Customer learning grows in importance
Learning and development has a growing role in customer retention and growth and is set to expand with 92% of organisations in 2025. Business impact is clear, but tech and measurement challenges persist.
Organisations are increasingly investing in customer education programmes, but many are yet to achieve maturity in their approaches, according to new research study, The State of Customer Education 2025.
Based on responses from 600 customer experience leaders across the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, the study reveals that 92% of organisations plan to expand their customer education efforts in 2025, with a similar number reporting growth over the past year. For a third of companies, investment has risen significantly.
Once seen as a support function, customer education is now viewed as strategic to customer retention, loyalty and scalability. The top drivers include improving satisfaction (43%), growing revenue through upselling (38%), and reducing pressure on support teams by scaling onboarding and training (36%). Product adoption (30%) is also emerging as a common focus.
Despite this shift, just 17% of respondents describe their programmes as mature. A further 63% are still operating in either ad hoc or coping modes, relying on improvised tools, repurposed content and cross-functional staff. The gap between growing investment and operational maturity reflects a readiness challenge across many organisations.
Technology plays a key role in this challenge. While organisations are using a mix of CRM, knowledge bases and digital adoption tools, only 25% have adopted dedicated customer education platforms. Integration issues, technical limitations and difficulties keeping content up to date were cited as major barriers to scale.
Measurement is another sticking point. Although 88% of organisations report a positive ROI from their education efforts, 35% say measuring that impact remains difficult. In the UK, just 77% are currently tracking or reporting on ROI, the lowest rate across the four surveyed regions.
Brendan Noud, CEO and co-founder of LearnUpon, a learning platforn and which commissioned the research, said: ‘Customer education has evolved from a support add-on to a strategic imperative. This research confirms what we’ve long believed; that well-designed learning experiences not only improve customer satisfaction, but also drive long-term loyalty and business growth.’
The findings also reflect a broader shift within L&D and customer success teams, who are drawing lessons from marketing to improve impact and engagement. As customer education becomes more closely aligned with goals such as retention, growth and scalability, the lines between learning and marketing functions are beginning to blur.
Organisations are increasingly adopting marketing tools and techniques, from audience segmentation and personalised messaging to campaign-style rollouts, to drive programme uptake and learner engagement. Learning leaders are also under pressure to demonstrate ROI using commercial metrics more commonly associated with marketing.
This convergence reflects a growing recognition that customer education is not just a support function, but a strategic enabler of business outcomes.
The research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of LearnUpon in February 2025, surveying 602 customer experience leaders and practitioners from organisations with 25 or more employees. The full report is available to download The State of Customer Education 2025.