Where the Signal First Appeared
One of the clearest lessons I learned early in my career came at Catawiki. We had recurring support tickets caused by wording on the website.
In weekly standups, support teams raised the same pattern: if specific wording was adjusted, a large part of the backlog would disappear.
Customers were frustrated. Agents repeated the same explanations. Morale dipped because the issue felt preventable.
The Cross-Functional Gap
From support, the problem was obvious. From development, it was not always prioritized. Support volume does not always translate into roadmap urgency.
That disconnect showed me something important: when front-facing teams and technical teams operate in silos, onboarding and customer experience degrade quickly.
What Scalable Onboarding Actually Requires
- Feedback loops between support and product
- Shared metrics across teams
- Friction tracking
- Clear ownership
Without these, organizations optimize locally. Support handles volume. Engineering ships features. Systemic friction remains.
Automation Is Not the First Lever
In my experience, onboarding systems break at scale less from lack of talent and more from lack of structural communication.
AI can surface patterns in support tickets. But if the organization is not aligned to act on those signals, the same problems persist.
That lesson has shaped how I approach cross-functional design ever since.