.
🤓 The Analysis
No other stage of the customer journey captures what onboarding captures.
If you still treat onboarding as just a handoff and training then you are missing valuable opportunities for high value long term customers.
The teams that get this right treat it as their most concentrated source of customer intelligence.
The feedback loop this week’s project describes is how onboarding earns its seat at the table.
Demonstrate, consistently and clearly, that the information you hold shapes better decisions across the entire business.
And it starts with one email to one teammate this week.
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