Customer onboarding in B2B SaaS is changing fast, but the resources for onboarding teams? Not so much. That's why we're kicking off Onboarding Therapy, a podcast that tackles the real challenges onboarding teams face every day.
Shareil: I noticed more of our customers
would bring some of those conversations
to us, and I would almost joke Hey, this
is just going to be a little onboarding
therapy session and then I realized it's
comforting to know that other people are
also struggling with the same things.
Kim: Welcome to onboarding therapy.
I'm Kim.
And in this episode, Cheryl and I
were talking about the challenges of
aligning sales and onboarding teams,
including mismatch incentives, the
importance of feedback, loops and
strategies for improving handoffs.
Let's get into it.
Do
you feel like there's something that
people talk to you about or have
been talking to you about recently?
Shareil: Yeah.
last week there was a few venting just
about like sales handoff, the classic,
I didn't get everything I needed and
now I can't support this customer.
and part of it is, I think it's easy
to just blame sales and say, Oh, this
was a bad handoff or bad process.
But I think it's far deeper than that.
And it's.
And it does sometimes feel like there's
just two sides and it's us against them.
And I think that is the problem and
why things don't tend to get fixed.
And what takes the biggest hit in that
is the customer experience at the end
of the day, because like you and I
will have to figure it out internally
at some point, whether we want to, or
not as individuals, like leaders or
managers or goals or something will
force that function to be better.
But if you can do that proactively
and work on that internally and
build that bridge a little bit better
between sales and success for sales
and anything that comes after it,
I think the ultimate biggest value is that
customer experience remains intact and
historically, we've seen a lot of like.
In marketing and sales, you tend to
wine and dine prospects and maybe not
physically, but sometimes even physically
like actually wine and dine them.
And I've heard this a lot in onboarding,
especially as they come from this
experience of being made to feel very
special and like being heard on every
call and being, The center of attention
you're being followed up with all
the time and being reached out to.
And then oftentimes it feels like
you're then just thrown over the
whatever finish line, if you will.
And it's like, all right, good luck,
Kim, figure it out, or good luck
for how this is on your plate now.
If you don't have all the information
you need on that post sales side, then
it's easy to blame the sales team or
blame the process or blame the, whatever
the lack of information there is.
And the reality is you still have
to do your job and you still have
to support that customer and get
them on boarded and figured out.
And when I say like the customer
takes a hit in that, sometimes it's
what that looks like is then I have
to ask you the same questions that
you've probably already answered five
times now through this sales process
or through some marketing forms.
And instead, the better kind of
approach or not instead, but a way to
alleviate some of that is to actually
have better internal collaboration and
feedback and put that all under the.
Kind of bucket of we are doing this to
serve the customer and I'm not blaming you
as an individual and you're not playing.
The same thing goes the other way.
onboarding and success drop
the ball to it's not to point
fingers at sales and then you can.
Frustrate a sales rep who now might be
losing their commission check because
you didn't onboard them well, or you
didn't get them to activate soon enough.
and that is going to happen no
matter what, but it's finding those
moments and finding opportunity
to kind of bridge that gap.
But I've been hearing a lot of
that from our own customers.
And my own experience and then past
worlds too of that's frustrating.
I wish the person did that, or I wish
they filled out this property, or I
don't know why they didn't give me
that information, or I can't believe
the customer didn't know the feature
does this and doesn't do that.
Right.
And the reality is also have some grace
for your partners internally on the
sales side and on the marketing side,
because their jobs are equally as hard.
And you can't go into every single
feature and every use case and every
detail of any product or service.
that's what onboarding is for.
It's not supposed to happen in
every single detail in a demo or
a sales prospecting type call.
That is the theme that I
hear most commonly about.
And I do think that's where
products like arrows actually are
designed to help and improve that.
And you've heard me say this and I
tell our customers this, but if you
use arrows, Or products like it.
it should force some CRM
hygiene on your company.
And that often is where some
of that resistance comes from.
Cause now I might be asking
you to fill out a property.
You didn't have to before, or take
an extra step to think about who
to share this plan with, or how
to customize this task or how to
make it unique to this individual.
And you're used to just maybe firing it
off and saying, all right, good luck.
