So we’ve been proponents of customer success at SaaStr since the earliest days, since our first SaaStr posts in 2012. The magic of high NRR and a strong CS team was something we were preaching and doing deep dives on since well before it was well understood.
Especially the power of it leading to second order revenue, from upgrades to referrals to word of mouth and more:
But the past few years, since the 2022 slowdown, we’ve grown concerned. Customer Success has in many cases turned into a weaponized arm of sales, and has stopped being the champion of the customer. Most of our own CS experiences at SaaStr and QBRs have been terrible the past 24 months or so. Just disguised upsells, with no one on the call to actually help us:
But AI is changing everything. It changed support first, and now its starting to change sales and customer success. And it will make things better.
But one area where humans can bridge a lot of gaps on is onboarding and time to value. Especially as AI takes over more and more of the sales process.
No matter what else AI takes over, humans can always be the gap fillers here. So for me, today, now in the age of AI, onboarding is the #1 goal for your CS team because it’s the foundation of everything else in Customer Success. I
f onboarding is broken, it creates a ripple effect—customers don’t adopt the product fully, they don’t see value quickly, and they’re far more likely to churn. It’s like trying to build a house on a shaky foundation. You can’t fix churn or improve NRR if customers never get properly onboarded in the first place.
Here’s why onboarding is so critical. Especially in the Age of AI:
1. Time-to-Value Drives Retention
The faster you can deliver value to a customer, the more likely they are to stick around. Companies like Motive condensed their time-to-value by breaking out onboarding from the broader CS function, and it helped them scale from $1M to $60M in ARR in just six months. That’s the power of great onboarding—it frees up your CSMs to focus on long-term success while ensuring customers get value immediately.
2. Most Churn Happens Early
The first 90 days are where most churn happens. Customers are excited when they sign the contract, but if you don’t deliver on the promise quickly, they’ll disengage. David Skok has talked about this extensively—if onboarding fails, it’s almost impossible to get customers to re-engage later. You lose them before they even get started.
3. Onboarding Creates Champions
When you nail onboarding, you’re not just reducing churn—you’re creating champions within your customers’ organizations. These champions are the ones who will advocate for your product internally, drive expansion opportunities, and refer new customers. It’s the first step in building long-term relationships and driving internal virality.
4. It’s a Scalable Motion
Onboarding is a repeatable, scalable process. Once you get it right, you can handle more customers without overwhelming your team. By separating onboarding from the broader CS function, you create capacity for your CSMs to focus on strategic initiatives like upsells and renewals. This is especially important as you grow and your customer base expands.
That said, onboarding isn’t the *only* priority for your CS team of course —it’s just the first one. Once onboarding is solid, they should shift focus to mapping your existing customer base, identifying at-risk accounts, and driving upsell opportunities. But without a strong onboarding process, you’re just putting out fires instead of building a sustainable growth engine.
Too many don’t do this well. Too many see 10%, 20% or more of their customers not onboard promptly after buying.
AI is going to dive expectations up, not down, here. If I can buy instantly with an AI sales rep, why can’t I deploy instantly? Customers will expect it. But especially where there is business process change, we’ll still need humans to help make that business process change happen. And happen as effortlessly as possible.
Put your humans there.
