B2B Post-sale Hurdles

Most companies are open minded enough to see how technology can improve their internal efficiency (i.e. "I can see the value in this").  What's much more difficult is getting them to recognize that the introduction of new technology is not the end of the story, in fact its only the beginning.  The new technology will also require them to rearrange their internal processes if they want to realize the full benefits of your product.

It's my experience that the struggle of getting companies to understand and adopt these new processes is a much more difficult sell that convincing them that they need your product.  You are likely to encounter a company full of people who are not willing or do not see the value in rebuilding the inner-workings of their organization to accommodate your new and untested product.  In some cases the people who will be responsible for maintenance of the product were not present during the sales process leaving their questions and concerns unanswered.  In others they rejected it outright, but were overruled by the decision maker and are now left to learn about a something they dislike.  

There are a number of different approaches to help get new customers comfortable with all of the changes they are dealing with including; transparency during the sales process about your products capabilities and limitations, readily available support resources, training, and a roadmap for the customer to be able to grasp the progress they've made.  Failure at this stage leads to the most troublesome issue facing software companies today, a high churn rate.  As a result  the on-boarding process for a new client is one of the 3 most important thing companies must do to realize hockey stick growth.