And I've got it.
but taking some of those intentional
like steps to figure out, okay,
how does this impact the customer?
What does it mean when I'm frustrated
with our handoff being bad?
What does that actually mean?
What are the impacts of that?
What does that look and feel
like for the customer's side?
And if you can agree on that
needing to be better, take some of
that personal feeling out of it.
but nonetheless, it is challenging.
It is frustrating.
I, we all deal with it.
no one's special or unique in that case.
Like we.
We all have properties that are missing
and information that we wish we had
or questions we wish we had answers to
before jumping on a call with a customer.
and I'm very guilty of this.
Most CSMs are guilty of
this on the CS side too.
Like we don't always remember to put
every single note or every single
clip from every single call in.
And I guess just all that to say, put
yourself also in the shoes of the other
people internally who are managing
customers and that process and have
some empathy and grace for each other.
Because Each of those life cycle
moments are hard and they each
have their unique challenges.
And, I've also seen it improve, like
working on it together, building
feedback loops, actually having a
process that you're following, i.
e.
something like a mutual action plan
or an arrows plan, where, again, it
does force you to follow a process
and it forces you to maybe have a
better integration with HubSpot and
have that data flowing back and forth.
I think a combination of those things can
help alleviate some of that frustration.
But I hear it so often of Oh, I
wish they did this in sales, or
I wish they marketed it that way.
Or I wish I had this during the
handoff or that during the handoff.
And it's yeah.
We all do, and that's everywhere, and
that's just the reality of, conversations.
You're never going to
capture every single detail.
Or you could have the best and most
detailed sales rep in the world, and
you get on the phone with a customer,
and they tell you, I'm just trying this
for a couple months, and that might have
never come up in the sales conversation.
And now, all of a sudden, you Basically
have been handed something that's a
churn risk by the design of how they
want to use that product or service.
Kim: I think a big piece of it
is, having just like totally
misaligned incentives for both teams.
Cause I think it's interesting, like
onboarding typically is a separate team
from customer support, for example, but I
don't hear about, or haven't experienced
the same kind of tension between
onboarding and support as you do between.
Support and sales, onboarding and sales,
like basically everyone and sales.
And I think it's because anyone post
sale is like there to retain customers.
And so it's a shared incentive and shared
alignment, but then it's like sales
has, there are a lot of sales teams.
Their only goal is.
Closing a customer and they're
not incentivized to care about
whether that customer is retained.
So it's just different incentives.
And yeah, I think that's
where a big problem is.
Like it's not the sales reps.
Oftentimes they're not
doing anything wrong.
The onboarding team is oftentimes
not doing anything wrong.
It's actually like a larger company
kind of problem about higher
incentivizing people, higher talking
about the role of sales and the role
of onboarding and what they play in
the customer life cycle together.
Shareil: Yeah, that's so true.
I've been fortunate and unfortunate to
have been able to sit and work at places
where there is a lot of buy in senior
leadership on the space of retention
and in turn onboarding and customer
success and post sales basically.
And I've worked at places where that's
not the case and it is drastically
different than how those teams interact
together and even down to like how they.
How they respect each other and treat
each other and talk to each other
and or lack there of any of that.
And on teams where there aren't properly
aligned incentives and even to go a
step higher, like incentives aside,
if there aren't properly aligned, like
leadership thoughts and principles on how
teams should interact and how customers
should be treated, then it is easy to
become the pointing finger game of, you
did this in sales, or you did this in
success, or you did this in support.
And I just don't think that's good
for anybody and that's going to
happen and there's always going to
be high levels of stress in certain
roles, especially when you're dealing
with enterprise clients and you're
talking of tens of thousands or even
millions of dollars of contract values.
You're both trying to do your job
and hit your numbers and hit your
metrics and meet your own goals.
And sometimes it's easy to get
wrapped up too much in that and forget
again about the customer journey
and what their actual needs are.
but that's also where I
think like surfacing some of
that feedback is valuable.
It's not just pointed at the individual.
It's not just me telling you,
Kim, I wish you did this in sales.
Maybe that's encompassed in there.
But part of that is hopefully
to also make sure that gets.
Leveled up to your leadership so that
they can also do something about it.
