Stop Turning Your Customer Journey into a Relay Race

By Whitney Littlewood

I’m talking about the dreaded “hand-off.” When I hear a Customer Success leader use this word I can’t help but cringe. I imagine those moments in a meticulously crafted customer journey when an excited, hopeful, and slightly terrified customer gets tossed like a hot potato across departmental lines. It’s supposed to be efficient, but sometimes those incoming spud bombs get missed or dropped or there’s just no one there to catch them. This isn’t intentional sabotage, it’s just what happens when the customer journey is designed in a vacuum and we forget that software is complex and your customer needs a team, not a series of strangers passing them along like a baton. 

In my experience, here’s where the ball gets dropped most often (and customers notice):

* Sales → Post-Sales (Onboarding)

    * ❌ Customer reaction: “Wait, who are you? Are you seriously asking me about my goals when I just spent 2 months talking about that with my pal the AE?”

    * ✅ Instead: Keep the CSM or a solutions engineer in the discovery loop. Share notes, expectations, even the emotional context. Give the Onboarding team more than a purchase order—give them the story.

* Onboarding → Customer Success Manager

    * ❌ Customer reaction: “You’re transitioning me? But you know my code, my quirks, my dog’s name… we bonded!”

    * ✅ Instead: Introduce the CSM first. Make it a three-way conversation where the customer feels continuity—not abandonment.

* CSM → Renewal/Sales/Account Management

    * ❌ Customer reaction: “I need to pay what… and why? My CSM never mentioned this!”

    * ✅ Instead: No surprises. The CSM should preview renewal conversations early, aligning expectations long before invoices fly. If you have a separate renewals team, keep the CSM as the relationship anchor.

The reality is that software journeys aren’t clean, linear paths. They’re messy, multi-threaded stories. Pretending otherwise only sets up customers for confusion. Instead of hot-potato hand-offs, accept that multiple tracks and roles overlap at every stage.

Ideally, your CSM is present throughout—not to do every piece of work, but to manage the relationship, provide context, and be the point of escalation when things wobble. Let onboarding specialists onboard, let renewals managers negotiate, but keep the thread of trust unbroken.

Systems can help. A well-designed CRM or CS platform should make context visible so no one starts from zero. RACI models—spelling out who’s Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed—keep teams honest about who’s on point and who’s supporting. And when you’re mapping that “perfect” customer journey, don’t leave it to CS alone. Invite Sales, Marketing, and Product. Otherwise, you’ll design a dream state that collapses under real-world complexity.

Software is complicated. Customer needs are nuanced. Our craving for simplicity—one owner, one baton, one “clean” hand-off—can’t outweigh a customer’s need for a team. They’re not buying a transaction; they’re buying a relationship.

So, retire the hand-off. Ditch the relay race and the hot-potato theatrics. Build journeys that reflect reality: it takes a coordinated village to make customers successful. When your team stands shoulder-to-shoulder with theirs—sharing context, responsibility, and care—you stop acting like vendors and start acting like true partners. That’s where trust deepens, growth happens, and long-term success is earned on both sides.

The Success League is a customer success consulting and training firm. We offer guidance on the customer journey on multiple levels. From a CS Leadership class on Mapping Customer Journeys to individual coaching on a journey refresh, we’ve got you covered. Visit TheSuccessLeague.io for more or contact us to see how we can help you.

Whitney Littlewood - Whitney is a passionate customer success leader that believes a healthy mix of data and empathy drive exceptional customer outcomes. She most recently led customer success teams at high-growth startups including UserTesting and Optimizely. Before that, she held roles in consulting, product development and marketing at companies including Adobe and Travelocity. She loves teaching and helping people grow both professionally and personally.