Onboarding is no easy feat. With many different internal functions involved and so many customer touchpoints, there's plenty of room for error, including:

Mismatched expectations about responsibilities, timelines, and outcomes.
Underwhelming customers by overpromising and underdelivering on product experience and value.
Poor project management, resulting in missed milestones and delayed time to value (TTV).
Overservicing or underservicing customers.
Lack of processes and documents, resulting in delays and inconsistent experiences and outcomes.
Confusion around when onboarding starts, when it stops, and who is ultimately accountable.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

View onboarding as one step in a broader process that involves many functions across the organization. Onboarding is the most important step to ensuring successful long-term customer relationships next to sales. Working together to succeed in the early stages of the customer relationship is critical for retention and account growth.
Onboarding starts before the sale. Expectations for onboarding and outcomes of using the solution are set during the sales process before onboarding takes place.
Connect value delivery with customer goals. Planning value delivery linked to the reasons the customer purchased is the essence of strong onboarding.
Internal alignment and coordination is the absolute critical success factor of seamless onboarding.

Impact and Result

Understand current maturity, high-priority paint points, and opportunities for growth.
Improve internal processes, communication, and process efficiency and effectiveness.
Know where resources are needed to improve the onboarding process.
Develop recommendations for executable onboarding improvement initiatives.
Develop a target customer onboarding journey and executable process improvement initiatives that address top pain points and gaps.

Revolutionize Your Customer Onboarding Research & Tools

1. Revolutionize Your Customer Onboarding Storyboard – A step-by-step overview of how to benchmark new customer onboarding performance, develop a target customer onboarding journey, and develop initiatives and recommendations for improved business outcomes.

Make meaningful improvements to your new customer onboarding journey. This storyboard will help you understand current onboarding maturity and performance benchmarks, identify top pain points and critical gaps, and develop process improvements for a stronger customer onboarding experience.

2. Onboarding Diagnostic – Assess and benchmark your current onboarding performance and maturity.

This worksheet will help you assess your current customer onboarding performance and maturity and identify initial recommendations for improvement.

3. Onboarding RACI – Align on onboarding roles and responsibilities.

This worksheet will help you assign tasks and responsibilities for strong internal collaboration and coordination.

4. Onboarding Executive Presentation Template – Make the case for meaningful onboarding program improvements.

Use this presentation to present your findings and recommendations to executives.

Revolutionize Your Customer Onboarding

Your playbook to get customers to value quickly.

Analyst perspective

Onboarding is the most important step to ensuring successful long-term customer relationships, next to sales. By getting this step right, you lay the foundation for long and strong customer relationships.

Onboarding starts before the sale. Expectations for outcomes of using the solution, the customer experience, and onboarding itself are all set during the sales process. Connecting value delivery with customer goals is the essence of strong onboarding. Organizations that accurately capture the value customers seek and effectively translate this into the onboarding process set themselves apart as strong business partners.

Onboarding is the first step in the broader customer experience journey and involves many functions across the organization, making internal alignment and coordination the absolute critical success factor. By working together across functions to succeed in the early stages of the customer relationship, organizations set themselves up for high retention and maximal account growth.

Done well, onboarding becomes part of the sales process and ensures long-term, happy customers, leading to high customer lifetime value (CLV) and mutual customer-provider success.

Emily Wright

Emily Wright
Senior Research Analyst, Marketing Advisory
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Pain Points

Onboarding is no easy feat. With many different internal functions involved and a wide range of customer needs, it's all too easy for organizations to not fully satisfy customers during onboarding. Beware:

Mismatching customer expectations.
Overpromising and underdelivering.
Poor project management leading to missed milestones and delayed time to value (TTV).
Overservicing or underservicing customers.

Obstacles

What holds organizations back from delivering world-class customer onboarding are several nagging obstacles:

Poor collaboration and communication between internal functions.
Lack of understanding of the customer experience (incomplete data, feedback, etc.).
Inadequate time, resources, or technology to properly segment and onboard customers well.