And again, that's not to like, that's
not to like for them to then point
fingers and go call out individuals.
It's more so to have this.
Unified approach internally as a
business to this is what we're trying
to do for customers and in that is
included things like better marketing
and better sales and better success and
better everything that comes after that.
and I think the most basic version of that
is we are trying to keep customers happy.
that's our, as we know, we talk
about happy customers all the time.
And that doesn't just mean ones
that like you as people and
are like, emotionally happy.
Sure, that's great to have that as well.
But it's more from the lens of, are
you able to meet your goals and your
targets and all the things you're
trying to do and actually solve your
business pains and business objectives.
With us helping you as a
service or as a product.
And to do that, you need, you
have to have everyone internally,
aligned on that working together.
Kim: I was just thinking, one thing that
was really helpful at my previous company,
which I know you have this experience too.
So I'm curious how you manage this, but
at my previous company, I was starting
an onboarding program from nothing.
We, when I started the sales reps were
onboarding customers and then passing them
off to customer support and it was a mess.
And I had never heard of onboarding.
I didn't know anything about it.
I was like researching and
figuring everything out as I went.
Okay.
And so there was a lot of, we have a
process going for a couple months and now
we're changing the process completely.
And I needed the sales teams buy in
for those process changes because a
lot of the process involved, okay, now
you're introducing the onboarding team
at this point, or now you're sending
this welcome message to the customer.
And actually you're scheduling
a kickoff call or whatever.
There's so many different
things that happened and, or
that changed along the way.
And one thing that really helped
is I had a, Sales rep, who was
one of the top performers and I
piloted my new processes with him.
And then I would actually figure out what
are the metrics that they care about?
And then we would measure his metrics
for a month and say, he was doing
this process the old way before.
And now we have a new process and this
is what's happening with his customers.
And this is what's happening with his
close rates because he's getting support
at this point versus the other point.
And it was like proving.
To the sales team from a person who is
successful that they all want to be like
and saying, I know you don't want to
change your process, but look, this works.
And then also you have that like
champion from the sales team who
was saying, yeah, guys, this works.
trust me, do this process.
And I felt like that really helped.
And also as an onboarding manager,
like staying really close to the sales
team and having their best interest in
mind and knowing Their job's not easy.
Sales is incredibly difficult.
They have very hard goals that
they're set and held to every month.
So like empathizing with them in that
way of I get that you have your own
goals that you have to hit and I have
my own goals and when I'm developing
my goals, I'm keeping you in mind and
keeping your process in mind and making
sure it's not going to be way too much
work and it's actually going to be
advantageous for you in the end too.
Shareil: Yeah.
Uh, I've dealt with that
and experienced that a lot.
I think.
Two things you said really resonate that
champion is so critical, like having
change management is incredibly hard
period, especially if you are impacting
the way someone else is doing their job.
And oftentimes when you're rolling
out something related to onboarding or
introducing onboarding into an org, you
are going to change inevitably what sales
and success has been doing historically,
because to your point, oftentimes sales
reps are beginning that or doing the
onboarding piece of it, or it was on a.
Non dedicated onboarding roles plate
before, and now that's coming off.
And so there's going to be things that
change, but I have always done what
you've said to is one, just keep a
close relationship with all of your
sales reps and managers, regardless
of the level of role I've been in.
that has always been true
because I understand.
How much easier my life could actually
be if your life is easier as a sales rep.
And so it is 100 percent about what are
your goals and how do we do that together?
And if your goals are to close more
customers and my goals are to keep
them around, like I would rather you
close better customers from the get go.
So if I can give you even the slightest
bit of feedback that makes it better
for you, that's how I want to start and
lead with, because if that's the case,
then I'm assuming likely you're going
to bring in better deals and better fit
deals and better customers and have a
better working relationship with me.
And so that should make and
turn our future life easier.
but again, when I say yours and mine.
Really what we should be thinking about is
like the customer and the business goals.
And yes, we all have individual goals
and you should think about them and
you should want to hit your numbers
and your metrics and your KPIs.
But if you can take it one level higher
and find that alignment, at least on, even
if it's I disagree with you as a person
and our customers still need X, Y, Z,
let's figure out how to do that together.
I think that's crucial.
