STACK SPORTS + DIGITAL ADOPTION

Established a milestone-based digital adoption strategy.

Challenge

Many Sports Connect customers were volunteers with limited time and high turnover, making traditional, passive training ineffective. Education needed to be timely and relevant.

While in-app education tools were already in place, content delivery followed a time and session based model rather than customer outcomes. As a result, users often received training before it was relevant, slowing activation and limiting long-term adoption.

The challenge was to scale onboarding and ongoing education in a way that aligned learning with real product usage without increasing manual effort.

Approach

To improve activation and retention, I shifted onboarding from a schedule-driven model to a product-led, outcomes-based approach.

We defined clear activation and adoption milestones tied to customer success and used product usage data to automatically track progress. Educational content was delivered only when users reached or stalled at specific milestones, ensuring guidance appeared at the moment of need.

This approach allowed us to support both initial onboarding and ongoing “everboarding” as customers returned to the product, adopted new features, or experienced volunteer turnover.

Solution

I led the transition to a milestone-based digital adoption model that combined proactive guidance with scalable self-service education.

  • Activation Framework: Defined measurable onboarding and success milestones aligned to customer outcomes.
  • In-App Guidance: Delivered contextual tutorials and walkthroughs triggered by real-time product usage.
  • Automated Nudges: Implemented workflows to detect stalls and send targeted reminders and educational resources.
  • Blended Learning: Integrated in-app experiences with self-service e-learning to support both onboarding and ongoing adoption.
  • Operational Visibility: Enabled specialists to track task engagement, milestone completion, and friction points in real time.

To help customers succeed, learning had to show up in the right place, at the right time.

Results

The shift to milestone-based digital adoption replaced manual workflows with scalable automation and improved visibility into the customer journey.

  • 30% increase in activation rates within 18 months among self-service customers.
  • Automated workflows reduced manual intervention while supporting high-volume onboarding.
  • Real-time insight into where customers progressed or stalled enabled targeted CX intervention.
  • Established a scalable “everboarding” model to support retention amid customer turnover.

By aligning education with product usage, this approach helped customers find value faster, supported long-term adoption, and turned digital adoption tools into a core driver of scaled customer success.