Before day one — the handoff requirements
Delivery should be able to reject a handoff that is missing any of these, with a reason. That single rule prevents most onboarding delay.
- Scope and deliverables exactly as sold, in writing, attached to the record.
- Anything promised verbally during the sale, captured explicitly.
- Named customer sponsor and day-to-day contact, with roles and contact details.
- Access, data and dependencies listed, each with a named owner on the customer side.
- Commercial terms relevant to delivery: start date, duration, agreed volumes.
- Known risks or constraints the sales owner is aware of.
The milestone spine
| Milestone | Owner | Target | Exit condition | On slip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kickoff held | Delivery owner | Day 3 | Scope, contacts and success measure confirmed in writing | Escalate to the sales owner who sold it |
| Access and data ready | Customer sponsor with delivery support | Day 7 | Everything needed to deliver is in place and verified | Named blocker raised with the sponsor |
| First delivery | Delivery owner | Day 14 | Customer has received the first real output | Delivery lead reviews capacity and sequence |
| Customer-run success | Delivery owner | Day 30 | Customer performs the core task unaided | Health rating drops; account review triggered |
| Steady-state handover | Account owner | Day 45 | Ownership, cadence and open items transferred explicitly | Handover blocked until open items are assigned |
Per-milestone working checklist
- Milestone exists as a dated task or stage on the customer record, not in a private document.
- One named owner, not a team.
- Exit condition is verifiable by someone who was not in the meeting.
- Slip action names a person with the authority to act.
- Customer-side dependencies have customer-side owners and dates.
Handover document
- Delivered
- What was actually delivered against what was sold, with any variance noted.
- Open items
- Everything unfinished, each with an owner and a date. An empty list is the goal, not a formality.
- Ownership
- Who owns the relationship now, and who the customer contacts for what.
- Cadence
- The ongoing rhythm: reviews, reporting and checkpoints, with the first date already booked.
- Risk notes
- Anything the steady-state owner should watch, in plain language.
Related work
Design the process with the customer onboarding playbook; the failure it prevents is every customer gets a different onboarding.
Muhammad Sameed Abid
Muhammad Sameed Abid is a business operations, automation and growth systems professional with 9+ years across operations management, workflow and CRM automation, marketing operations and customer success. He is currently Head of Customer Success at GHA Marketing and writes here about the operating layer underneath growth.