A NOTE FROM THIS WEEK’S SPONSOR
Your customer onboarding program is leaving money on the table.
I’m pleased to say that Richard from Ascendr is offering The Onboarding Lab readers an exclusive opportunity. Take full advantage!
In a free 30-min call, you’ll dive into:
Your current process
Your vision for onboarding
Identified opportunities & pitfalls
A plan of action
No strings attached. 100% free.
By engaging with my sponsors, you are supporting me and the work I do with The Onboarding Lab. My focus will always be on delivering relevant, valuable content and sponsors. Thank you! 🤘
I don’t like to blame customer onboarding…
But if your expansion and renewal revenue isn't what it should be, your customer onboarding could be the culprit. So it’s worth a review.
Customer onboarding programs evolve with company growth. Along the way different people add their own twist.
This can create critical gaps for customers if you don’t address the tangled web that can develop.
That’s why it’s so important to regularly conduct an audit of your onboarding program.
Here's how to play detective and find the revenue leaks before your CFO does. ↓
🧪 The Project: Onboarding Program Review
This is not a quick 5 minute project. But don’t be lazy!
This is a critical project to do. If you’re struggling for time, delegate sections to team members to work on it together.
If you really have no time, consider speaking to this week’s sponsor who will provide a free audit over a phone call.
Step 1: Hunt down the revenue-critical moments
Stop measuring just product activity and start tracking all of the things that impact your bottom line.
Identify specific moments in your onboarding journey that directly correlate with revenue outcomes:
→ First value realisation - when the customer stops wondering if they made a mistake
→ Adoption breadth - when usage spreads beyond your champion to all users
→ Tech integration completion - when your solution becomes harder to rip out
→ Executive stakeholder engagement - when the person who buys sees value
→ First expansion trigger - when "maybe we should add more seats" enters the chat
You then want to identify:
Current average time-to-completion
Completion rate percentage
What happens to your revenue when these moments are missed
Step 2: Map the stakeholder experience
We often talk about the importance of journey mapping.
But have you gone deeper into stakeholder experience mapping? After all, different stakeholders need different things.
For each stakeholder level:
List what they actually care about
Document their touch points with your onboarding
Identify where they're getting info they don't need
Note where critical information is missing
Create a simple matrix showing:
Who needs what information
When they need it
If they're actually getting it
How it's affecting their perception of value
Last week, the project was all about how to onboard and deliver success for ALL stakeholders. Did you miss it? It’s here. ↓
Step 3: Scrutinise those cross-functional handoffs
This is often where onboarding can face plant – in the gaps between teams.
Identify your handovers all the way from Sales through to Renewals Managers. Consider going deeper and including knowledge transfer between teams like Support and CS.
Although we don’t technically “handover” to Support teams, the shared knowledge is critical for world-class onboarding experiences.
For each handoff, document:
→ Information completeness (or incompleteness)
→ Time delays between handoffs
→ Responsibility gaps where customers enter the "I thought you were handling it" zone
→ Where teams are redundantly asking customers the same questions
This level of review will pinpoint areas to tighten up that will positively impact revenue and advocacy early on in the customer’s experience.
Check out my previous guides on effective collaboration across teams including the handovers!
Step 4: Benchmark against reality
Your onboarding might feel "good enough" until you realise what competitors are doing. Good enough won’t cut it anymore.
Compare your key metrics against:
→ Industry averages
→ Your historical performance
→ Top performers in your space
Focus on:
→ Time to first value
→ Technical implementation completion rates
→ User adoption percentage at 30/60/90 days
→ Onboarding-specific satisfaction
→ Impact on first-year retention
🔍 NOTE: The difference between average and top-performing SaaS companies often isn't their product, it's how quickly and consistently they deliver on their promises.
Step 5: Prioritise fixes by revenue impact
Not all onboarding issues deserve equal attention. Be strategic with these decisions.
It will help to justify your focus if you have the evidence and details behind decisions.
Prioritise based on:
→ Direct revenue impact (expansion delays, churn risk)
→ Resources required to fix
→ Time to implement changes
→ Expected measurable outcomes
Create a prioritised roadmap with:
→ Quick wins (high impact, low effort)
→ Strategic investments (high impact, higher effort)
→ Maintenance items (lower impact, low effort)
→ Deprioritised concerns (lower impact, high effort)
🔍 NOTE: Companies that prioritise onboarding improvements based on revenue impact get more resources for their CS teams than those focusing solely on satisfaction scores. Follow the money.
🤓 The Analysis
Your audit will likely uncover some uncomfortable truths. Embrace them.
The companies that address these issues head-on are the ones that build sustainable growth engines.
What you'll get from performing this type of audit:
Clear visibility into where revenue is leaking
Cross-functional alignment
Concrete targets to measure & improve
Roadmap for capturing additional expansion revenue
Worth an afternoon of detective work, wouldn't you say?
START THE CONVERSATION
SHARE WITH A LEADER OR TEAMMATE
Here's a ready-to-use message:
Subject: Onboarding Audit Approach That Could Impact Our Expansion Revenue
I've been following The Onboarding Lab newsletter and this week's issue outlines a revenue-focused onboarding audit that addresses some challenges we've been discussing.
The framework specifically looks at how our onboarding process might be impacting expansion opportunities and retention.
There is also an offer for a free audit call we could look at doing.
I'd like to discuss this soon.
Here is the link: [ARTICLE LINK]