Info-Tech's Approach

Through the Info-Tech approach, onboarding teams will:

Understand current maturity, high-priority paint points, and opportunities for growth.
Improve internal processes, communication, and process efficiency and effectiveness.
Know where resources are needed to improve the onboarding process.
Develop recommendations for executable onboarding improvement initiatives.

"The ultimate goal of customer onboarding is to get your customers to come back to your product." – Emily Byford in Help Scout, 2023.

It's about making your product part of their working routine. You don't want them to use your product once and then never again.

What is onboarding?

Onboarding is the process of guiding new users through the journey of using a new solution, ensuring they achieve their desired goals or outcomes successfully.

Onboarding can be broken down into account onboarding and customer onboarding:

Account Onboarding: The initial setup and configuration of a solution for a new user account. Account onboarding focuses on the technical aspects of onboarding, including any integrations with existing systems, ensuring that the account is set up and users have access.

Customer Onboarding: The process of getting new users up to speed on the product/service, ensuring they understand how to use the product and are deriving value from the solution.

"Customer onboarding is the process that new users go through to get set up and start using your product. It covers the whole journey: from initial sign-up to product activation and first use. Customer onboarding aims to deliver value to your customer as early as possible — in their first use, if possible."

– Emily Byford in Help Scout, 2022

Onboarding is the most important step in the customer journey

Onboarding represents the first domino in a long chain of key customer touchpoints.

This critical phase kicks off and establishes the tone for the customer relationship and sets customers up for success and satisfaction with your product.

"Good customer onboarding sets your customers up to get value from using your product immediately and repeatedly for as long as they continue using it."

–Emily Byford in Help Scout, 2022

Onboarding sets the foundation upon which your customer relationship is built

A picture of the onboarding pyramid, the first step in the broader customer experience journey and involves many functions across the organization

Set the stage for long-term usage, high satisfaction, and strong CLV

Sixty-three percent of customers say the onboarding period is an important consideration when deciding whether to subscribe to a service or purchase a product.
Source: Wyzowl, 2020

The goal of customer onboarding is to encourage timely adoption and ensure the customer reaches expected TTV and outcomes. A strong onboarding program reduces TTV, increases customer engagement, and maximizes customer satisfaction, retention, CLV, and advocacy.

Increase Product Adoption & Usage	Get customers up to speed and to productivity stage faster. Keep customers engaged and excited about your product.
Shorten TTV	Clearly demonstrate the value of your product and how it improves users' lives.
Reduce Service Inquiry Volumes & Costs	Rely less on support teams to assist with customer inquiries. Lower service costs by reducing volume and complexity.
Increase Retention & CLV, Reduce Churn	Increase renewals, repeat purchases, and product expansion. High renewal rates = increased CLV = increased profitability.
Increase Profitability	Decrease churn while increasing return on investment (ROI) through retention, CLV, and cost savings. Increase account growth through expansion opportunities.
Build Client Relationships	Gain customer trust. Strong customer trust = strong relationships = high CLV.

Onboarding is no easy task

"Poor onboarding ranks as the third most important factor leading to customer churn, following wrong product fit and lack of engagement."
– Custify, 2023

Onboarding is the most important step in the customer journey, setting the tone for the entire relationship. With so many teams involved and so many customer touchpoints, there's plenty of room for error.

Common challenges include:

Mismatched expectations in responsibilities, timelines, and outcomes.
Underwhelming customers by overpromising and underdelivering.
Poor project management leading to missed milestones and delayed TTV.
Overservicing or underservicing customers.
Lack of processes and documents causing delays and inconsistent experiences and outcomes.
Lack of clarity about when onboarding starts, when it stops, and who owns it.

If onboarding goes poorly, there is a risk of low usage, poor adoption, and ultimately high customer churn.

According to a McKinsey study, poor onboarding, engagement, and customer service make up 52% of the reasons customers leave in the first 90 days (KickStart Alliance, 2019).

Research indicates several best practices result in a strong onboarding program

Create accountability and clearly define roles

Design onboarding tiers and journeys

Clarify goals and measure performance consistently

A lack of communication and collaboration is the cause of many onboarding challenges.

