How do you know if your customer education (CE) program works? Some days, it might feel like your customer training efforts are paying off—adoption rates are up and customer satisfaction appears high. Or on the flip side, when complaints or support tickets pile up, it’s easy to blame inadequate training.
You can rely on your experts’ insights, but even the opinions of subject matter experts are shown to be inconsistent at best. The best way to assess your CE program is by collecting good data. And to measure that data, you need the right metrics.
Tracking metrics gives you clear, objective answers. No opinions, just data. It helps you quantify questions like:
- How effectively are you supporting your customers?
- Is your program helping reduce churn?
- Are you driving adoption or improving customer satisfaction?
In this article, we’ll explore four reliable metrics for measuring customer education, or as we will refer to it here, customer enablement. We’ll also provide an example of how you can calculate the overall return on investment (ROI) of your customer enablement program so you can demonstrate its lasting impact.
What is customer enablement?
Customer enablement (CE) is a business strategy that equips customers with the knowledge, tools, and resources they need to use your product effectively. CE tools can include predefined templates for use in your product, training materials, proactive support, and educational programs. For service provider businesses that rely on recurring revenue, CE is critical to customer success, as it helps users see the full value of their investment.
Organizations can improve service adoption by providing continuous guidance and support, reducing client churn, and building longer-lasting relationships. A successful customer enablement program requires a coordinated effort from the entire organization.
What is the support stage of the customer lifecycle?
The support stage of the customer lifecycle is the short to mid-term period immediately after a customer purchases your product. It’s the most critical time to strengthen relationships and ensure customers maximize the value of their purchase.
In this stage immediately after purchase, customers will need guidance on workflows, integrations, and account management. Don’t wait for customers to come to you. Proactive, personalized support at this stage will prevent frustration and build the trust you need for a longer-term customer relationship, likely leading to renewals and upsells.
Master the entire customer lifecycle with an extended enterprise LMS
Essential metrics you need to track to improve customer enablement
You could track many different metrics that will give insights into the success of your customer enablement program.
We believe the four most important are:
- Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
- Course completion rate
- Net promoter score (NPS)
- Customer retention rate
We’ll break down how all four work and show you how to represent the ROI of your CE program. Demonstrating ROI to your leadership is a terrific way to provide quantifiable evidence of your program's value.
1. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is a key metric used across industries to measure customers' happiness with a product or service. Many support teams use CSAT, which can also be applied to an education program. In CE, satisfied customers understand your product better and know how to extract more value from it. That is the definition of enabling them.
CSAT example
To calculate your CSAT score, after a customer completes a course certification or engages your CE team, you can ask, “On a scale of 1–5, how satisfied were you with this course?” Divide the number of positive responses (4- and 5-star ratings) by the total number of responses to determine their CSAT score. Tracking this over time and across your customer base helps measure the effectiveness of your programs and identifies areas for improvement.
2. Course completion rate
Course completion rates measure the percentage of customers who reach the end of your training courses or other educational material they engage with. Seeing these materials through to completion is a useful proxy for understanding the effectiveness and your customers’ engagement.
High completion rates indicate that training is relevant, engaging, and accessible. Low rates may highlight issues like unengaging material, overly complex content, or inconvenient formats. Either way, these ratings are valuable.
For example, low rates help you identify areas for improvement. Simplifying content, breaking it into shorter modules, and adding interactive elements like quizzes can make learning more appealing and easier.
Completion rate formula
You can calculate the course completion rate very simply. The formula is:
Number of learners who started a course / Number of learners who completed the course × 100
This gives you a percentage score you can track over time or compare against other CE materials of customer demographics.
3. Net promoter score (NPS)
NPS measures how likely customers are to recommend your product or service on a scale of 1 to 10. Those scoring 9 or 10 are your “promoters,” actively advocating for your brand. Scores of 7 or 8 represent “passives” who are neutral, while scores of 6 or lower are “detractors,” signaling dissatisfaction.
Tracking NPS allows you to evaluate the role of education in driving advocacy. By conducting a cohort analysis, you can compare NPS scores between customers who have engaged with education programs and those who haven’t. This analysis helps demonstrate education’s ability to turn passive customers, and even detractors, into loyal champions for your brand.
It’s important to note that multiple teams, including product, support, and customer success, influence NPS. Measuring its connection to education highlights the critical role training plays in creating engaged, enthusiastic advocates for your business.
NPS example
To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The result gives you a snapshot of overall sentiment: a high NPS means more advocates than critics, while a low score signals potential issues with customer experience.
