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Kasey Smith joined Graphite, a fast-growing SaaS startup, as the Director of Operations and CX. His immediate objective was to streamline processes and scale the organization’s ability to onboard and support customers efficiently while aligning the professional services (PS) team’s execution with broader business goals.

Graphite’s product, a platform for managing complex workflows and configurations akin to CRM or ERP systems, demanded a structured onboarding approach tailored to its high-profile clients. When Kasey came on board, Rocketlane was already chosen as the onboarding platform.

Over time, the tool became integral to Graphite’s implementation and customer success workflows, transforming how the company delivered value to its Fortune 500 clients, including Adobe, Intel, and Spotify.

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Challenges Before Rocketlane

An unsustainable “white-glove” approach

Before Rocketlane, Graphite’s implementations relied heavily on a small founding team with deep product expertise. This team essentially started each onboarding project from scratch, configuring environments entirely based on individual client needs. While this approach delighted customers, it was neither scalable nor repeatable.

Blurred roles between implementation and customer success

Implementation managers doubled as customer success managers (CSMs), carrying their customers indefinitely post-go-live. This lack of role clarity made scaling the team and processes challenging as the customer base grew.

Lack of standardization and templatization

Without structured processes, onboarding was a blank-slate exercise every time, leading to inefficiencies and unpredictable timelines. The absence of templates or repeatable workflows often turned smaller accounts into disproportionately time-consuming projects.

Inaccurate pricing and effort estimation

Pricing for implementation services lacked logic or methodology, leading to mismatches between sales promises and operational realities. “We were essentially sticking a finger in the air to price deals,” shared Kasey.

Life with Rocketlane

Driving professional services efficiency

Kasey emphasized the importance of aligning the professional services (PS) team’s execution with business goals.

“I always want to discount the PS side of the business in order to gain ARR. Anyone that wants their business to succeed should agree with that”

Rocketlane helped the team achieve this balance by providing granular insights into time tracking and project performance. For example, after 10 implementations, Rocketlane enabled Graphite to analyze deviations between estimated and actual hours for key modules, allowing them to fine-tune pricing and ensure profitability.

“Rocketlane’s time tracking isn’t about micromanagement or babysitting; it’s about pricing future deals accurately and improving processes”

Streamlined and scalable onboarding processes

Kasey and the team tackled inefficiencies by building standardized templates and milestones within Rocketlane. For instance, they developed guided workflows and implementation playbooks for smaller clients.

“We implemented a smaller $30,000 customer in just six meetings and 26 hours compared to the 300 hours it used to take.”

This repeatable process allowed Graphite to scale its onboarding efforts without sacrificing quality.

Separation of roles for better efficiency

Rocketlane’s functionality helped Graphite formalize its implementation and customer success roles. Implementation managers could focus solely on onboarding, while CSMs used the tool for ongoing account management. This division of labor optimized the team’s capacity and ensured smoother handoffs post-go-live.

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Enhanced time tracking and pricing accuracy

With Rocketlane’s time-tracking capabilities, Graphite established clear benchmarks for implementation hours tied to specific modules. This allowed the team to validate assumptions, refine their pricing calculator, and address potential misunderstandings with sales.

“Rocketlane gave us the data to confidently say, ‘We’re delivering on target; sales discounts are the issue, not execution,’”

Driving team buy-in for time tracking

Rocketlane’s intuitive time-tracking tools helped Graphite’s team shift their perspective.

“I want you to track your time so we can price deals more accurately in the future, which I think sometimes we miss out on. It’s not about micromanagement; it’s about improving processes”

This cultural shift fostered transparency and alignment across departments.

A flexible tool for both onboarding and customer success

While Rocketlane was initially chosen for onboarding, its adaptability proved valuable for Graphite’s customer success workflows. The team created “ongoing” projects for post-go-live customers, enabling seamless tracking of monthly priorities and configurations.

Graphite leveraged Rocketlane’s Spaces feature to embed sheets, status reports, communication logs, and complex project plans directly within the platform. This centralized information made it easier for clients to access key details without feeling overwhelmed.

“Spaces has allowed us to stretch Rocketlane’s capabilities into customer success management, even though it’s primarily an onboarding tool”

With Spaces, the team could effectively track risks, manage issue logs, and ensure proactive client engagement.

Visibility and insights at every level

The reporting capabilities within Rocketlane enabled Graphite’s management to track project statuses without diving into granular details. This push-and-pull visibility ensured that leadership stayed informed while empowering teams to focus on execution.