Sales-to-success handoff
Transfer outcomes, commitments, and delivery risks without making the customer repeat discovery.
Use after an agreement and before kickoff, especially when delivery has dependencies or nonstandard promises.
Before the working session
- Read the signed agreement and approved scope. Keep a link to the source of truth rather than copying sensitive terms into a broad document.
- Have the account owner identify promises, objections, stakeholder changes, and assumptions that were never resolved.
Run the process
Reconcile the promise
Compare the signed scope, proposal, and meeting record. Flag conflicting timelines or capabilities for resolution before presenting a kickoff plan.
Design the first value milestone
Define an observable customer result, required access or data, customer owner, vendor owner, and target date. Separate setup activity from realized value.
Register delivery risk
For each integration, security, process, or staffing dependency, record likelihood, impact, owner, next action, and escalation date.
Hold a three-way transfer
Sales, success, and the customer confirm outcomes, open decisions, and next meeting. The receiving owner explicitly accepts or corrects the plan.
Fictional example: A customer expects a two-week dashboard launch, but access approval normally takes three weeks. Before kickoff, the team confirms the signed scope, assigns the access request to a customer administrator, and revises the first-value milestone together.
Failure checks
- A CRM field saying “urgent” is not a delivery plan.
- Kickoff should not be the first time success learns about a custom promise.
- Do not paste customer records into public templates.
Working worksheet
CUSTOMER HANDOFF / ACCEPTANCE Source-of-truth links and access owner: Purchased scope / exclusions / open interpretation: Desired outcome and how the customer will recognize it: First value milestone / owner / target date: Customer sponsor / working owner / technical owner: Vendor account / delivery / support owners: Dependency | evidence needed | owner | due date: Promise or objection needing resolution: Risk | impact | action | escalation date: Customer-confirmed kickoff agenda and receiving-owner acceptance: