Uncovering Hidden B2B Customer Onboarding Challenges: Key Insights to Boost Retention
Struggling with onboarding? Discover the hidden challenges slowing down your B2B customer onboarding process, like delayed Time to Value and poor product adoption. Learn how to solve these pain points and boost retention with a strategic, customer-focused approach.
Joseph Loria
10/1/20247 min read
Onboarding isn’t just a checkbox; it’s the foundation of your entire B2B customer journey.
Get it wrong, and you’re setting yourself up for churn risks.
Get it right, and you’ve laid the groundwork for long-term customer retention, growth, and maximum customer lifetime value.
Yet, even the most well-intentioned onboarding processes often miss the hidden hurdles that can delay Time to Value (TTV) or prevent full product adoption.
A surprising 23% of B2B companies cite poor product adoption during onboarding as a leading cause of churn. When customers don’t see value quickly, their enthusiasm fades, and they begin to question their investment.
In this article, we’ll explore the often-overlooked challenges in onboarding and how you can turn these into opportunities to enhance customer success and Net Revenue Retention (NRR).
Aligning Your Product with Customer Expectations from Day One
Customers come into the onboarding process with expectations—often shaped by your sales team and marketing materials. Meeting those expectations isn’t enough; you need to exceed them from the very beginning.
Misaligned expectations can lead to disappointment, even if your product delivers the promised results.
The Importance of Understanding Expectations Early
One of the first questions I ask companies is: Are customer expectations clearly defined and aligned with our onboarding process? Without this alignment, the customer might feel that they aren’t getting what they expected—even if the product is technically doing its job.
This is especially true if expectations weren’t clearly communicated during the sales process.
Ensuring that your onboarding process matches customer expectations from day one not only increases satisfaction but also helps prevent customer churn down the road.
Using Customer Health Scores to Stay on Track
One of the most effective ways to track whether you’re meeting expectations is through customer health scores.
These scores give you a snapshot of how well your customers are engaging with your product and whether they’re on track to reach their goals. If the health score drops during onboarding, it’s a signal that the process needs to be adjusted.
Proactive health checks keep you ahead of potential issues and ensure that your onboarding stays aligned with customer expectations.
The Importance of Time to Value in Customer Onboarding
Time to Value is a crucial metric for any onboarding process. If you’re not delivering value fast enough, you risk customers disengaging before they ever see what your product can do.
Today, customers expect to see value from your product quickly. The longer it takes for them to experience real benefits, the higher the risk of disengagement and churn.
Why Slow TTV Impacts Customer Satisfaction and Growth
When TTV is delayed, customers start wondering if your product was the right choice. They’ve spent money, time, and energy integrating your solution into their workflow, and if the value doesn’t show up soon, that doubt creeps in.
It’s not just about getting the customer onboarded—it’s about giving them that “aha” moment quickly, where they see how your product can truly deliver measurable business impact.
Whether it’s cutting costs, boosting productivity, or unlocking new efficiencies, value must be tied directly to the metrics that matter to your customer. This makes it essential to first understand what they consider valuable, and then track and report on those specific results.
Without clear alignment on these goals, even the most functional product can feel underwhelming.
Ask yourself: Is TTV consistently tracked?
If not, you’re flying blind. You might be onboarding customers, but if you’re not measuring how long it takes them to achieve their first success, you could be missing out on valuable data that can help you refine your B2B onboarding process.
For example, a SaaS client I recently worked with identified the first value as the time when a customer first used the platform. However, there’s no explicit value in mere usage.
Instead, the focus should be on what measurable business outcome results from that usage. By understanding and tracking the business impact, you can better align your onboarding process with real customer success.
TTV isn’t just a measure of time—it’s a measure of how well your team aligns with your customer’s goals and how quickly you can deliver on your promises.
Hidden Barriers to Faster TTV
The problem with slow TTV often lies in the onboarding process itself. Here are the three most common culprits:
Unclear customer goals: If your customer doesn’t have a clear vision of what success looks like with your product, they’ll wander through onboarding without a clear sense of progress.
Internal misalignment: If your Sales, Product, and Customer Success teams aren’t aligned on what the customer needs to achieve in the first 30, 60, or 90 days, that’s a recipe for delays.
Overcomplicated onboarding: Some companies overcomplicate onboarding by packing in too many steps before the customer can experience any real value. This can overwhelm and frustrate new users. Instead, focus on getting them to that first moment of value as quickly as possible, and build upon it from there.