Align teams internally and address pain points to optimize the onboarding journey.

Setting your customers up for success over the long term is the main goal of onboarding.

Tactics:

Assign a program leader who is ultimately accountable and responsible for customer onboarding.
Develop and communicate clear RACI for all onboarding stages.

Tactics:

Assign a program leader who is ultimately accountable and responsible for customer onboarding.
Develop and communicate clear RACI for all onboarding stages.

Tactics:

Create high-, mid-, and low-touch options with defined criteria for each (industry, product complexity, company size).
Create current- and target-state onboarding journey maps for each program tier to address pain points.

Tactics:
Define what a successfully onboarded customer looks like.
Be clear on what value your solution provides and be able to report back on it to customers.
Identify KPIs to track and when to measure; monitor them consistently.

Insight:
Overpromise vs. Overdeliver is the worst-performing metric. The problem starts with a poor handover from Sales, which leads to the company not delivering what was expected. A lack of accountability and poorly defined processes exacerbate the issue.

Insight:
A common trap is believing that the goal of onboarding is to educate customers on the product. Your customer's main goal is the true main goal.

Onboarding Maturity Model

	Characteristics	Indicators	Actions to Take
Optimized	Advanced use of data and analytics to drive onboarding improvements. Highly personalized onboarding experiences for different customer segments. Strong collaboration and alignment across all relevant departments. Continuous feedback loops to refine and enhance onboarding processes.	High customer engagement and product adoption. Efficient onboarding processes with minimal delays. Regularly updated onboarding materials and methods.	Implement AI and automation to streamline repetitive tasks. Develop a robust customer feedback collection and analysis system. Continuously monitor and refine onboarding KPIs and metrics.	Process, technology, and teams mesh, creating strong onboarding and setting a solid foundation for customer success.
Managed	Standardized and consistently applied processes. Use of onboarding software or CRM systems to track progress. Clear roles and responsibilities with cross-functional involvement. Proactive communication and regular check-ins with customers.	Higher customer satisfaction and lower churn rates. Onboarding timelines and milestones are generally met. Effective handoffs between Sales, Onboarding, and support teams.	Optimize personalized onboarding paths based on customer needs. Develop comprehensive training materials and resources. Use data to identify and address common onboarding pain points.	Use data and key metrics to become more customer-centric and make meaningful program improvements.
Defined	Basic processes documented and followed. Set procedures for common tasks. Defined initial roles and responsibilities. Basic training and resources provided to new customers.	More consistent customer experiences. Some improvement in onboarding completion rates. Reduced variability in onboarding outcomes.	Develop detailed onboarding playbooks and checklists. Implement basic customer segmentation to tailor onboarding. Implement technology and tools to automate simple tasks.	Incorporate tools and technology to advance processes.
Ad Hoc	Informal structures and processes. Little to no documentation or standard procedures. Efforts are largely improvised.	Highly variable customer experiences. Inconsistent customer satisfaction and outcomes. Delays are common and milestones are often missed.	Document onboarding process and steps. Start tracking select key onboarding metrics. Designate an onboarding team lead.	Focus on defining processes first.

Info-Tech's methodology for optimizing customer onboarding

	1. Assess Current State	2. Define Target State	3. Communicate Improvement Plan
Phase Steps	1.1 Assess your current onboarding maturity. 1.2 Map current onboarding process and customer journeys; identify pain points. 1.3 Gather feedback from internal teams and customers. 1.4 Summarize overall themes, major pain points, and challenges of the current process.	2.1 Design target onboarding process. Set goals based on results from current-state assessment and diagnostic. Prioritize goals and develop initiatives for improvement. 2.2 Define resource and tool requirements. Develop RACI for onboarding process. Finalize project plan and key actions.	3.1 Develop executive presentation. 3.2 Communicate to key stakeholders, functions, and team members and gain buy-in. 3.3 Plan for project launch and ongoing communication.
Phase Outcomes	Performance and maturity benchmarks Documented pain points, issues, and barriers to success Comprehensive view of current onboarding performance	Clear objectives Target-state journey map/process Key initiatives Clear roles and responsibilities Understanding of required resources	Onboarding improvement recommendations Executive and team buy-in Improved coordination between teams; greater functional alignment

1. Assess Current State

2. Define Target State

3. Communicate Improvement Plan

Phase Steps

1.1 Assess your current onboarding maturity.
1.2 Map current onboarding process and customer journeys; identify pain points.
1.3 Gather feedback from internal teams and customers.
1.4 Summarize overall themes, major pain points, and challenges of the current process.

