I recently came across a reflection from my manager ​@lila_meyer  that deeply resonated with me.

It was sparked by a simple question: “What’s your Customer Education philosophy?”
The response was thoughtful, strategic, and inspiring, and I felt it was worth sharing here in this community.

With permission, here’s a summary of that philosophy, along with some honest takeaways about where we’re excelling, and where we still have work to do, because I believe it speaks to the shared challenges and aspirations many of us in the education space face.

Customer Education Is a Growth Lever, Not Just a Value-Add

Too often, Customer Education is treated as a nice-to-have, an afterthought tucked away in a help center. But here’s the truth: education is not just a value-add. It’s a revenue enabler, a churn fighter, and a secret weapon for scale.

The old saying goes, “If customers aren’t learning, they’re churning.” And that couldn’t be more accurate. A well-educated customer doesn’t just know how to use your product, they understand it. They adopt features faster, explore more use cases, and expand their footprint. That’s retention. That’s upsell. That’s community advocacy.

When you position education as a business lever, the internal conversations shift. You're not just reporting course completions; you're tying learning to metrics that matter, customer lifetime value (CLTV), feature adoption, NPS, renewal rates. It earns a seat at the table because it’s impacting the health of the business.

This belief anchors everything we do. We don’t build courses just to teach. We build them to drive outcomes, for our customers and our company.

Design with Outcomes in Mind

Another key pillar in our philosophy? Always start with the end in mind.

Too many learning programs begin with content. “Let’s make a course on Feature X.” But what if we flipped that? What if we asked first: What’s the behavior we want to drive? What does success actually look like for the learner?

When you clarify the destination, everything else, structure, media, assessments, becomes clearer. It’s not just about the “how-to”; it’s about showing learners what great looks like. What does mastery feel like? What are the benchmarks? What will they be able to achieve after this?

This approach builds confidence. Instead of dropping users into a sea of features and expecting them to figure it out, we provide a lighthouse, a clear vision of what’s possible, and a guided path to get there. It respects the learner’s time and energy. And it builds momentum fast.

We use job task analysis and success modeling to anchor our course design. Learners aren’t here to memorize; they’re here to do. So we make sure we’re building with their goals at the center.

Learning Doesn’t Stop After Onboarding

Here’s another common trap: thinking that education stops after onboarding.

But customers don’t stop learning once they’ve signed the contract. In fact, that’s often when the real learning begins. The most successful Customer Education programs understand that it’s not a one-and-done event, it’s an ongoing relationship. We’ve committed to supporting learners across their entire journey. 

It’s a layered experience, some of it proactive, some reactive, but all of it intentional. And it recognizes that different moments call for different formats: a quick tooltip here, a walkthrough there, a cohort-based course for advanced users down the line.

The ultimate goal? To make learning feel invisible. Seamless. Like a natural extension of the product experience. Because the more we meet users where they are, the more likely they are to stick, succeed, and scale.

We Must Prove Impact

If we want Customer Education to be taken seriously as a business driver, we can’t just say it’s valuable, we have to prove it.

That’s why one of our core tenets is measurement. Not just vanity metrics like video views or course completions (though those have their place). We’re talking about real impact:

• Did users who completed onboarding adopt more features faster?

• Did trained admins have higher NPS scores?

• Did engaged learners renew at a higher rate?

This kind of insight doesn’t happen by accident. It takes alignment with RevOps, solid instrumentation, and the right analytics tools. But when you get it right, it unlocks the ability to tell powerful stories, ones that show how education is moving the needle.

We’re leveraging tools like ChatGPT and internal data dashboards to make those connections visible. It’s still a work in progress, but we’re starting to see real signals. And that validation? It’s helping us scale smarter.

Our Wins So Far

• Combined self-paced learning with VILT for practice

• Built community-driven learning spaces

• Began mapping training to measurable outcomes like product adoption and retention

What’s Next for Us

• Scaling post-onboarding education

• Elevating visibility of training impact

• Collaborating more closely with Product, Marketing, and Support

• Adapting to AI, not just for content, but delivery too

The Journey’s Not Just for Customers, It’s for Us, Too

We’re growing, experimenting, and learning right alongside our customers. Every initiative teaches us something new, about what works, what doesn’t, and where we can go next. Because we’re not guessing what to build anymore. We’re building what moves the needle.

So, I'll turn the question to you, this incredible community:
What’s your Customer Education philosophy? And what are you working to get better at?