01
Client context
New customers signed quickly, but many took months to go live, and early-life churn was rising.
02
Business challenge
Onboarding was owned by several teams, and nobody had a complete view of the customer experience from contract to first value.
03
Research objective & questions
Identify the moments of truth in onboarding and adoption, and prioritise improvements that shorten time-to-value.
- What does a customer need to experience to reach first value?
- Where do implementations stall, and why?
- How does the experience differ for finance admins, approvers and executives?
- Which moments create advocates or detractors?
04
Methodology & approach
- Customer IDIs
- Finance controllers, admins and approvers at recently onboarded customers.
- Diary follow-ups
- Short check-ins with new customers during their first weeks.
- Customer success interviews
- Internal perspective on common blockers.
- Journey mapping workshop
- Cross-functional session to agree priorities.
05
Sample & geography
- ~22 customer IDIs
- ~10 diary participants
- ~6 internal interviews
- Geography — India and Southeast Asia
06
Key findings
- The longest delays came from data migration and integration with existing accounting systems.
- Customers who achieved one visible quick win in the first weeks adopted far more fully.
- Approvers received little guidance and became a hidden bottleneck.
- Handoffs between sales and implementation caused repeated questions.
07
Business implications
- Introduce a guided quick-win milestone in the first weeks.
- Offer pre-built integration templates for common accounting systems.
- Create approver-specific onboarding content and a single handoff document.
08
Outcome
The client gained an end-to-end onboarding journey map and a prioritised plan to reduce time-to-value and early-life churn.
Example engagement — Shows how Hoog approaches this type of question. Not a specific client project. Findings are directional.