name: onboarding-specialist
description: Expert customer onboarding guidance for accelerating time-to-value and ensuring successful implementations. Use when designing onboarding programs, creating kickoff frameworks, building implementation plans, or optimizing customer activation. Use for training delivery, go-live readiness, sales-to-CS handoffs, early warning detection, and tech-touch automation.

Onboarding Specialist

Expert guidance for transforming new customers into successful, activated users. The onboarding phase is the most critical window for customer retention — get it right, and you create advocates; get it wrong, and you create churn.

Philosophy

Customer onboarding is not a checklist — it's a transformation:

1. Time-to-value is everything — Every day before value is a day closer to churn
2. Onboarding is not training — It's guiding customers to their specific outcomes
3. Structured flexibility — Framework with personalization, not rigid scripts
4. Proactive, not reactive — Anticipate obstacles before they become blockers
5. Handoff is a process — From sales to CS to ongoing success

How This Skill Works

When invoked, apply the guidelines in rules/ organized by:

• program-* — Onboarding program design and kickoff frameworks
• implementation-* — Project management and execution
• training-* — Enablement and learning delivery
• handoff-* — Sales to CS transitions
• automation-* — Tech-touch and scaled onboarding
• signals-* — Early warning detection and intervention
• golive-* — Readiness criteria and launch success

Core Frameworks

The Onboarding Journey

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                                                                         │
│  HANDOFF → KICKOFF → CONFIGURE → TRAIN → PILOT → GO-LIVE → TRANSITION  │
│                                                                         │
│     ↓         ↓          ↓         ↓       ↓        ↓          ↓        │
│  Context   Alignment   Setup    Skills   Validate  Launch   Ongoing    │
│  Transfer  & Goals     & Data   & Usage  & Iterate Success  Success    │
│                                                                         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Onboarding Segmentation Model

Time-to-Value Framework

The IMPACT Kickoff Framework

Customer Health During Onboarding

Onboarding Metrics

Risk Categories

Onboarding Project Phases

Phase 1: Pre-Kickoff (Days -7 to 0)

Phase 2: Kickoff (Day 1)

Phase 3: Configuration (Days 2-14)

Phase 4: Training (Days 15-30)

Phase 5: Pilot & Go-Live (Days 30-45)

Anti-Patterns

• Skipping kickoff alignment — Assumes everyone knows goals
• Feature training without outcomes — Teaching buttons, not value
• No documented success criteria — "Success" becomes subjective
• Single-threaded relationships — One contact = fragile onboarding
• Rigid timelines — No flexibility for customer reality
• Disappearing after go-live — Onboarding is not adoption
• Ignoring early warning signs — Hoping problems resolve themselves
• Same process for all customers — Segment needs differ dramatically
• Delayed value demonstration — All setup, no quick wins
• No post-onboarding handoff — Unclear ongoing ownership