From Customer Success Summit 2017 - Adam Avramescu, Director of Optiverse and Customer Education at Optimizely, discusses "Customer Education - The Scale Engine for Customer Success". Learn more about Customer Success Summit: http://customersuccesssummit.com Totango is the leading enterprise- grade customer success platform that helps recurring revenue businesses proactively impact business outcomes with customer success. With solutions to empower Customer Success Teams or entire companies, Totango enables everyone to participate in customer success. Learn more at www.totango.com.

1. Customer Education:
The Scale Engine for Customer Success
• Adam Avramescu
• Optimizely
• Director, Optiverse & Customer Education
• Twitter: @avramescu

2. We educate customers to drive
adoption, retention, expansion,
and LTV.
But how do we educate them?

3. Is it this?
...am I doing it right?

5. Most of what we think of as
customer education is actually just
a product knowledge dump.

6. Customers don’t care about using
your product.
They care about outcomes.

7. Why
do
companies
invest
in
Customer
Education?
• Education
Services
were
historically
a
professional
service
on
a
P&L.
• Newer
companies
see
it
emerging
from
ad
hoc
CSM
and
Support
activities.
Typical
starting
points
• “Customers
keep
asking
for
on-­‐site
training
as
a
service.”
• “Someone
needs
to
write
all
these
support
articles.”
• “CSMs
deliver
the
same
training
over
and
over.
Someone
should
do
that
full-­‐time.”
• “[Company
X]
has
an
Academy.
That
looks
like
a
cool
marketing
activity.”

8. Here’s the secret:
Education is the scale engine of
your Customer Success team.

9. Who’s doing this really well already?

10. How we do it: The Optiverse

11. Education made a strong impact on Optimizely’s
support deflectionNumberofsupporttickets
April 2014: we released Optiverse, our
self-serve, scalable education program

12. Downstream, Education programs affect product usage
Predictive analysis: customers
who view educational materials in
months 1-3 more likely to run
additional MUVs in month 4
Correlation: customers who
complete more courses or
learning paths run more
experiments in Optimizely

13. Education programs also have an impact on retention
(net expansion)

14. Powered by
Knowledge
Base:
Scale
solutions
and
strategy

15. Powered by
In-­‐Product
Education:
Guide
and
nurture
contextually

16. Powered by
Academy:
Provide
linear
paths
to
value

17. Community:
Drive
collaboration
Powered by

18. Industry Education >
Product Training
Test,
Learn,
Iterate
Learn
through
Interaction
Optimizely’s educational
values

19. Stage 2:
Performing
Stage 1:
Reacting
Stage 3:
Scaling
Stage 4:
Optimizing
Ad hoc. Focus on reactive service.
Basic documentation, FAQs, lots of love from CSMs & Support.
Repeatable processes. Focus on churn.
Onboarding training decks, repeated sessions, periodic webinars, knowledge
base.
Scalable programs. Focus on growth & expansion.
Structured Education programs, tied to metrics and milestones. Self-paced
content.
Mature programs. Focus on LTV & customer maturity.
Education at scale throughout the lifecycle. Education woven in-product.
Custom programs intentionally drive value or generate revenue.
Your
Education
program
grows
with
your
CS
program

20. Where
will
education
make
an
impact?
Stage 2:
Performing
Stage 1:
Reacting
Stage 3:
Scaling
Stage 4:
Optimizing
Fulfilling immediate needs (you’re probably not tracking much!)
Speed to onboarding milestones, CSAT, NPS
Above, plus: Ticket Deflection, Product Usage, Retention, Team Ratios
Above, plus: Expansion, Sales & Marketing Attribution, Revenue

21. Education is a
competitive differentiator
for your business.

22. So let’s treat customer education
as a program, not an activity.

23. “The help system is fantastic, with a depth of
knowledge that even advanced users can
learn from. Blows away the competition.”
- Enterprise customer, NPS 10

24. Self-serve support gives us a competitive edge. I assumed that a
Strategic customer wouldn’t care much about our KB or Optiverse.
But Eda said these were a lifesaver for her, because a big part of
her role is internally evangelizing Optimizely and that takes a lot of
training and education.
These resources help her scale the knowledge and gives her an easy
place to point coworkers. She loves that “I can just Google any
question I have about Optimizely. How do I force a variation? Oh
there it is.”
- Product Manager after Strategic
Customer on-site visit

25. What questions do you have?
• Twitter: @avramescu
• adam.avramescu@optimizely.com