Onboarding is your first big opportunity to reinforce a customer’s decision to choose your brand. It’s the perfect opportunity for your CX to really shine (or fail, up to you). If your welcome process is clunky, impersonal or confusing, it breeds buyer’s remorse.

Start by mapping the full onboarding experience: What happens after a customer signs up or buys? Is information clear? Are they guided through setup or left to figure it out themselves? Use surveys or customer interviews to spot gaps, and consider layering in videos, tutorials or live onboarding calls. Human touches go a long way. Personalized welcome emails or assigned support contacts can instantly make new customers feel like they’re in good hands.

Most customers don’t reach out when something’s wrong — they just leave. That’s why proactive outreach is a game-changer for retention. Build in scheduled check-ins shortly after key milestones (purchase, onboarding, product use).

These can be automated or manual, depending on the scale, but the goal is the same: show you care before there’s a problem. Use these touchpoints to ask questions, offer tips or share useful content. AI-powered sentiment analysis can also help flag at-risk accounts so your team can intervene early. A simple “How’s it going so far?” can open the door to deeper engagement and trust.