Trying to determine how to staff for onboarding.

Our platform is fairly technical and when we first started off with a CSM solution years back, our CSMs were also onboarding our new clients. I do not recommend this. Our current team consists of Technical Account Managers and Client Success Managers working together to onboard clients with the CSM taking the lead with strategy, weekly calls, project organization, etc, while the TAM is responsible for ensuring a smooth technical onboarding. It really depends on your business, but having the separate roles works really well for us. We sourced internally at first, and eventually hired externally to build out quite the team over the years. Additionally, my role changed from client facing (CSM) to a CS Operations role where I now spend a majority of my time in Gainsight Admin mode configuring our CSM solution to make the life of a CSM so much easier. Just something to consider down the line as well. 

I deleted my original response as I just realized you were referring to onboarding Gainsight. 🙂 We did not dedicate proper resources in the beginning and it lead to a longer, drawn out process with little adoption by the CSM team. I'd recommend dedicating someone internally full time (or close to full time) because they know your business and therefore will be more inline with your CSM goals and will also be familiar with any other systems you may be integrating with. 

Ah, your original response makes more sense now :)  Thanks for the follow-up and the feedback.

Agree with Jamie. We initially rolled out Gainsight with an existing CSM handling both accounts and the set-up of Gainsight. Things did not 'take-off' until someone was able to dedicate time to analyzing all the features and functions of Gainsight and prioritizing which ones to implement first so that the CSM's using the tool would become engaged and realize the value. 

Thanks for the feedback.  What was the background/skillset of the individual you ended up putting into the position?

Great conversation, and happy to see members sharing their experiences! We also have an introductory article on the admin role that includes a description of the job that might be helpful. https://support.gainsight.com/Getting...

If possible, I'd recommend having an internal resource focused solely on the integration.  They should be someone that is already aware of the inner-workings of your organization (ideally your SFDC/CRM admin) and is comfortable reaching out to various teams for information and project management.  They should also have the backing of an executive sponsor since there will likely be issues that require their intervention/support.  These include development of new processes, changing of current ones, and authorization to prioritize the project's tasks over other initiatives.

An external hire sounds like a good option as well, but I imagine ramping them up on internal processes/workflows would require some time.