The customer education advantage — elevating customer experience through strategic learning
Customer education (CE) refers to the development and delivery of learning programs that support customers in adopting and using products and services effectively, ultimately improving their overall customer experience (CX). A 2024 Forrester Consulting report commissioned by Adobe found that customer education programs have a profound impact on CX — 79% of respondents said their CE programs are integral to their overall CX strategy.
Forrester surveyed over 260 business leaders responsible for making customer learning strategy decisions in their organizations and gathered recommendations for an effective CE strategy. The report evaluates the current state of CE strategies, the challenges of embedding CE programs into CX strategies today, and the investment drivers for CE programs. According to the report, most businesses with CE programs saw a direct impact on the post-sale customer lifecycle:
However, businesses report that these results often aren’t enough to secure investment in CE programs. Organizations need to see a clear uplift in sales in the form of upselling and cross-selling opportunities and strengthened relationships with key accounts. The solution requires a shift from a technology-focused CE strategy to a science-based strategy, making an adaptive, flexible platform critical to your CE program.
Education augments experiences — but only if done right
Results from the Forrester study point to a clear relationship between effective CE programs and CX strategy. Respondents noted some of the following gaps that can be bridged through an effective CE program:
- Educate customers on how to use products and gain value from them
- Deliver segment-specific engagement with educational and marketing content
- Empower customers with product resources and support
However, many customer education programs are failing to meet expectations. Along with a lack of stakeholder buy-in, people-related challenges slow CE program implementation, with respondents listing the following as top issues:
- Employee technical debt or technical skills-gap
- Talent shortage
- Employee resistance to change
Effective CE programs focus on delivering the right education resources through channels and methods that resonate most with customers. This requires a single source of truth — with customer data, training content, and learner progress data — iterative processes, and a flexible learning platform to gain the necessary scalability without overburdening CE teams.
How to build a strategic customer education program
It’s time to rethink how organizations approach CE. It is critical to base your strategy on scientifically proven methods and align it with your company’s specific requirements. Here are some tips for building an education program that works for your business:
- Set clear goals and responsibilities. Define goals the program needs to achieve to gain stakeholder buy-in. Ensure no one operates in a silo by creating a process for information sharing, goal tracking, and assigning responsibilities.
- Align CE initiatives with your customer journey. CE and CX should go hand-in-hand to provide a consistent and effortless experience for customers. Additionally, use CE data to inform marketing and sales efforts, such as cross-sell and upsell opportunities, and to create measurable impacts on overall business objectives that improve stakeholder buy-in.
- Strategically select your toolkit. Refine your resources down to only the essentials, like a single source of truth for customer personas and journeys. Choose a learning platform that works within existing brand experiences to reduce technical debt. Adobe Learning Manager is one such platform that integrates with Adobe Experience Manager to enable a seamless customer experience before and after the sale.
- Personalize CE resources to customer needs. Ensure the right content is available to customers at the right time with segment-specific content targeting. Learning Manager’s AI-based recommendations, social learning, and content formats make it easier for customers to discover and engage with relevant content.
- Measure CE effectiveness. Focus on metrics that express the value of your CE program beyond customer results. Streamline data analysis by choosing a learning platform that automatically tracks and reports data. Integrations like Learning Manager’s connections with Salesforce and Microsoft Power BI are also essential for analyzing CE program effectiveness alongside business performance.
Learn more about challenges CE teams face and customer-centric solutions that enable businesses to deliver better education experiences.
Get in touch today to learn how Adobe can help you launch a Customer Education program using Adobe Learning Manager and Adobe Experience Manager.
As the head of product marketing for Adobe learning and publishing solutions, Priyank Shrivastava has over 15 years of experience in learning technologies. A pivotal player in the inception of Adobe Learning Manager, he has been instrumental in shaping its success. Priyank holds a strong conviction that learning technologies, once primarily targeted towards employees, now strategically contribute to elevating both customer and partner experiences.