And I think I, I had a, I was
managing a rep one time and they
made a, they were frustrated about
something, some handoff or some sale.
And they made a comment of, I'm
so like something along the lines
of, I'm so sick of this sales rep.
Their job is so easy and they get paid
so much more money than me and they
just cash out these commission checks
and they're passing over this like
crap deal and it wasn't true at all.
Like it was obviously coming
from a place of frustration.
They didn't really have a sense
of how hard that person's job was.
It was.
And so I actually went and sat with
that sales rep and I said, Hey, would
you be open to letting so and so shadow
you for a few calls just to get, let's
take one deal from start to finish
and go through that process just to
give you a taste of what it looks like
for my, for the person on my team.
So I went and sat with them and
I was like, Hey, so and so is
open to letting you do this.
I think it would be valuable for you to,
and I positioned to them as, Go learn
the process and come back with maybe
what you would change or what feedback,
like you can't have that strong of an
opinion without actually knowing what
is happening in all of those steps.
and to that person, to be fair, it did,
the perception was what they were saying.
That sales rep often wasn't around.
They often weren't in the office.
They Did seem like they were,
easier or doing things more easily.
And the reality actually was that
they were really good at their job.
Like they were really good at sales.
They were on top of their numbers
and on top of their emails and
on top of their follow ups.
And they were like one of the
better sales reps metrics wise,
and just like professionalism wise.
And so it was really nice and validating
to have that onboarding rep come back.
And essentially said I was wrong.
This is way.
And sure.
There was some feedback in there.
There was things we could change, but
it was nice to open their eyes to that.
And the same goes for Omelette.
I've had.
Whenever I've rolled out new programs
at places, I've asked sales leaders
up to C level folks, you should sit on
these calls and listen to what customers
are saying and hear what's happening.
but I've always tried to find that 1
champion who's either already hitting
their numbers and wants to do more,
or even that person on the sales
team who maybe wants to be that next.
Star and can you work with them
and partner with them and say,
I'm rolling out this process.
Let's and I love what you said.
Let's try it for a month and see, do your
numbers improve your metrics improve?
And ultimately does the customer
experience in the business improve?
because if you can get one person,
do people bought in on a process and
on a change, it's so much more easy
to roll that out to a broader team.
To the point where, like, when I run
more established, when I have run more
established onboarding programs, I would
never roll anything new out without
having 1 or 2 people pilot it first.
In partnership with sales, like we're
going to do this here's I would always
present to the directors of the department
first and say, this is the change.
Here is why here is the
like the forecasted impact.
It will have good and bad.
To some of the back and also just be
as simple as just acknowledging yes,
this will take your sales rep, maybe a
few more clicks or a few more clicks.
Minutes of time or some extra thinking
about a follow up, but because it should
have their best interest in heart and
to your point, essentially incentives,
if you can align to their incentives.
and when I've been able to have like
really well oiled systems and programs,
it's actually because they also have
incentives and goals that are aligned
to the business metrics and revenue
retention when I think when sales reps
also feel that, okay, they aren't just
like some reactive motion after the
fact they do have some skin in the game.
They also are caring about revenue
and growth and those pieces.
It also gets them to buy in more and.
On both sides, I guess our body
and that nature, it just makes it
easier to change and update stuff.
Kim: Yeah, that just reminded me to,
I feel like this is a very fine line
and I wouldn't recommend everyone do
this because it can seem micromanaging
for salespeople, but 1 metric that I
tracked at my previous company was.
Onboarding success by sales rep, because
anecdotally, I knew that there were
certain reps who were constantly the ones
who were getting early turn or completely
failed onboardings that just like they got
onto a call and they were like, honestly,
we just signed up because we got a deal
at the last second and we got three months
free and we're probably not going to use
it after the three months that it's free.
And I could tell anecdotally.
And so then we started tracking it and
it's not to like shame those sales reps.
And so that's why I'm like
walk a thin line with this.
Like it's, it should not be treated in
that way, but you need to have the data
to be able to share with management.
Hey, there, there are certain
reps who have customers that are
just retained, like they're doing
something different in their calls.
That is setting their customers up
for success during the sales process.
And sales managers are
not coaching on that.
