- Customer Education Chronicles
- Posts
- Customer Education Isn't Customer Success (And That's Actually a Good Thing)
Customer Education Isn't Customer Success (And That's Actually a Good Thing)
Customer education isn't just another responsibility for your CS team, instead it's the lever that makes them scalable.
Manasi Shukla
October 28, 2025
"Aren't customer education and customer success the same thing?"
I have heard this question often!
And I get it!
Both teams are focused on helping customers succeed. Both care deeply about product adoption and customer outcomes.
But here's the thing: they both are two distinct functions that, when aligned, and working together create something powerful.
Let me break down what I mean.
The Difference
Customer Success is all about relationships. Your CS team is in the trenches with customers daily, understanding their goals, troubleshooting roadblocks, and ensuring they're getting the outcomes they signed up for. It's personal, human, and often reactive to what customers need at the moment.
Customer Education is about creating those “aha” moments at scale. It's about building resources, programs, and journeys that help customers master your product, whether that's one person or one thousand. It's proactive, strategic, and designed to accelerate trust and product adoption.
How They Work Together
When I worked with a mid-market eQMS healthcare SaaS company, this partnership came to life.
The phenomenal customer success team was on the front lines talking to customers, gathering feedback, and identifying patterns in what people were struggling with.
But we didn't let that feedback sit in a spreadsheet somewhere. We turned it into action.
Every week, we'd triage the questions and support tickets coming in. If the team identified knowledge gaps or kept answering the same question, that was my cue.
I'd create targeted training materials such as video walkthroughs, knowledge base articles, interactive guides that could serve hundreds of customers simultaneously.
This wasn't about replacing the human touch.
It was about freeing up customer success to focus on strategic relationships while education handled the scalable knowledge transfer.
Measuring What Actually Matters
After launching new training content, we tracked outcomes:
NPS scores: Did satisfaction improve after education initiatives?
Support ticket volume: Were we seeing fewer repetitive questions?
In-person check-ins: What was the CS team hearing in their customer conversations now?
Usage analytics: Were customers actually engaging with the content?
This data-driven approach allowed us to refine training in real time, improving engagement and proving ROI.
Companies that implement a customer education strategy saw 26.2% increase in product satisfaction.
Customer Education is How Success Teams Scale
A CS member can only manage so many accounts, take so many calls, and answer so many questions.
Customer education is how success teams break through that ceiling.
That's where customer education becomes absolutely critical.
When you invest in education, you're giving your customer success team superpowers.
Is Your Customer Success Team Drowning in Repetitive Questions?
If your CS team is spending hours answering the same questions, or if your training feels disconnected from what customers actually need, let's talk.
Book a free 20-minute strategy call.
We'll identify where customer education can support your success team, reduce their reactive workload, and accelerate product adoption.
Don't let your customer success team burn out doing work that could be scaled through strategic education.
Until next time,
Manasi
Want bite-sized tips sent to your inbox each week? Join my newsletter for strategic insights on building training programs that drive product adoption.