2.1 Design target onboarding process.

Set goals based on results from current-state assessment and diagnostic.
Prioritize goals and develop initiatives for improvement.

2.2 Define resource and tool requirements.

Develop RACI for onboarding process.
Finalize project plan and key actions.

3.1 Develop executive presentation.
3.2 Communicate to key stakeholders, functions, and team members and gain buy-in.
3.3 Plan for project launch and ongoing communication.

Phase Outcomes

Performance and maturity benchmarks
Documented pain points, issues, and barriers to success
Comprehensive view of current onboarding performance

Clear objectives
Target-state journey map/process
Key initiatives
Clear roles and responsibilities
Understanding of required resources

Onboarding improvement recommendations
Executive and team buy-in
Improved coordination between teams; greater functional alignment

Insight summary

View onboarding as one step in a broader process that involves many functions across the organization.

Onboarding is the most important step to ensuring successful long-term customer relationships, next to sales. Working together to succeed in the early stages of the customer relationship is critical for retention and account growth.

Onboarding starts before the sale

Expectations for outcomes of using the solution, the customer experience, and onboarding itself are all set during the sales process.

Know your customer' roles and goals

Getting to know individual customers' roles and goals helps you to help them look like a hero.

Connect value delivery with customer goals

Done well, onboarding becomes part of the sales process and ensures long-term, happy customers. Planning value delivery linked to the reasons the customer purchased is the essence of strong onboarding.

Keep the human touch

It's good to automate processes where possible, but don't remove the human factor. This is how you get those critical customer details that can make or break a launch; the devil is always in the details.

Internal coordination is the most critical success factor

Internal alignment and coordination is the absolute critical success factor in seamless onboarding.

Blueprint deliverables

Onboarding RACI
Use this worksheet to assign ownership and responsibilities.

Executive Presentation Template
Use this template to create a customized presentation of your findings and recommendations for executives.

Key deliverable

Onboarding Diagnostic

This worksheet serves as the toolkit to understand your organization's current level of maturity in customer onboarding and what actions to take to increase maturity.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit	Guided Implementation	Workshop	Consulting
"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."	"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."	"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."	"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all four options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Call #1
Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. Assess current onboarding maturity.

Call #2
Discuss onboarding process mapping and journey mapping.

Call #3
Gather feedback from internal teams and customers. Summarize overall themes, major pain points, and challenges in the current process.

Call #4
Design target onboarding process. Develop goals and discuss RACI.

Call #5
Prioritize goals and develop initiatives for improvement. Determine needed resources.

Call #6
Finalize project plan and key actions.

Call #7
Review and coach on executive presentation deck.

Call #8
Review and coach on project launch plan and ongoing communication.

