Our Point of View
The Most Overlooked Stage of Your Brand Is the One That Decides if You’re Remembered
Most companies treat onboarding like a checklist, when it should be treated like the opening scene of your customer’s transformation story … because the brands that win the next chapter, they’re the ones who deliver on the story they sold!
We talk a lot about brand awareness. About getting on the radar, getting into the conversation, getting on the shortlist.
We talk about conversion. About landing the deal, signing the contract, making it official.
…all while we’re really hoping to be talking about retention and advocacy.
But there’s a moment between decision and advocacy that gets glossed over, if not ignored entirely.
A moment that determines whether you deliver on the brand promises you spent months and millions building.
Onboarding.
Onboarding isn’t a support process.
It’s not a cost center.
It’s not a glorified checklist.
It’s your brand’s first real chance to prove it meant everything it said.
Most Onboarding Is Built Like a Manual, Not a Memory
Most companies treat onboarding like they’re writing a technical manual:
Step 1: Confirm login
Step 2: Watch training
Step 3: Meet your CS rep
Step 4: “Let us know if you need anything.”
It’s linear. Transactional. Soulless.
Which is strange, because this is the moment your customer is most open to you, the moment they’ve been waiting for.
They’re curious. Hopeful. Excited. Nervous.
They want to feel something.
Instead, they get a drip campaign and a support doc.
The Brand Doesn’t End at the Sale. It Begins.
Your brand is not your ads.
It’s not your pitch deck.
It’s not your font, your colors, or your elevator speech.
Your brand is the experience your customer has when they choose you.
Therefore:
If your onboarding is forgettable, your brand becomes forgettable.
If your onboarding is chaotic, your brand becomes untrustworthy.
And if your onboarding is cold and mechanical, your brand becomes… just another vendor.
What If You Treated Onboarding Like the Opening Scene of a Film?
What if onboarding wasn’t a step-by-step to-do list… but the opening scene of their transformation, where their real story begins?
What if you:
Scripted it like your brand voice depended on it (because it does)?
Resourced it like it was your greatest opportunity to differentiate (because it is)?
Optimized it like your future advocacy, referrals, and upsells depended on it (because they do)?
Because here’s the thing:
You don’t win customers at the close. You win them in the first 90 days.
In the Next 18-36 Months, Onboarding Will Be a Key Differentiator
It’s already happening.
As product parity increases, marketing noise grows, and people seek out connections and community, experience is becoming the new moat.
Companies that understand onboarding as brand infrastructure will:
Reduce churn without slashing price
Create loyalty without gimmicks
Activate advocacy without having to “ask for it”
They’ll win because of how it feels to become a customer. Not in spite of it.
So, Ask Yourself:
Does our onboarding feel like us?
Are we making new customers feel smarter, more confident, and genuinely excited?
Or, are we just moving them through a system?
Because, in the story of your brand, onboarding isn’t a transition.
It’s the transformation.
A Quick Exercise
Want to evaluate your onboarding through a brand lens? Here’s a quick exercise.
Gather your leadership, CX, and marketing teams and ask:
What does our customer feel in their first 7 days with us?
What do they say to their team after their first onboarding session?
Where does the onboarding experience currently break the narrative we sold them?
Then go fix it.
Not because onboarding is broken, but because your brand story deserves to be complete.