Improving TTV with Alignment and Tracking
To accelerate TTV, you need to streamline your process. Start by asking: Are the most critical use cases identified?
Early on, customers don’t need every feature—they need the features that solve their immediate pain points. When you focus on these first, you shorten TTV dramatically.
Set clear milestones for the customer and track them closely. One strategy I’ve used with clients is to treat onboarding as its own function—not just a stage in the customer journey but something that’s reported on and optimized.
Regular check-ins on TTV metrics help your team identify bottlenecks and keep the process moving forward.
The Consequences of Inconsistent Product Adoption
Product adoption is a game changer when it comes to customer retention. If customers don’t adopt your product’s core features early on, you’ve missed your chance to build loyalty.
Adoption isn’t just about getting customers to use your product; it’s about getting them to see value and stick with it.
Identifying Key Use Cases During Onboarding
Here’s a fundamental question to ask: Are your key product use cases clearly identified and prioritized during onboarding?
Early adoption isn’t about giving the customer everything at once—it’s about giving them what they need most, right now.
I’ve seen companies overwhelm new customers by trying to introduce too many features too soon. The result? Customers get lost, disengage, and never truly experience the core value of the product.
Instead, narrow the focus during onboarding. Identify the critical use cases that align with the customer’s immediate needs. These are the features that solve their biggest problems and offer the quickest path to value.
Why Low Adoption Impacts NRR
When customers fail to adopt the most critical features, their satisfaction drops, and so does your Net Revenue Retention (NRR).
The link between early adoption and long-term growth is undeniable. If a customer doesn’t engage with your product’s key features early on, they’re unlikely to renew or expand their usage.
Monitor adoption metrics from the start, and be ready to course-correct if customers are falling behind. These metrics give you a real-time view of how well your onboarding process is working—and more importantly, whether your customers are truly engaging with the product.
The Role of Handoffs: Preventing Disconnects in the Customer Journey
The handoff from onboarding to Customer Success (CS) is a critical moment in the customer journey. If it’s not done properly, you risk leaving the customer feeling abandoned or confused.
That disconnect can create a lasting negative impression, even if the product itself is performing well.
The Onboarding-to-CS Handoff: Where Things Go Wrong
One of the most common onboarding mistakes I see is the lack of a clear endpoint and a smooth transition.
Does your onboarding process have a defined end, with a structured handoff to the next team? If not, your customer might feel like they’ve fallen through the cracks.
The transition to CS should be seamless. CS teams should have all the relevant information from the onboarding process—what’s been accomplished, what’s still pending, and what the customer’s next steps should be.
If CS is playing catch-up or lacks context, it damages the overall experience.
How Poor Communication Can Undermine Account Health
Poor communication during handoffs is more than just an annoyance; it can derail account health. Customers expect continuity, and if they have to repeat themselves or re-explain their goals to a new team, their trust in your company starts to erode. It’s essential that your CS team is fully briefed and aligned with the customer’s journey so far.
One way to avoid this is by setting clear handoff procedures. Make sure that the CS team has all the information they need before they engage with the customer, including progress notes and future action plans. This ensures a smooth transition and sets the customer up for long-term success.
How CX Consulting Can Address Hidden Onboarding Challenges
For many companies, improving onboarding processes requires outside expertise. That’s where CX consulting solutions come in.
A CX consultancy can help uncover the hidden challenges in your onboarding process—whether that’s delayed Time to Value, low product adoption, or poor handoffs.
The Value of a CX Framework
A structured CX framework is essential for improving your onboarding process. Consultants bring an objective perspective, helping teams focus on the right metrics and optimize for the customer’s experience.
For example, one key question consultants help answer is: Are onboarding obstacles known, and do we have a clear plan to mitigate them?
By using a CX framework, companies can reduce friction, improve Net Revenue Retention (NRR), and boost overall customer retention.
Conclusion: Unlocking the Potential of Your Onboarding Process
Onboarding is where your customer relationship truly begins, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. Yet, hidden challenges like slow Time to Value, poor product adoption, and fragmented handoffs can quickly derail your best intentions and lead to unnecessary churn. These obstacles are often invisible until they become real problems, but they don't have to be.
By leveraging the right CX consulting partner and utilizing a structured CX framework, you can transform your onboarding from a potential pain point into a streamlined process that accelerates adoption, improves customer satisfaction, and drives Net Revenue Retention (NRR).
Ready to uncover the hidden challenges in your onboarding process?