So that's not something that's going
to be identified to help new reps
or low performing reps understand.
And so I think it is a metric that
should be used with sales management
to understand what is working.
What are the sales reps that are having
customers that are turning early.
80 percent of the time,
what are they saying?
Or what could they say to
improve that customer retention?
And again, back to your point,
that is a business goal.
It doesn't yes.
Failed onboardings matter
for an onboarding team.
That's a business goal.
And actually like when you're
selling a new customer and you are
getting credit for a quota that
you hit, but then they actually
never pay and never get onboarded.
That's horrible for your business.
And so it's something that
everyone should care about.
And I think it's.
It's tricky.
So necessary to track.
Shareil: Yeah, it's, it is a fine line.
You're right.
and I also don't actually think it's the
responsibility of the sales manager to
have to dig into that kind of numbers.
It is and it isn't, but you're the
person in charge then of onboarding
or even as an individual rep.
And I talk about this in onboarding too.
if you put a.
If you take a process and you put a
plan in front of a customer, you put
it in front of 10 customers and 9
of them get stuck on the same task,
that's a bad task, like you have to
fix that task, there's something wrong
with that task and that's your fault.
And in the same vein, if 10 deals come
over and 9 of them churn and even 7
of those are from the same rep, there
has to be something to look at there.
So there's some sort of pattern, right?
And it doesn't have to start as like
just straight up finger pointing,
even though it can feel that way.
But if you also then present other
themes or other patterns that you've
seen, and sure, if the only pattern
is just like Kim's, Kim is the sole
theme here and she keeps selling deals
that turn on week two, then yeah,
we're pointing fingers at some point.
But often there are other things and other
patterns and other lessons in there too.
And so the way I've thought about
positioning, sometimes those things
is here is, the common things here
were things like they never showed up
to phone calls, or they had no idea
how feature XYZ works, or they had
zero understanding of our pricing.
And then If those things are a
pattern, then odds are they're going
to point back to the same person.
And if it's pointing back to the same
person, then at least it's a, I don't
know how to say this in a kind way,
but it is a performance issue of that
person and that in and of itself might
be an opportunity for feedback that
can, depending on your comfort level
and organization set up to allow it.
But.
That might just be me reaching out
to you and saying, Hey, there's
something going on, I've noticed X
number of deals, and I assume you're
incentivized on retention and wanting
to keep these customers as well.
Here's what I'm seeing.
if that doesn't land well, or there
isn't that level of comfort there, then
that's something you should take to your
manager and have them go talk to the
sales manager and, again, if you're doing
this regularly, it shouldn't feel like
finger pointing if you're having a monthly
check in with your sales Counterparts
or sales leaders, it can feel less like
finger pointing and put it all under
the umbrella of we are trying to improve
this process because we see patterns and
because we see churn and it seems to be
pointing back to these three reasons.
And one of those reasons happens
to be an individual involved.
And the same thing is said about
onboarding too, that this again, it's
not to point fingers the other way.
If I have an onboarding rep whose
customers keep churning, I'm
also investigating that piece and
asking, what are you doing on calls?
What are you doing in follow ups?
What are you saying?
Maybe the sales rep might be
crushing it and giving them all the
right information, and then you are
butchering it on the onboarding side.
so that's also a very likely and real
possibility that happens out there.
And so the things I've done in the
past is have One standing meetings
with my sales leaders and I go in there
and present on here's what's going.
here's what's not going so well.
Here's some patterns we identified.
I try to always avoid to your
point of that line, that fine line.
I tried to avoid starting with.
I think him as a problem and she's doing
X, Y, Z or not doing it for that matter.
but start with some more higher level
themes and patterns that you're finding.
Like you can even, and if you're, if
your counterparts are ones that also
care about the business and care about
the numbers and care about the data,
which most good sales leaders do think
that way, they will also pretty quickly
piece together that these 10 deals.
Eight of them came from Shirell.
Let's go talk to Shirell or
figure out what's happening there.
But also come with some solutions.
if you're just finger pointing, it's
going to feel like finger pointing.
But if you come and say, I've
noticed that these customers have
the same theme and they all turned
and they came from this rep and they
all got hung up on this feature.
Is that something we could build
some recent, what can I do?
