Anonymized real-world systems overhaul
The company was growing. The systems underneath it weren't.
Leadership saw churn. Rooted Rocket found six departments, seven operating views and disconnected systems producing different versions of reality.
- Growing B2B software company
- Four connected products
- Six departments
The situation
No one team caused it.
A four-product company outgrew its operating system.
The connected finding
Manual handoffs, duplicated data and weak signals crossed the company. Customer Service and Implementation shared a director but owned different lifecycle stages.
Function explorer
Choose a function. See the belief, finding, change and result.
Customer Service was failing after the sale.
Failed onboarding cost Sales commission and triggered early-churn clawbacks.
Sales operated part of onboarding.
Reps invoiced, duplicated data, booked meetings, built accounts and transferred context.
Acquisition became measurable.
Clean data, verified activity, targeting, funnel standards and coaching rebuilt Sales.
New customers and net-new ARR then grew roughly 20% to 30%+ month over month.
Post-sale work: about 60 minutes fell to about 10.
Outbound capacity: the team-wide average rose from about 50 to about 120 targeted calls per day.
Forecast: about ±30% improved to about ±3% and held for at least 18 months.
Customers would largely onboard themselves.
Arrows and Teachable did not solve low completion.
Ownership disappeared between tools.
Sales assigned staff, booked meetings and built accounts. One missed meeting could stall activation and billing.
Implementation owned activation.
Round-robin capacity, onboarding blocks, reused data, setup ownership and follow-up replaced manual handoffs.
About 10 meaningful software interactions after training defined onboarding.
Billing: first monthly payment moved to two weeks after signup.
Organization: Implementation and Customer Service shared one director; some employees worked across both.
Sales caused the customer problem.
Sales overpromised, sold poor-fit customers and ignored capacity.
The relationship was not managed.
Calls, emails and missed meetings lacked standards. Activity varied and proactive contact was rare.
Service gained accountability.
KPIs, contact expectations, data-informed call windows, check-ins and expansion signals created lifecycle ownership.
Retention and employee turnover improved.
Expansion: education, check-ins, NPS and behavior signals made Sales outreach relevant.
NPS attribution: Rooted Rocket identified the need, recommended it and designed how it fit the wider system. The company's Development department built and deployed the survey.
The books tied, but the future was unclear.
The problem started upstream.
Subjective billing, unclear status and weak payment follow-up limited reporting.
Status connected to financial truth.
Stripe, HubSpot, QuickBooks Online and customer workflows shared payment rules.
QBO anchored company reporting.
Requests arrived as pressure.
A costly self-service channel underperformed.
Evidence was unstructured.
Gong held repeated requests while high-intent purchase abandonment went cold.
Evidence reached its owners.
Development retained roadmap control while Sales recovered purchase intent.
Campaign activity was the measure.
Marketing and Sales planned separately.
Education was a lifecycle input.
Engagement could support retention and expansion timing.
Activity created owned action.
MQL accountability and product-interest signals linked Marketing, Customer Service and Sales.
Engagement created targeted expansion signals.
Department reports described health.
Growth masked operating weakness.
Teams held different realities.
Customer, payment, forecast and handoff definitions conflicted.
Leadership gained exceptions.
Drill-down, recaps, alerts and department KPIs connected to QBO-backed truth.
Custom reporting no longer required extensive reconciliation.
Connected system map
Pick a state. Pick a function. Follow the connections.
Before: department islands, manual handoffs and conflicting definitions.
Visible symptomCHURNOne number, many causes
01 / SALES / BEFORE
Sales carried the handoff by hand.
Each sale triggered about an hour of invoicing, duplicate CRM entry, scheduling, account setup and verbal transfer.
Why this mattered
Less selling time, unclear acceptance and a customer experience that could fail between teams.
Customer lifecycle
- Marketing / Sales
- Sale
- Implementation
- Activation
- Customer Service
- Retention / relationship
- Expansion signal
- Sales
Finance, Executive and Development received connected financial, performance and customer evidence.
Read the connected map as text
Before: manual handoffs, weak signals and conflicting definitions.
Rooted Rocket: mapped work, defined ownership, rebuilt workflows and set KPIs.
After: lifecycle handoffs fed financial, product and executive evidence.
Causal proof
Small workflow failures became company outcomes.
Chain A
Missed welcome meeting
- Customer misses meeting
- One email
- Onboarding stalls
- Billing waits
- Finance uncertainty
- Churn
- Customer misses meeting
- Defined follow-up
- Assigned Implementation activity
- Dashboard exception
- Measured activation
- Customer Service intervention
- Predictable billing
Chain B
Customer expansion
- No ongoing relationship
- Years pass
- Sales asks for another purchase
- Customer needs support
- Upsell fails
- Customer Service relationship
- Education and NPS
- Behavior signal
- Relevant Sales outreach
- Expansion
How Rooted Rocket worked
Rigor before recommendations.
- 01CEO conversation
- 02All department leaders
- 03Individual leaders
- 04Frontline users
- 05Systems review
- 06Current-state maps
- 07Future-state design
- 08Timelines and waterfall planning
- 09Phased implementation
- 10KPIs and adoption
The operating environment
This overhaul crossed a real technology ecosystem.
Rooted Rocket worked directly with these systems. Logos do not imply endorsement.
Revenue / Sales
HubSpot
Gong
CalendlyCommunication
Slack
Google WorkspaceFinance
Stripe
Plaid
QuickBooks Online
BILL Bill.comCustomer lifecycle
Proprietary customer platform
Microsoft ClarityEliminated during rebuild
Unnecessary software cost was removed after the underlying onboarding problem was solved.
Arrows Eliminated from tech stack
Teachable Eliminated from tech stackSupporting
CanvaThe operating proof
Two growth engines. One connected operating system.
Net-new acquisition and existing-customer expansion are shown separately.
| System | Before | After | Why it changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post-sale handoff | ~60 minutes | ~10 minutes | Less duplicate entry and defined ownership. |
| Outbound capacity | ~50 targeted calls per day | ~120 targeted calls per dayTeam-wide average | Targeting, verified activity and workflow. |
| Sales close rate | Baseline | Nearly doubled | Conversion diagnosis, benchmarks and coaching. |
| Forecast accuracy | About ±30% month over month | About ±3%Maintained for at least 18 months | Performance, timing, account size and capacity. |
| Net-new acquisition | Growth without a scalable system | ~20% to 30%+ MoM growthNew customers and net-new ARR, approximately | Targeting, standards, coaching, pipeline discipline and forecasting. |
| Customer expansion | Minimal cross-product motion | ~25% expandedEligible customers in the first major cycle | Relationships and behavior signals made outreach relevant. |
| Expansion ARR | Minimal structured upsell | ~35% additional ARR from upsellsExisting-customer expansion, approximately | A repeatable expansion motion. |
Eligible expansion customers had generally been with the company for roughly six months. Existing-customer upsells generated the ~35% additional ARR. Separately, new customers and net-new ARR grew roughly 20% to 30%+ month over month.
A fit conversation, not a pitch
Your visible problem may be the output of a larger system.
Rooted Rocket helps leaders understand the connections, rebuild what matters and leave their people in control.
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