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It’s great to be back with another #Blueprint and weekly insight for your customer education program!

Many teams are gearing up to soft launch training this quarter. Some are expanding their catalogs this year, and for others, Q1 has been all about finding solution providers.

Question -
Can you guarantee that your customer education strategy will deliver on the goals you’ve set for this year?

Is it even possible to guarantee that starting a customer education program will ACTUALLY do everything customer education promises to do?

The promises of Customer Education are many:

• faster onboarding,  
• reduced support tickets,
• amazing community, and brand awareness

(plus tons of other benefits of course...)

In this issue of the Customer Education Blueprint, I'll share what I believe is the single most important factor for your customer education program’s success.

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The Promises of Customer Education

Generally, everyone pitching customer education references 3 driving factors in implementing a program:

1. Speed up time to product value (with awesome onboarding.)
2. Decrease or "deflect" support volume. (More trained and educated customers solve more problems on their own.)
3. Increase retention / reduce churn. (The more results and value they get, the longer they stay.)

These are generally “product-focused” promises that focus on “us” the business.

INSTEAD, there’s one ingredient that makes all the difference in a customer education program…value to the customer.

Hint: Value isn't "they can do their job better, they can find answers quicker, etc."

You must align the promise of training to personal advancement or career advancement.

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Aligning to Career Advancement

Create products that give your customers the ability to advance their careers with those skills or knowledge.‍

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This is the “unlock” that many SaaS and expert firms have identified.

It’s not *just* about your products’ features.

It’s not *just* about the skills that the customer needs to maximize the value of the product.

It IS about how we develop training products, programs, or paths for our customers to achieve success with the product AND create opportunities to advance their careers as a result.

Our team’s success in delivering customer education programs and products has to do with this single factor. Our completion rates are generally 70% or higher for SaaS and non-compliance programs. (completion rates are a topic for another time...)

Think about it -
A project manager gets certified as a PMP.  Why?

NOT because they love ClickUp, Excel or Microsoft Teams…

But being excellent at those tools allows them to deliver projects on time, over communicate with clients, and be an amazing team leader.

Why do they want that? More rewards -

• financial incentives and promotions
  
• emotional support and reinforcement of purpose at work
  
• OR the ability to showcase their expertise.

We all want the advancement and opportunities that come with learning.

The Point

Without tying our customer education program to our client’s career advancement, we are essentially helping them become “super hobbyists” on our tools and platforms...‍

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They *may* get paid to spend 8 hours watching videos and taking knowledge checks...

BUT, it’s rare that those opportunities happen without being directly tied to their growth on a team or advancement.

Wrapping it Up

Organizations that deliver training and education thrive. They lead their markets and stay relevant with customers.

But we must create win-win opportunities for clients through our training.

Audit your training program and ask yourself:

1. Am I helping customers get to value faster with this?
2. How does this help my customer advance their career?

With these questions in mind, we'll produce less "fluff" and drive more results.

I hope you found value in this issue. If so, it would be amazing if you share this blueprint with others that might need help creating customer training.

Keep creating,
Matt T.

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