Onboarding
Onboarding is the governed transition from signed contract to realised value, with defined entry conditions, milestones and an exit criterion.
The most consequential part of onboarding happens before it starts: the handoff from sales. What was promised, what was assumed, which stakeholders were involved and what success was said to look like all have to arrive as structured data. When they arrive as a call recording and a hopeful summary, onboarding begins by rediscovering the deal.
Onboarding needs a definition of done that is a customer state rather than a task list. "All configuration complete" is a checklist. "The customer has run the workflow they bought this for, unaided" is an outcome, and only the second predicts anything about renewal.
Where it breaks
Onboarding exits when the implementation tasks are ticked, and the account is handed to a CSM who inherits an unused deployment.
Related terms
- Time to value
- Time to value is the elapsed time from contract signature to the customer’s first realised outcome, measured against a defined outcome, not against go-live.
- Entitlement
- An entitlement is a specific right a customer has purchased, seats, usage volume, feature access, service level, expressed structurally rather than in contract prose.
- Customer health score
- A health score is a predictive model of renewal likelihood built from observed signals, and it is only a model if it has been validated against actual renewal outcomes.
- Quote to cash (QTC)
- Quote to cash is the end-to-end chain from configured quote through contract, order, invoice and collection, and the point where sales structure meets financial truth.
Field notes on this
- Read NRR with GRR
NRR can combine base retention with concentrated expansion. Pair it with GRR and a cohort bridge, then investigate the causes separately.