Post-Onboarding Support Systems

Stop obsessing over onboarding. That’s not where the real risk lies. We’ve spent years optimizing our onboarding, mapping workflows, implementing best practices, enabling users and conducting trainings. But something wasn’t adding up. We recently went deep into our customer data, analyzing behavior patterns tied to long-term adoption, success and ROI. Turns out, the most successful customers, they had 3 things in common and they weren’t just things we taught in onboarding. They were things they did consistently after onboarding. That’s when it hit us: The real risk isn’t in onboarding. It’s in what happens next. Because here’s what we see too often: We start with a strong cadence, weekly touchpoints, sometimes more. We’re present. We’re proactive. And then… onboarding ends. Suddenly that cadence drops ... now it's bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly. Or worse, ad hoc. We lose momentum. Change management falls apart. The behaviors that drive long-term success? They never take root. So we’re flipping the script. We’re going all-in on the first 90 days post onboarding, helping customers orchestrate change, drive adoption, and build habits that last. Here’s how you can start doing the same: ✅ Get clear on behavior-based milestones What does early success look like? Map signals that indicate your customers are on track. ✅ Double down on the 90–120 days post-onboarding Don’t pull back. Keep the momentum going with consistent engagement and value delivery. ✅ Coach customers through change management They aren’t experts in transformation, you are. Be their guide, not just their support. Because CS doesn’t end with implementation. That’s where it begins. If you want stronger retention, stop treating onboarding as the finish line. It’s just the starting block. What’s your post-onboarding strategy look like?

Why we are building the Clay for post-sales 🚀 The center of gravity for revenue in B2B is shifting towards post-sales because of AI and wider adoption of new pricing models. Growth now hinges on what happens after the verbal yes - onboarding, adoption, ongoing usage, expansion, renewal. Every org is asking a new set of questions: - Who owns expansion and renewals - CS, Sales, RevOps, Finance? - What's the best way to get the intel that lives in product usage, contracts, tickets, and customer calls? And to keep up with what's happening with our customers externally - leadership changes, layoffs, new initiatives etc? - What is the source of truth for post-sales health and revenue risk? - How do we create the best playbooks to drive adoption, usage, expansion and renewals? Our point of view at Quivly AI: Revenue begins post-sale. Build a “signal + agent” layer that sits above CRM/billing/support, unifies account context, and triggers plays automatically. Why this architecture works: 1. The decisions that move NRR happen in-product and in-workflow: – when to nudge adoption, – when to surface an upgrade, – when to escalate risk, – when to align Exec to CSM to AM on one timeline 2. Lagging dashboards create fire drills. A real-time signal layer combining both internal and external signals creates lead time What this enables: - Unified account timeline (usage, contracts, tickets, emails) all in one view - Predictive health/expansion scores trained on your history and enhanced with external signals - Auto-plays: renewal prep, expansion offers, onboarding nudges - Forecasts that tie to actions, not anecdotes - Full auditability - what went right or wrong, who owned it, how to make that repeatable If your pricing is moving toward usage/outcomes, your revenue engine lives in post-sales. Give your team the levers to drive that usage/outcome. We’re building Quivly for exactly this. If you're curious about how other teams are approaching their post-sale architecture - who owns what, and why, my DMs are open.

Great onboarding doesn’t guarantee long-term retention. 😕 But poor onboarding almost always guarantees churn. 😕 SaaStr’s latest article (link in comments) says onboarding should be CS’s top priority in the AI age. I agree. But here’s the next step too many teams skip: Onboarding is not the end of Customer Success. 🚫 Because once onboarding is complete, you’re then up against real-world challenges: 😬 🩹 Customer priorities shifting 🩹 Champions leaving 🩹 Usage stalling 🩹 Value fading That’s why post-onboarding CS isn’t just check-ins and renewals. It’s strategic work: ✅ Health scoring that surfaces risk ✅ Risk mitigation that clears a path to value ✅ Human conversations that re-focus customer energy SaaStr is right: onboarding is the human-centric foundation of customer success. But don’t stop there. Because customers don’t stay because of a strong start. They stay for sustained value. How is your CS team helping customers stay successful after onboarding? 💬