Onboarding a new CSM (team leads)

So you've got a new CSM joining your team! This page is for team leads - the joiner-facing plan is new starter onboarding. Here's what to prepare and when:

1. Before they join - prepare their book, book the 1:1s, plan the in-person week
2. First week - welcome 1:1, get the team sharing calls and tips
3. In-person week (usually week 2) - 3-4 days working together, agenda template below
4. First month - any spillover from in-person onboarding

Before they join

Prepare their book of business:

• Accounts come from a few places (listed by priority): CSMs can offload accounts if they're overloaded, product-led sales and new business sales can have accounts waiting for a CSM handover, and Simon frequently pulls net-new accounts - ask all groups to see what needs coverage.
• Tee up ~20 accounts so they're not at capacity immediately - it also leaves room for late handovers.
• Follow the capacity model, and bonus points if accounts can line up with their previous experience.

Book the 1:1s: Welcome 1:1 on day 1, a recurring 1:1, and (optionally) an extended 1:1 every 4 weeks.

Find an onboarding buddy: Another CSM (same geography) to schedule a 1:1 and provide additional support if they need it. Plan the in-person onboarding: Usually week 2 - the agenda below is what we've been running. Logistics that help:

• Ask the wider team to see if they're free to drop by for a day or two
• Put sessions in your own calendar so you’ve got time blocked for onboarding
• Post in the local city channel about the onboarding and organize a dinner with local PostHog humans

First week

Welcome 1:1:

• Walk through their onboarding plan - week 1 is a lot of reading, watching and shadowing. It'll feel unproductive!
• How we work - sprint planning, account review, ask in public by default.
• Our feedback culture, and give them their SuperDay feedback.
• How you want to use 1:1 time. Management at PostHog is relatively light-touch - worth resetting expectations upfront, especially if the new CSM is used to heavier structure.
• Additional things if there’s time:
• Share your readme.
• Ask them to post their first five customer calls in the team channel for feedback - gets them used to sharing in public early.
• Ask how they like to receive feedback (and praise!)

<summary>Example welcome 1:1 agenda - to copy into your 1:1 doc</summary>

1:1s
- Let's use this doc as our shared agenda for 1:1s and other chats - you set the agenda
- In the 2nd or 3rd 1:1, bring: an email or outreach message you sent to a customer, a call with a customer, and questions you need my help on
- Share your first 5 calls in the team channel
Onboarding
- Here's your [plan](https://posthog.com/handbook/cs-and-onboarding/new-hire-onboarding) for the next few weeks (emphasise!)
- Week 1 is a lot of reading! watching! shadowing! - probably not a lot of doing, which will feel weird. the aim is to load up on context so you're ready to go in onboarding week.
  - Share calls to watch - a few recent good ones, ask the team for picks
  - Suggested reading:
    - PostHog - the company:
      - Why: [why does PostHog exist](https://posthog.com/handbook/why-does-posthog-exist), [where are we going](https://posthog.com/handbook/future)
      - What: [who we build for](https://posthog.com/handbook/who-we-build-for), [how we make money](https://posthog.com/handbook/how-we-make-money)
      - How: [what we value](https://posthog.com/handbook/values), [a wide company](https://posthog.com/handbook/wide-company) with [small teams](https://posthog.com/handbook/company/small-teams)
    - GTM / Customer Success:
      - [GTM overview](https://posthog.com/handbook/growth/sales/overview)
      - [CS overview](https://posthog.com/handbook/cs-and-onboarding/customer-success) + have a skim of the follow-on links
      - [Use case selling](https://posthog.com/handbook/growth/use-case-selling/use-case-selling)
      - [CSM + TAM](https://posthog.com/handbook/growth/sales/account-allocation)
      - [Contract rules](https://posthog.com/handbook/growth/sales/contract-rules)
- Work through your onboarding plan - make sure to prioritize Drata
- Practice your demo
- The plan for onboarding week
How we work
- Sprint planning issue on GitHub
- By default ask questions in #team-customer-success unless it needs to be private
Questions from me
- What's your GitHub handle so I can add you to the sprint template?
- What do I need to know about you to help you do your best work?

Ask the team to share things! And for calls the new CSM can shadow on.

Optionally, a check-in 1:1 on day 3. The first week is a lot of solo reading - a midweek touchpoint helps. Also check to see if the onboarding buddy has scheduled a 1:1 as well!

In-person week (usually week 2)

In-person onboarding covers the company-wide process. Below is how we run the CSM week over 3-4 days - there's a 4-day agenda template to start from, which we copy into a canvas in their onboarding channel. It's a living template - add what you learn from each onboarding. 3 days can feel tight with a lot of information, but it's enough to cover all the content!

By the end of the week they should:

• Know how to use the data we have to tell whether a customer is getting value from PostHog, prioritize their book, and plan next steps
• Know where to find answers and how to verify them
• Have their own Vitally / Customer Analytics views set up, and a first outreach drafted - maybe even sent!

Sessions tend to work best as observe, do, review - you do it once, they try it on their own, and you give feedback.

Topics to cover

Context (day 1)

• CSM overview - who we cover, why we exist, how comp works, the CSM + TAM overlay
• How we work - sprint planning, account review, the quarterly goal
• Tools & access check
• Agent setup - MCPs, a PostHog repo clone, impersonation, and a list of GTM skills from the skills store
• Finding info - where to look (handbook vs repo vs Slack), maybe even a working exercise (e.g. "what is the Teams plan?")

Understanding a customer's usage (day 2)

• What is the customer using PostHog for? The products they pay for, the events they capture, what they do with the data
• How's the relationship? The active users and what they're doing (candidates for outreach), recent tickets and calls, which PostHog humans they've talked to (AE, onboarding, TAM, CSM)
• Are they set up well and getting value? Run the basic implementation review and health check
• Commercials:
• Monthly usage - forecasted MRR, billing limits, platform add-ons
• The contract, if they're on one - how much credit they bought, when they renew, are they on track? Talk through contract rules and the tools we use (QuoteHog, PandaDoc, Salesforce)

Prioritizing across the book + deciding next steps (days 3-4)

• Prioritizing a book - the signals we look at and which ones are more worrisome, both when a book is first assigned and on an ongoing basis. Have them set up their own Customer Analytics views
• Deciding next steps - by now they should have a read on where each account's at (or know how to find out). Use next steps that haven't come up yet as chances to talk them through - e.g. a new Slack channel (invite you + support-hog), an upcoming renewal (how renewals work)

Throughout the week

• Demo practice with feedback (the more team members attending, the better)
• No stupid questions sessions
• Their feedback on the week at the end

Optional

• PostHog fundamentals - a walkthrough, depending on their familiarity with the product
• Working with support - how tickets flow, handling customer issues
• Quarterly goal brainstorm - useful when they join near the start of a quarter
• Billing mechanics - billing-limit grace periods and trust scores, giving credits, chasing overdue invoices, the spike detector
• Vitally mechanics - playbook indicators, renewal alerts

First month

From here it's much less structured - what to cover and when is your call. Use the 1:1s to go through anything you couldn't fit into the onboarding week, and be okay with repeating things that were covered - onboarding is a lot to take in.

• Ask for feedback on the onboarding week, especially on the content covered, so we can keep improving it
• Optional: a book walkthrough around week 3-4 - they walk you through their read of their book
• Optional: another practice demo, async