If you learned about a program that could increase product adoption by 48%, renewal rates by 37%, customer expansion rates by almost 15%, and had a positive ROI, would you consider implementing it? The obvious answer — yes, of course.
Now you may be asking yourself, what program is this and how do you get involved? It may surprise you to learn that the program is the concept of customer education.
It is becoming more and more evident that customer education is considered critical for the growth of a business. However, there are a few questions that come to mind:
Keep reading to find out.
Measuring how successful your program is enables you to accurately define what is worth the effort and what part of the strategy needs improvement. KPIs allow you to:
80% of experts find customer education strongly correlates with product onboarding. The time to start measuring your customer education efforts is now.
It is important to measure the impact of a customer education program at various phases, and luckily there are many metrics to help you do this. These KPIs can get you started:
Did you know… acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining a customer? This is both expensive and time-consuming but with the help of customer education, companies can onboard the right customers and simultaneously retain their current customer base as well. Consider investing in brand awareness, build a loyal customer base and strengthen your brand image through education efforts. Your business will reap the benefits in the long run.
Let’s face it, no matter what you do, sometimes it’s natural for your customers to go their own separate way. An interesting viewpoint emerged on our podcast with Dave Derington, Director, ServiceRocket and guest speaker Jasonda Desmond. Churn, even though dreaded, tells you when your customers have had enough. And when you see that number is rapidly increasing, it becomes important to take a step back and evaluate why that might be happening.
Segmenting and identifying the reasons customers churn helps businesses learn where their areas of improvement are. Keep in mind, an educated customer engages more with the product and is likely to stay loyal for longer.
These metrics portray how satisfied your customers are and how likely they are to recommend your product to others. The average NPS score for SaaS companies is 41. Use this figure as a benchmark to find out where your business stands. If things need to be improved or maintained, this can happen only through customer training and enablement.
Undoubtedly customer satisfaction is one of the biggest challenges for any business. Engaged customers have a better experience with your product and a better impression of your brand. This impacts their tendency to promote your product and as we all know, word of mouth is an extremely valuable (and free) marketing tool.
LTV is revenue generated from a customer over the period of time that they remain with your business and is considered a good indicator of profitability for any business.
While onboarding facilitates product adoption, upselling and reselling happen only when the customer finds value in using your products. Customer education can enable customers to learn and engage with your product beyond their expectations.
In fact, studies show that customer education makes customers 131% more likely to buy from a brand. This is attributed to the fact that educational content has a direct and impactful effect on trust and brand affinity, and in turn, loyalty.
Customer support tickets are a massive indicator of what’s working in your customer education journey. An overloaded customer support team is a strain on resources and usually means that customers are not adequately educated on the usage of the product.
Take a deep dive into the quality of tickets to learn what needs to be your top priority to help customers shift to using your products independent of your support team. This is one of the easiest yet most impactful metrics that can tell you what customer education can do for you and your customers.
The ROI on customer education and its impact on the KPIs are becoming increasingly evident.
As Adam Avramescu, co-host of CELab said, “A customer education function strategically accelerates account and user growth by changing behaviors, reducing barriers to value and improving the way people work.”
If you are thinking about starting a new customer education program or enhancing an existing one, we’re here to help. Our data-led, customizable, repeatable, and scalable education programs ensure your customers realize the full potential of your products.
Are you starting or evolving in your customer education journey? Either way, you can rely on our team to create nimble, customized strategies aligned.
