Why aren’t customers using your customer education program?
If a customer program works and about half your customers still aren’t using it, find out why before you add anything to it. More content, more sessions and more resources only give the customers who already show up more to do. The ones you need to reach stay right where they are.
I had this exact conversation on a call this week with the leader of one of the strongest customer education programs I’ve ever seen. She was walking me through everything she wanted to add and how much more they could be doing.
So I asked her, “Instead of doing more, can we find out why this half of your customers isn’t participating?”
She took a step back and said, “Wait, that’s actually a really good point. We haven’t investigated why.”
The customers who need it most are the ones it isn’t reaching
Her team already knows the program works. The customers who participate stay and grow. The ones who don’t participate are more likely to churn.
Sit with that for a second, because it changes the math.
The renewals you’re worried about and the expansion you’re not getting are sitting in the half that never shows up. Every new course or webinar built for the other half makes a good program a little better for customers who are already staying and growing.
If we don’t understand why, we don’t know what we’re solving for.
Why doesn’t doing more fix it?
Listen, I love more. Give me more true crime documentaries any day. In a customer program, though, more only helps if it reaches the people who need it.
Doing more for the customers who already engage doesn’t make sense, unless they’re the ones asking for more. Doing more for the customers who aren’t engaging doesn’t make sense either, because nothing you add changes the reason they aren’t there.
And guess what? A lot of the time that reason has nothing to do with the program. If customers aren’t even using the product, they’re not going to invest their own time in enablement. That’s an adoption problem, and new content won’t touch it.
When is more the right call?
Before you add anything, ask yourself one question: do I have proof that doing more will drive more?
If you do, go ahead and run at it. When participation is strong, the customers in the program are asking for more, and you can see the retention and growth it drives, building on it is a smart bet.
If you don’t have that proof, you better investigate why first. Find out if the work you’re doing is driving the results you’re seeking. Honestly, that’s what 2027 planning is supposed to be for.
Five reasons customers don’t show up
Once you start asking, the answers usually land in one of these buckets. I’ve written them the way customers actually say them, because that’s how you’ll hear them.
Awareness: “I didn’t know you had that.”
Priority: “It’s not a priority for me.”
Time: “We’re just really overwhelmed with other things right now.”
Overwhelm: “I saw that. To be honest, I just didn’t even know where to start.”
Not using the product: “We’ll get to it. I haven’t even had time to really use it.”
Each one needs a different fix. Awareness is a communication problem. Overwhelm means customers need one clear place to start. And not using the product sends you back to adoption before you touch the program at all.
How do you find out why?
Start with the signal you already have, and go in this order.
Check product adoption first. If the customers skipping the program are also light users of the product, you have your answer.
Ask in CSM conversations. Your CSMs already talk to these customers. Give them one question to ask and somewhere to log the answer.
Send a survey. Keep it short, and send it to the customers who haven’t participated.
Send an email from the program leader. A personal note asking what’s getting in the way gets a different kind of answer.
Add an in-app pop-up. Catch them where they already are.
The full version, with the five reasons and the five ways to ask, is in The Why Before More graphic below. Steal it, and send it to whoever runs your customer programs before planning starts.
Before you build the 2027 plan
Next year someone is going to ask for more budget, more headcount or more hours for a program. Before anyone says yes, ask the question I asked on that call.
What’s one program you’re planning to do more of in 2027, and do you know why it isn’t driving the results you want to see today?
If you can’t answer the second half yet, that’s okay. That’s your first project of the year.
I write about decisions like this every week in After the Close, The Customer Revenue Newsletter. Subscribe here.
