Five Signs You Have a Value Gap (and How to Close It)

You’re closing deals, but your revenue isn’t growing. That’s because existing customers aren’t expanding or renewing. Sound familiar? You have a value gap. A value gap is the space between the value your marketing and sales teams promise during the sales process, and the value customers actually receive throughout their lifetime with you. The value gap erodes trust, limits adoption, and creates friction across the customer journey. Over time, it drives higher churn, lower satisfaction, and slows the very revenue growth your company depends on.

Here are five signs you have a value gap and how to start closing the gap:

1. Delayed Initial Value

   When customers start with excitement from the sales process and then spend weeks, months, or even years waiting for your product to deliver value, they fall into the “trough of disillusionment.” They’re hopeful but quickly lose enthusiasm when the path to value feels long, complex, and confusing. Once engagement drops, it’s hard to recover.

   Close the gap: Deliver quick wins as early as possible. Each early success reinforces confidence and strengthens commitment. Every time customers get value, they get a hit of feel-good chemicals. That’s what keeps people engaged for the long term.

   Dive deeper: Read my article First Value: Avoiding the Trough of Disillusionment.
   

2. Early Churn

   It’s not just how much churn you have; it’s when it occurs. Many companies lose customers in the first year because they never achieve meaningful value. They fail to launch.

   Close the gap: As I share in my book Onboarding Matters, the solution is to move from reactive onboarding to prescriptive, proactive, and orchestrated onboarding. The goal isn’t to get customers live; it’s to get them to value. When they experience success early, they stay and grow with you. If your early churn is high, that’s a sure sign of a value gap.

   Dive deeper: Read my most popular article: What is Orchestrated Onboarding and Why You Should Care
   

3. Focusing on Features Instead of Outcomes

   If your teams can’t clearly explain the business outcomes your customers should achieve, and your customers can’t either, you have a value gap. Talking about features and functions keeps the conversation centered on you.

   Close the gap: Discussing and aligning on outcomes shifts the focus to the customer. Anchor your conversations on measurable business results, not capabilities. Ask, “What will success look like for this customer?” and “How will they know they achieved it?”

   Dive deeper: Read my article The Secret to Growth? Deliver Outcomes that Matter. 
   

4. Siloed Teams

   When Marketing, Sales, Onboarding, and Customer Success tell different stories, customers feel the friction. Confusion erodes confidence, and confidence drives renewals.

   Close the gap: The solution is to replace silos with swim lanes. Align your teams around a shared definition of value delivered, specific customer outcomes, and a single north-star metric. When your teams move in the same direction, customers experience a seamless journey from promise to delivery, and you see more efficiency.

   Dive deeper: Read my article From Silos to Swim Lanes.
   

5. Relying on Heroics at Renewal Time

   If you have to resell your value at every renewal, you have a value communication gap. When customers can’t see the impact your product delivers, they hesitate to renew. Close the gap: The answer is continuous value reinforcement. Don’t wait until renewal to remind customers why you matter. Show progress and outcomes consistently along the value journey. Connect each milestone back to customer goals and keep value visible throughout the relationship.

   Dive deeper: Read my article Customer Journey Maps Are a Waste of Time. Here's Why.

Closing the Value Gap

If any of these signs sound familiar, you’re not alone. The good news is that closing the value gap doesn’t require a massive transformation. It starts by connecting the dots between what you promise and what you deliver.

Customer renewals and expansion are not events. They are the result of consistent and aligned actions, early wins, user adoption, and value delivery built into the customer journey from day one. When you accelerate time to value, align teams around outcomes and shared metrics, and reinforce value continuously, renewals become natural and expansion becomes predictable.

If you want to uncover what’s blocking your company from delivering on its promises, I can help. My Value Gap Analysis reveals where customers fall off the value path and how to realign your teams to deliver results that last. Remember, when your customers win, you win. Let’s get you on that growth path today.

DONNA WEBER is a globally recognized customer value and onboarding expert with a decades-long track record of success as a strategic consultant to high-growth companies. Renowned for her approach to turning customers into loyal champions, companies bring Donna in when they’re ready to level up by moving fast in the right direction. Her relentless focus on the customer helps them scale smarter by delivering on the lifetime value they promise from day one. Her bestselling book, Onboarding Matters, is considered a definitive guide to post-sale customer success. Learn more at donnaweber.com.