3 Critical Signs You Need a Customer Education Program

One of the most common mistakes businesses make after closing a sale is neglecting the customer.

Many organizations spend time, money, and resources on acquiring new customers but overlook the most important revenue-driving steps: onboarding and educating the customer to build a long-term relationship and ultimately prevent churn. 

Equipping customers with the necessary resources is the best way to help them excel in their roles and develop long-lasting relationships. Creating an effective customer education program can help you build customer loyalty and have a significant impact on your long-term business goals.  

In the inaugural episode of our Original YouTube Series, LEARN Lightning, Customer Education expert and CELab Host Dave Derington shares strategies for defining success in customer education. 

Whether you’re a small, agile startup or a growing enterprise, you don’t need a large team or department for customer education. Instead, you need to know the tell-tale signs that your organization is ready for customer education.

How to tell if you’re ready for customer education

Before we explore the signs below, let’s look at what customer education entails.  

Customer education involves equipping users with the knowledge and skills to help them get the most value from your product or service. It goes beyond the conventional realms of customer support and success. 

This proactive approach ensures that customers can navigate common challenges and capitalize on the full spectrum of your offerings.

Read more: 5 Benefits of a Customer Education Program

Defining customer success and support

The first indication that your organization is ready for customer education is the realization that customer support is evolving into a dual responsibility of both support and success. 

As organizations grow, so does the complexity of the questions and challenges your customers face. Fielding the same questions repeatedly signals that a more structured and scalable approach is necessary.

“There is a time when your organization starts experiencing distress when you’re supporting your customers,” Dave says. “All these questions. This is both support and customer success.”

Read more: Checklist: Assess Your Needs for a Customer Education Program

Fielding the same customer questions

Dave knew he was ready for customer education when customers asked the same question 10, 20, 50, and a hundred times over. So, he took the initial step of building a knowledge base to answer these questions. 

If you find yourself in the same scenario, a knowledge base is a great place to start, but only a jumping-off point, and that’s why a formal customer education program is key to helping you create the resources you need to empower your customers. 

Read more: Why Customer Education is the Core of Customer Success

Scaling one-on-one training

As organizations grow, one-on-one training is no longer feasible due to scalability issues. 

Dave emphasizes shifting from individualized training sessions to one-to-many activities such as webinars and academies. 

“And three, just doing a heck of a lot of one-on-one training,” he says. “By that, I mean your meeting with an account, maybe one or two people at a time. Well, training starts naturally with customer success and support. The problem is that one-on-one training doesn’t scale, and this is where we start introducing things like one-to-many activities.”

So, if you’re nodding your head because these signs apply to you, it’s likely time for a customer education program at your organization. 

Understanding the signs is just the first step. Next, you need to secure a budget and get buy-in, and Dave will dive into that in the next LEARN Lightning episode.

Until then, subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos and updates.