Let's say you survey 100 customers, asking how likely they are to recommend your product on a scale of 1 to 10. The responses are as follows:
- Promoters (9–10): 60 customers
- Passives (7–8): 25 customers
- Detractors (0–6): 15 customers
Your NPS is 45. This positive score indicates a strong base of customer advocates promoting your brand.
How Wave Utilities increased their NPS score with Absorb
4. Customer retention rate (CRR)
Retention can be measured in two primary ways:
- Account retention: What percentage of customers renew their contract or subscription when it’s time to recommit?
- Revenue retention: What percentage of revenue is retained year over year? This includes renewing accounts and any expansion within those accounts, such as upsells or additional purchases.
Retaining customers is almost always more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, but retention isn’t guaranteed. To maintain strong retention rates, businesses must demonstrate a commitment to the customer experience, starting with exceptional customer education. A well-educated customer is more likely to find value in your product, remain engaged, and stay loyal over time.
CRR example
Customer retention rate is a little more complicated to calculate than course completion rate, but not by much:
(Number of customers at the end of a period - number of new customers during the same period) / Number of customers at the start of the period x 100
This will give you a percentage score you can track over time.
For example:
- You started the quarter with 100 customers.
- You gained 20 new customers during the quarter.
- You ended the quarter with 110 customers.
Your CRR at the end of that period is 90%.
Return on investment (ROI)
Measuring the ROI of customer training is essential to demonstrate its value to the business, especially to stakeholders who may not see its impact first-hand. Unfortunately, all too often, that means those in the C-suite. Metrics like CSAT, NPS, and retention rates are powerful tools for showcasing how education improves the overall customer experience. But they’re also often more detailed than an executive audience wants to hear.
Consider segmenting customers into trained and untrained groups to tie customer engagement efforts directly to bottom-line results. Compare their renewal and expansion rates to uncover the tangible impact of training on retention and growth. Another approach is introducing a new certification and collaborating with customer support teams to track whether the number of support tickets decreases.
ROI is about calculating value. That would be hard to do for something as qualitative as customer engagement. Still, the abovementioned metrics provide the quantifiable figures you need to generate a valuable and meaningful ROI score for your leadership.
ROI example
To calculate your (ROI) for customer education, use the formula:
Net benefit from customer engagement - the cost of training) / Cost of training x 100
- Net benefit: The financial gains directly attributed to customer education derived from your other metrics.
- Cost of training: The total investment in the training program (e.g., content development, platform costs, and implementation expenses).
Here’s an example:
You invested $10,000 in your customer education program, including course development, software, and implementation. After launching the program, you observe:
- A 10% increase in renewal rates, resulting in an additional $25,000 in revenue.
- A 15% decrease in support costs, saving $5,000.
Your customer education program's ROI is 200%, meaning it delivered double the value of its initial cost. This demonstrates a significant positive impact on revenue growth and operational savings.
How to use customer engagement metrics to create more customer advocates
The metrics we’ve discussed here can do more than help improve the quality of your CE program and demonstrate your value to the business. They can also help you identify opportunities to turn satisfied customers into brand advocates. Here are some of the ways you can get the most out of your engagement metrics.
- Deliver great experiences: Use your metrics to help prioritize customer satisfaction as a strategic business goal.
- Identify and engage advocates: Use feedback and your metrics again to find loyal customers and nurture them with personalized offers and recognition.
- Build a community: Create online and in-person spaces where customers can connect, share experiences, and deepen their loyalty to your brand.
- Incentivize advocacy: Once you have identified your community, offer rewards and referral programs to motivate customers to promote your brand.
- Act on customer feedback: Regularly gather feedback and use it to improve experiences and show customers their input matters. Your metrics are important, but qualitative feedback is still valuable.
- Empower your own employees: Motivated employees deliver exceptional service.
Listen to former Google executive Bill Duane talk about why community is a critical component to effective learning:
Investing in customer education is a proven way to drive brand loyalty
A strategic learning system, like Absorb LMS, provides the tools needed to create engaging, personalized learning experiences that help customers excel in their industry. By understanding and tracking key customer enablement metrics—such as course completion rates, satisfaction, net promoter score, and retention—you can measure the true impact of your education programs.
Robust reporting and analytics ensure you gain the insights necessary to refine your approach. With the right system, customer education becomes more than simply training. It becomes a strategic driver for growth, advocacy, and long-term success.
