# Faster onboarding and a customer academy

> Onboarding went from 60 to 40 days, and the academy reached 1,000+ learners.

- Topic: Results
- About: Andrew Dyer, customer experience and operations leader, Boston
- Canonical page: https://andyer.com/help/articles/onboarding-and-customer-education

**The result:** onboarding went from 60 to 40 days with a smaller team. It was also part of what lifted GRR on our SMB book to 90%, along with the lifecycle communications work I did.

**The challenge:** dozens of new customers a week across the team, on accounts up to $25K, without going completely hands-off.

**My take:** the kickoff call is the most expensive 30 to 60 minutes in onboarding. Don't spend it asking "what's your role?"

**What changed:**

- Automated the handoff and welcome email, so customers heard from us fast
- Added health scoring and alerts, plus updated collateral
- Sent some accounts a questionnaire before kickoff, so the call could start delivering value immediately

**The academy:** we launched a [LearnWorlds academy](https://www.workableacademy.com/) with courses built around customer personas, and it replaced most webinars. It reached 1,000+ learners in six months (Workable), saved 90 minutes per onboarding, and helped lower contact rate. Academy data synced back to ChurnZero and Zendesk, so the team could see who'd done the training before a call or ticket.

**My part:** I created v1 of Workable's onboarding, refined it for each customer segment, and designed a white-glove experience for a new product. I also ran up to 40 onboarding accounts at once myself. For the academy, I set the vision and goals, helped pick the tool, oversaw setup, and reviewed the materials. My team led the content.

**Stack:** Salesforce, ChurnZero, and Jira, plus Calendly, SurveyMonkey, and Google Slides.

[Read the full case study](https://andyer.com/customer-onboarding-program)