The Customer Education Playbook

The Customer Education Playbook

by Daniel Quick, Barry Kelly
Released April 2022
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781119822509

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Book description

Deliver maximum value to customers and clients with this blueprint to customer success 

In The Customer Education Playbook: How Leading Companies Engage, Convert, and Retain Customers, customer learning experts Barry Kelly and Daniel Quick explain how teaching customers to best engage with your products and services is the key to converting them from prospects to loyal advocates of your brand.  

In this book, you’ll examine how to define success for your customer, create a customer education development plan, and pursue customer success and revenue metrics. You’ll also: 

  • Learn why you should prioritize customer learning and invest in customer training and education 
  • Discover how to create a detailed customer success and retention plan that emphasizes delivered value 
  • Determine how to implement a learning strategy that maximizes and scales lifetime customer value 

Perfect for founders, executives, managers, and practitioners at companies of all kinds, The Customer Education Playbook is especially practical for SaaS company executives seeking to extract and provide maximum value from their customers over the long haul. 

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Introduction
  6. 1 How Customer Education Transforms Prospects to Champions
    1. The Evolution of Customer Education
    2. The Business Benefits of Education Across the Lifecycle
    3. Crossing the Chasm: When Is the Right Time to Invest in Customer Education?
    4. Notes
  7. 2 Customer Education as a Catalyst for Business Growth
    1. The Importance of a Centralized Strategy for Customer Education
    2. Where Should Customer Education Sit in the Business?
    3. The Customer Education Portfolio
    4. Fee Versus Free: Should You Monetize Your Customer Education Content?
    5. Note
  8. 3 Step 1: Maximize Impact by Aligning Customer Education to Business Goals
    1. Five Common Business Goals for Customer Education
    2. Goal 1: Improve Product Adoption
    3. Goal 2: Scale Customer Support
    4. Goal 3: Maximize Customer Success
    5. Goal 4: Create Brand Ambassadors
    6. Goal 5: Lead Your Market Category
    7. Note
  9. 4 Step 2: Motivate Customers by Curating Their Path to Awesome
    1. How Do I Work Out What “Success” Looks Like?
    2. Creating Aha! Moments
  10. 5 Step 3: Personalize Learning by Focusing on What Your Customers Need to Know
    1. Creating Effective Learning Personas
    2. Defining Common Use Cases for Your Product
    3. Using Data to Determine What Your Customers Need to Know
  11. 6 Step 4: Execute Your Strategy Flawlessly with a Development Plan
    1. Identifying Your Stakeholders
    2. The RASCI Model in Practice
    3. Using the Project Management Triangle for Your Development Plan
  12. 7 Step 5: Video or Course? Choosing the Right Content Format for the Job
    1. Blended, Hybrid, and Mixed-Mode Learning – Whatever You Call it, Mix It Up!
    2. Defining Format According to Your Goals
    3. Identifying the Correct Format for Your Education
    4. Notes
  13. 8 Step 6: Make Content Engaging and Efficient for the Busy Customer
    1. Creating Learning Objectives
    2. Personalizing Objectives for Personas
    3. Auditing and Categorizing Content
    4. Merrill's First Principles of Instruction
    5. Introducing Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction
    6. Making Learning Efficient, Effective, and Engaging
    7. Notes
  14. 9 Step 7: Who Trains the Trainers? Transforming Your Team into Experts
    1. Choosing Trainers for ILT
    2. Working with SMEs
    3. Educate the Team on the Product Roadmap
    4. The Role of Customer Education in Learning Enablement
    5. Your Partner Training Program – Train the Trainer
  15. 10 Step 8: Design Learning Experiences That Lead to Behavioral Change
    1. Utilizing Mayer's Principles
    2. Learning Styles versus Learning Strategies
    3. Practical Considerations for Creating Education Content
    4. Notes
  16. 11 Step 9: Make Sure Your Customers Consume Your Content
    1. Go Back to Your Learning Personas
    2. Actively Promoting Your Content
    3. Optimizing Your Content for Consumption
    4. Your Pricing Strategy Is Part of Your Distribution Strategy
    5. Considering Accessibility in Distribution
    6. Localizing Education Content
    7. Note
  17. 12 Step 10: Did It Work? Measuring the Success of Your Content
    1. Data Doesn't Have to Be Hard!
    2. Creating a Data Dictionary Using Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation
    3. Prioritizing and Focusing on the Right Data
    4. Communicating the Success of the Education Back to the Customer
    5. Notes
  18. 13 Step 11: Actionable Strategies to Improve Your Content
    1. Understanding Iterative Design
    2. Look at the Feedback
    3. Improving Support Content
    4. Improving Training Content
    5. Improving Certifications
    6. Knowing When to Archive Content
    7. Note
  19. 14 Step 12: Demonstrate the ROI of Customer Education
    1. Collecting the Data to Measure Business Impact
    2. Telling the Story of Your Impact
    3. Grab Your Seat at the Table
  20. 15 Your Roadmap to High-Performance Customer Education
    1. The Five-Stage Maturity Model for Customer Education
    2. How Do Great Leaders and Mature Programs Approach Customer Education?
  21. 16 Looking Ahead: The Future of Customer Education
    1. What's Fueling This Growth?
    2. What Innovations Will Come Next for Customer Education?
    3. It All Starts and Ends with … Customer Education Strategies
  22. Acknowledgments
  23. About the Authors
  24. Index
  25. End User License Agreement

Product information

  • Title: The Customer Education Playbook
  • Author(s): Daniel Quick, Barry Kelly
  • Release date: April 2022
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781119822509