The Client Onboarding Problem Agencies Keep Ignoring

Agencies obsess over winning new business. They underinvest in making sure those clients actually succeed.

Taylor Thomson sees this pattern constantly. Sales teams close deals with compelling pitches about strategic partnership and long-term value creation. Then onboarding happens—or rather, doesn’t happen properly. Clients get handed off to account teams with minimal context. Expectations set during sales don’t match operational reality. The relationship starts with confusion rather than confidence.

“We’re not a tech company, but we still have to bring people into the ecosystem and get into their platforms and introduce ourselves to them as their new strategic thought leader partner,” explains Thomson, who leads revenue operations at WITHIN. “We’re not just in there pressing buttons, we’re not just in there moving levers on Facebook or Google or display.” His operational framework emphasizes the strategic importance of first impressions with new clients.

Establishing that positioning requires intentional onboarding. Yet most agencies treat it as administrative process rather than strategic opportunity. You send welcome emails, schedule kickoff calls, and dive into execution. The problem is that clients haven’t internalized why they chose your agency yet. They’re still in evaluation mode, wondering if they made the right decision.

Thomson’s current focus includes redesigning WITHIN’s onboarding workflows to address this disconnect. The goal is building trust and establishing strategic credibility during the first 30-60 days, not just collecting login credentials and starting campaigns. Taylor Thomson’s work at the Denver agency demonstrates how revenue operations leaders must own transitions between functional teams.

This matters more for agencies positioning themselves as strategic partners rather than execution vendors. If you’re selling commodity services—media buying, basic creative production—clients don’t need much onboarding. They know what they’re buying. But if you’re selling “performance branding” or “integrated growth strategy” or any other consulting-adjacent positioning, clients need help understanding what that actually means in practice.

Poor onboarding creates problems that compound over time. Clients who don’t understand your strategic approach treat you like execution vendors. They make requests that don’t align with your methodology. They question recommendations because they haven’t internalized your perspective. Account teams spend energy managing these disconnects instead of driving results.

The economics are backwards: agencies spend heavily on acquiring clients but underinvest in ensuring those clients become successful. Better screening during sales and stronger onboarding would improve lifetime value more than most new business tactics. Thomson has discussed this challenge extensively when explaining how finance leaders can better support client success initiatives.

Yet most agencies still optimize for closing deals rather than ensuring good fits. Sales comp plans reward signatures, not retention. Marketing focuses on top-of-funnel generation, not client success content. And onboarding remains an afterthought.

Thomson’s solution involves revenue operations leaders taking ownership of the transition from sale to active engagement. It’s not purely sales’ job or client success’ job—it’s a cross-functional process that requires operational infrastructure most agencies haven’t built. His documented approach to revenue operations provides a framework for how these transitions should work.

For agencies wondering why client retention is declining, start by examining what actually happens in the first 90 days after signing. That’s where most retention problems begin. Taylor Thomson’s experience building these systems at WITHIN offers lessons for agencies serious about improving client relationships beyond the initial sale.