I can help train on it earlier.
I can make sure all the onboarding
reps are talking about that thing
or that feature or that pain.
I can help build resources on
it or create content on it.
Those are the things I can do.
Here's what I would love if you
could help with and maybe that's
a different talk track on that or
some coaching on that or something.
and at the end of the day, if it keep
like, if you start doing that, and it
keeps happening and keeps happening.
I do think at some point you have to get
comfortable crossing that fine line and
being very blunt and direct because at
the end of the day, you're impacting the
business negatively and you're impacting.
Would be successful customers negatively.
and you're always no one's perfect.
You're always going to have ones
that slip through the crack or you
could have the most detailed sales
page and the customer still shows up.
It just doesn't get it.
Or you could have the best
laid out onboarding process.
I touch on every single point and
a customer will still misuse the
product or miss can screw the value
and make things up and turn anyway.
but what are you doing and what are
your parts and how can you make it
actually feel like a partnership
internally and not just finger pointing?
I think that goes a long ways for most
people and then you're always going
to have, some tougher situations or
tougher individuals to work with,
but that's just the reality of life.
Yeah, one thing that, was done before
I even got there, but one thing that
happened at my previous company too, is
I think the, existing customer success
team was finding that there were certain
features that customers were completely
misunderstanding and they would get
in and be shocked and it was a hard
conversation for the CSMs to have.
And so what they did is
they implemented monthly.
Or maybe it was, might've
even been weekly.
Like every Tuesday morning, they did a
product training with the sales team and
it was mandatory for sales rep to attend.
It was 30 minutes.
This was back when we were in an
office and it was like laptops closed.
You were focused on this and it
was, it sounds, there were, strict
guardrails around it so that we could
have like maximum engagement from them.
but then once we were in
there, it was like open floor.
No question is stupid.
We are covering this feature today.
We're going to teach you
everything we know about it.
We're going to teach you all
of the reasons why someone's
use case might not work for it.
And the sales rep does not have
to catch all of those things.
That is not the expectation, but
I feel like it gave them more of
a feeling of they have control of.
Making sure their customers
are going to be successful too.
I think it just it's hard for them
to prioritize going that deep with
the product on a day to day basis,
unless it's carved out for them.
And yeah, I think it was really helpful.
And it's a way to again, collaborate
with your sales team in a way
that's not like pushy or Hey,
you guys are doing a bad job.
It's Hey, we want to show you and
teach you some of the things that
are happening right now and hopefully
you learn from it and hopefully it
helps you do your job better too.
And not that even you're doing a bad
job, it's that you could be doing a
better job and a better job means to you
literally more money often, like most of
the time, if you're closing more deals.
Which is, if that's usually your
driver, if you're in sales is to
close more deals and make more money.
And this is a way for you to
do that actually more quickly.
Another thing I think about in kind of
that vein, I love that by the way, the
monthly product deep dive or feature
deep dive in that too, you can also
start to identify to your earlier point,
who are some of my champions, because
they're going to be the ones that
lean into those conversations and are
really paying attention and want to be.
The other place I have found champions
is anytime there's someone newer
to an organization who is trying
to come in and do good work and
show up and here's the playbook.
Here's what works here.
one other thing I do, or I
have done in the past is.
Just keep a list of questions that
get commonly asked during onboarding.
And that's sure you can build FAQs and
all that kind of stuff, which you should
be doing and resources around that and
addressing those proactively, but also
just sharing that list of questions
with sales leaders and even individual
sales reps as a means to say, if you
touch, and I'm not, again, I'm not
saying go answer every single one of
these proactively and dive into every
single detail, but if you touch, But
if I give you a list of 10 questions,
and even if you touch on one or two of
those proactively, and I'm saying just
answer them in real time to a customer,
you could actually speed up your deals.
Because if so many people are thinking
about that post sales, they're probably
thinking about a pre sales too.
They just aren't addressing
it or bringing it up.
And if you can proactively alleviate
some of those anxieties or questions
for me, that just increases your
chance again of getting that
deal over the finish line faster.
It increases the chances of them
being a, hopefully a better fit,
having more questions answered, and
then getting to set up and using it
more quickly, whatever that thing is.
