92% of firms plan to grow customer education programs
While only one in six organizations say their customer education program is fully mature, 43 per cent see improving customer satisfaction (CSAT) and retention as a rationale for further investment, according to research published by LearnUpon.
Based in Dublin, where it develops and sells a learning management system (LMS), LearnUpon surveyed more than 600 customer experience professionals across the US, UK, New Zealand, and Australia to produce its report, Customer Education in 2025.
Beyond CSAT, LearnUpon found customer education programs present many internal benefits as well. These include expanding and upselling within customer accounts, which was cited by 38 per cent of those surveyed. Scaling support came close behind at 36 per cent, followed by 31 per cent who cited lead generation. More than a quarter said customer education can also reduce support costs.
Satisfaction and retention, meanwhile, tend to be associated with the latter part of the customer journey. However LearnUpon found nearly a third of respondents looking at education program as a driver of efficient onboarding, and 30 per cent said it could boost product adoption.
That said, many organization’s aren’t effectively tying those benefits to their metrics. For example, 35 per cent said they have difficulty measuring the return on investment (ROI) of customer education programs, and 38 per cent cited the difficulty in integrating technologies that deliver it with other systems.
Customer success platforms were seen as the top platform for education, cited by 36 per cent, followed closely by CRMs at 34 per cent.
“The shift from reactive to proactive education—embedding learning into every stage of the customer journey—will separate industry leaders from the rest,” the report’s authors wrote. “For businesses willing to invest in the right tools, content, and measurement strategies, the rewards will be significant.”
360 Magazine Insight
Though consumer brands may offer some educational resources such as explainer videos, formal programs like these tend to be in the domain of business-to-business (B2B) companies. Though these firms may not see their efforts as fully mature, they have no shortage of role models to follow.
Brands such as Adobe, Salesforce and Google all offer extensive training hubs and “universities” that provide in-depth teaching that customers can take in asynchronously on demand. Besides having the right technology in place, having solid (and up-to-date) content can be difficult: 34 per cent of those surveyed admitted this is a challenge.
One area that could probably be covered in more detail is driving engagement with customer education programs. There’s often a “build it and they will come” mentality but the reality is such programs also require a significant and ongoing marketing effort.
This gated 28-page report includes regional, country-specific data breakdowns as well as insights from experts at LearnUpon, its key customers and independent consultants and analysts.