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop Overview

For more information:
workshops@infotech.com | 1-888-670-8889

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Assess the Onboarding Current State	Assess the Onboarding Current State (cont'd.)	Define the Onboarding Target State	Bridge the Gap and Create the Strategy	Next Steps and Wrap-Up (offsite)
1.1 Discuss and document reasons for changing onboarding. 1.2 Assess onboarding maturity using Info-Tech's Onboarding Diagnostic. 1.3 Map out the current onboarding process. 1.4 Document current pain points experienced across functions and their root causes.	2.1 Map out current key customer journey. 2.2 Review and discuss relevant customer data and feedback, documenting pain points along customer journey and their root causes. 2.3 Reassess onboarding maturity using Info-Tech's Onboarding Diagnostic. 2.4 Review and discuss the Onboarding Diagnostic results.	3.1 Discuss best practices. 3.2 Indicate the target-state onboarding maturity. 3.3 Define onboarding goals based on recommendations from diagnostic and identified pains and opportunities from process and customer journey-mapping exercises. 3.4 Map out target-state process. 3.5 Map out target customer journey.	4.1 Assess the gaps between current and target states. 4.2 Brainstorm initiatives and actions to address gaps. 4.3 Discuss any challenges and obstacles to reaching these goals. Consider impacts on product, sales, IT, and customer success. 4.4 Determine metrics to be measured. 4.5 Develop and finalize project plan to achieve target onboarding process.	5.1 Complete in-progress deliverables from previous four days. 5.2 Set up time to review workshop deliverables and to discuss next steps.
Documented onboarding process Understanding of root causes of pain points	Onboarding Diagnostic results Recommendations for improvement Documented customer journey	Onboarding goals Target-state onboarding process Target-state customer journey	Project plan with key actions Metrics/KPIs to measure	Completed documented onboarding process and improvement plan Onboarding RACI

Phases & Steps

Revolutionize Your Customer Onboarding

Phase 1	Phase 2	Phase 3
Assess Current State	Define Target State	Communicate Improvement Plan

Phase 1: Assess Current State

Step 1.1	Assess your current onboarding maturity.
Step 1.2	Map current onboarding process and customer journeys; identify pain points.
Step 1.3	Gather feedback from internal teams and customers.
Step 1.4	Summarize current-state assessment findings.

Outcome

Benchmark of performance and maturity
Documented pain points, issues, and barriers to success
Comprehensive view of current onboarding performance

Step 1.1 Assess your current onboarding maturity

Total duration: 2-3 hours

Objective

Gain clarity on why the change is necessary and understand the current maturity.

Output

Documented rationale for onboarding improvement
Benchmark of performance and maturity

Participants

Onboarding and/or Customer Success team
Leaders from Sales, Marketing, Product, Tech Support

MarTech

Tools

Info-Tech Research Group's Onboarding Diagnostic
Executive Presentation Template

1.1.1 Understand reasons for changing onboarding (60-90 min.)	1.1.2 Assess current maturity level (60-90 min.)
Discuss and document reasons for changing onboarding and benefits sought.	Assess onboarding maturity using Info-Tech's Onboarding Diagnostic.
Add key reasons and/or benefits to slide 5 of the Executive Presentation Template.	Review and discuss the Onboarding Diagnostic results. Document results on slide 7 of the Executive Presentation Template.
Tip! While it's important to include multiple perspectives, be wary of including too many people in the assessment process. This will slow down the process without adding significant additional insight. Stick to key leaders across the teams involved in customer onboarding.

1.1.1 Understand reasons for changing onboarding

(60-90 min.)

1.1.2 Assess current maturity level

(60-90 min.)

Discuss and document reasons for changing onboarding and benefits sought.

Assess onboarding maturity using Info-Tech's Onboarding Diagnostic.

Add key reasons and/or benefits to slide 5 of the Executive Presentation Template.

Review and discuss the Onboarding Diagnostic results. Document results on slide 7 of the Executive Presentation Template.

Tip!

While it's important to include multiple perspectives, be wary of including too many people in the assessment process. This will slow down the process without adding significant additional insight. Stick to key leaders across the teams involved in customer onboarding.

Revolutionize Your Customer Onboarding visualization

Your playbook to get customers to value quickly.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

What Is a Blueprint?

A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.

Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.

Table of Contents

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Guided Implementation 1: Assess Current State

Call 1: Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges. Assess current onboarding maturity.
Call 2: Discuss onboarding process mapping and journey mapping.
Call 3: Gather feedback from internal teams and customers. Summarize overall themes, major pain points, and challenges of current process.

Guided Implementation 2: Define Target State

Call 1: Design target onboarding process. Develop goals and discuss RACI.
Call 2: Prioritize goals and develop initiatives for improvement. Determine needed resources.
Call 3: Finalize project plan and key actions.