And the flip side of that is if,
again, if people keep having the same
question over and over and over again.
In between the lines, what we're saying
is you're likely not touching on that,
or you're not addressing that concern, or
it doesn't come up in your process in any
way, shape, or form, and maybe it should,
because it keeps coming up here, right?
You mentioned support and success
earlier, and part of how I try to,
limit some stress or frustrations,
because similar frustrations exist
there when a support rep has to feel
like they keep having to answer the
same question that should be covered
in onboarding something of that nature.
It's a little different, but
I've seen glimmers of that.
but even there, like I used to
sit with our service and support
leaders and ask, what are some of
your most commonly asked questions?
that's usually data you have in some
sort of ticketing or support system,
because if I can even answer some
of those proactively and onboarding.
And for me, it's easier to say to my reps
or my myself, Hey, just proactively touch
on this, that question that most people
tend to have three months down the road.
It makes their life easier.
So they feel heard and collaborated
with and partnered with.
And it makes my life actually easier
because now I don't have to necessarily
guess what to fill my time with or
just ask you more discovery questions
to get to some of your pains.
If I can say most people think about
this feature or have this question
or think about this use case,
here's the answer to it proactively.
It might increase your, none of
this is guaranteed, but it might
increase your chances that you get
it faster, you activate faster.
Even the the flip and negative side
of that is, if you're going to churn
anyway, I would rather you churn on
week one than churn on month two.
And that might be a hot take.
But if you're going to do that,
regardless, I would rather conserve my
team and my support team's energy and
all the back and forth and just address
that problem or that issue going forward.
so I would rather find
some of that early on.
Obviously, you want to avoid that.
Help people and get them set up and
going, but that's also inevitable.
And so if that is the case, let's get
that out of the way, but learn from that.
Like why was it because specific answers
were unknown or features were unknown?
Use cases were understood.
I bet for every product out there,
everyone knows the one major limitation
that people get hung up on and every
customer or a good percentage of
customers are going to say, see that
feature and actually get in there and be
like, This is not what I was expecting.
This is less powerful
than I was expecting.
It's not going to work for my use case.
And I think sales teams
avoid it, which is.
Somewhat understandable.
I think it's really easy for onboarding
teams to have a good intention
about, addressing it and like making
sure they understand it right away.
But I think sometimes that gets avoided.
And then, yeah, the support team is
left to deal with angry customers
who are like, I've made it through.
Yeah.
All of these processes and I'm just
finding out now that this core thing
that I bought this product for is not
going to work the way that I want to.
And it's yeah, it's also just like
bad for the company customer, like the
customer just went through all of that
work and change their business processes
in order to onboard to your tool.
And then they're just finding out
at the last second that it actually
is not going to work for them.
that's the worst on all accounts.
Yeah, and what's even worse, and
I've seen, I've been guilty of this
myself, and I've seen this happen
too often in onboarding world.
So I will point the finger
there and call it out too.
It's, it often, or it feels easy sometimes
when that is the case for the onboarding
rep to like side with the customer.
Cause it feels good to say,
Oh yeah, I would, I'm also
frustrated by that feature.
I wish it worked that way.
And you almost get into bashing
your own team and your product
teams and your sales teams, which
maybe feels good in that moment, but
that's not solving anything either.
Like you have to take that lesson
and go share the feedback with your
engineering teams and your product teams.
You have to share that with your manager
and your sales reps and so on, because
just like there is something to be said.
And maybe this is the.
Some of the premise of onboarding
therapy is that we get together and
vent and complain, and we have similar
frustrations and that's not all I can do.
And if I'm just doing that for every
single customer, I'm part of the problem.
I'm also not fixing anything
or helping anything.
And more and more customers are just
going to keep running into that scenario.
And the ultimate impact
isn't negative business.
Like you're going to get customers that
turn or frustrated or feel frustrated.
And so if you are going to do that.
And I do this myself, yeah, resonate,
relate with the customer, have some
empathy, understand that the feature
maybe should work a different way.
We have features and arrows where I feel
that way about at times where I'm like,
I wish I did this and I agree with you.
And I'm going to share the feedback again
. Which also sometimes feels uncomfortable
or feels like you're bothering your
product teams or your engineering teams,
or you're bothering the same sales rep
over and over again, but it's necessary.
