Onboarding Is the Foundation, and SaaStr Agrees
In the age of AI, onboarding is the #1 goal for your post-sale teams
TIME TO VALUE
Joseph Loria
6/11/20251 min read
One CEO thought onboarding was working. ✔️
Then we measured time to value. And some customers were taking months to get any ROI. 😖
After fixing it?
Logo churn dropped by 3x. 🔥
That’s why I lit up reading SaaStr’s recent piece: “In the age of AI, onboarding is the #1 goal for your CS team.”
Because when onboarding is slow and vague, retention is unpredictable. 🐌
When it’s fast and human-led? Retention climbs. Fast. 🚀
One of my clients had 94% gross retention.
The biggest reason? Lightning-fast onboarding tied to a critical customer process. 👈
SaaStr nailed another key point: “Customer Success has in many cases turned into a weaponized arm of sales, and has stopped being the champion of the customer.”
The way back to true Customer Success?
Human-led onboarding that drives time to value, not tasks. 👨👨👦👦
Measuring how fast your customers actually get value, and minimizing it. ⏱️
Most teams focus on onboarding activity. They track tasks completed, but not whether the customer actually got what they bought: meaningful value, fast. The fix? Define 'first value,' then make that your true onboarding milestone. Not just 'go-live.