It is how you all grow.
It is also not unique to anybody.
Like we all have the same, we
literally all have the same
challenges and the same problems.
It doesn't matter how big you
are, how small you are, how many
people are supporting your teams.
It doesn't matter if you're a five
person company with your own world,
building your CRM, or if you have.
CRM admins and engineers and
people setting things up, like
you're still going to have gaps.
You're still going to have things
that slipped through the cracks.
some of my biggest takeaways or
lessons the last couple years
have been that everyone's dealing.
What similar challenges and customers are
just customers are hard at the end of the
day and is because they all and rightfully
so should have high expectations and
they were just marketed to and they were
just sold on a vision and a value and
now it's on you to bring that's reality.
And in some of that is things like
that doesn't exactly work that way
or that and that again is all like.
That's all to what we said earlier.
That's all just good feedback.
And if you position it and package that
in a way that isn't directly finger
pointing at someone, or even if it
is, it's from the lens of this keeps
happening and the impact is customers
keep churning or customers are frustrated
or the customer response is, Oh, wow.
I really wished it were something
like that's a bad foot to start on.
And so if you can address more and
more of those pieces over time,
Again, nothing's going to be perfect.
You're going to have the one
off ones that churn, you're
going to have the bad handoffs.
You're going to have the end of the
month sale that just had to get through.
You're also going to have the onboarding
that was sped up and rushed through.
But yeah, having all that alignment
internally is so critical.
Having that feedback loop
is so valuable and critical.
and doing it all under the like,
under the understanding that it is not
actually you against me, even though
it might feel that way in the moment.
And I think it's actually good to.
Lead with that.
Like I, my last job, I remember sitting
with our sales department and talking
about how we're going to drastically
change this thing that is onboarding
here, and it's going to be different.
And you're going to have what you
were used to before of maybe sending
Kim a Slack message and saying,
Hey, can you do this right now?
Might not happen.
It might take a week.
You might get frustrated.
That might have been a value add that
you had in your control that you can't
pull anymore with a customer and the
trade off is over time, more customers
are going to get this value and more
customers are going to go through
this and more of your customers are
hopefully going to retain instead
of churn, which again, if you care.
And most sales reps do, if you care
about growth and retention and your
revenue goals, that primes those.
Accounts to keep growing and
keep sticking around and keep
spending more money and renewing.
And that's all a good look on you because
the same report where we share and say
like this rep had bad, five bad deals,
close the same exact story as this rep
had five killer deals, close, and they
are crushing it and they are growing.
And here's what they did.
And let's replicate that,
replicate some of that.
So if you're all that, if you're going
to take any of this and start sharing
feedback and build a program of any sort
size scale, share feedback, good and bad.
And in that you will inevitably
be pointing fingers at certain
people or certain individuals.
but if you're doing it enough and
you're doing it consistently, and you're
also sharing positives and negatives.
It does land well, most of the
time, most reps do find it helpful
over time, especially if you have
that kind of internal champion
you can work closely with.
But again, all of that is to foster
a better customer experience and
build an environment internally
where people actually are comfortable
sharing that and having fun, and
you're going to get frustrated.
You're going to have your days.
You're going to have all that.
That's where you need to find a buddy
to do some onboarding therapy with.
But when you come out of that,
get to work and get to actually
solving those customer pains.
One thing that I'm noticing in our
conversation is we both were at companies
that, were bought in on onboarding and
the importance of it and, trusted us
to have those conversations with sales.
And I think that's not the case for a lot
of teams out there where onboarding is.
Undervalued and probably needs
help getting more buy in from
leadership about the importance and
how they can set up new initiatives
and programs and stuff like that.
So I think that's a really good
topic to talk about for our next
onboarding therapy, because I think
there's like a step back to, how we
can share how we built that up at our
previous companies and also just like
tips from what we're seeing from our
customers on what's working to try and
get that buy in from leadership too.
Agreed, and there's probably
a lot of steps like that.
You can do before what I've done
in the past, which was just quit
a job when that was the case.
yeah, exactly.
If you take a few steps 1st, and
then jump off the ledge like I did.
yeah, no, I think that's
a great next topic.