In today’s competitive landscape, providing an outstanding product or service is only half the battle. Companies also need to ensure their customers know how to use those offerings to the fullest. This is where a customer education team comes in – a dedicated group focused on teaching and enabling customers to succeed. A well-executed customer education program can have profound business impacts, from higher customer satisfaction to increased revenue and retention. In fact, one study found that 90% of companies report a positive return on their customer education investment. Educated customers are more likely to adopt your product’s features, stick around longer, and even advocate for your brand. For HR professionals, business owners, and enterprise leaders, building a customer education team is becoming a strategic necessity to drive these outcomes.
This article will explore the essential skills and key roles needed to build an effective customer education team. We’ll also discuss best practices for assembling and growing this team, ensuring it becomes an integral part of your organization’s success strategy. By the end, you’ll have a clear roadmap for the competencies to look for and the positions to fill as you establish a team that empowers your customers through education.
A successful customer education team requires a blend of hard skills (technical and domain-specific abilities) and soft skills (people and organizational skills). When hiring and developing your team, prioritize the following skill sets:
In summary, building a strong customer education team means hiring people who not only have the technical skills to create and deliver training but also the soft skills to engage and support learners. The quality of the people is critical – as one industry expert noted, hard skills are important, but great soft skills can matter even more when it comes to educating customers effectively. With the right mix of communication, design, technical, and analytical abilities, your team will be well-equipped to empower customers through learning.
When assembling a customer education team, it’s important to define the key roles that will drive your program. The size and composition of the team can vary based on your organization’s needs – in a small company, one person might wear multiple hats, whereas larger enterprises will have specialized positions. Still, there are core roles that nearly every customer education team should cover. Industry guides commonly recommend including several foundational roles, such as a program leader, content developers (instructional designers), product experts, and technical support for the learning platform. Below, we outline the essential roles and their primary responsibilities:
This is the captain of the customer education team, responsible for overall strategy and results. The Program Lead (sometimes titled Customer Education Manager or Program Owner) sets the vision for the education program and coordinates all efforts. They define the learning strategy in line with business goals, decide which initiatives to prioritize, and ensure the program delivers value to both customers and the company. Key duties include setting program goals and KPIs, securing necessary resources, and reporting the impact of customer education to leadership. An ideal program lead is a strategic thinker with strong leadership and communication skills. They often act as a bridge between departments – for example, working with Product to schedule training on new features, or with Customer Success to identify common customer challenges to address in training. In short, this role connects the dots between the customer education effort and the broader business objectives. (Tip: When first building your team, having a capable program owner and an executive sponsor is crucial to get things off the ground.)
Subject Matter Experts are the knowledge powerhouses who provide in-depth understanding of the product or subject being taught. In many cases, SMEs are not exclusively part of the customer education department – they could be product managers, engineers, or veteran customer success agents whose expertise is tapped to create accurate training content. SMEs work closely with the education team to outline what customers need to learn and to review content for technical correctness. For example, if you’re training users on a software platform, an SME ensures that the workflows and examples in your training reflect real use cases and the latest product functionality. Their role is to ensure the substance of training is solid. Because they have deep product knowledge, SMEs help translate complex information into teachable insights. When resources are limited, you might “borrow” SMEs from other teams on a part-time basis to contribute to the education program. It’s important to allocate time for SMEs to collaborate with instructional designers – this partnership produces content that is both technically accurate and user-friendly.
Instructional Designers (also known as e-learning designers or content developers) are the architects of the learning experience. They take the raw knowledge from SMEs and design training materials that effectively educate customers. This role involves structuring courses or tutorials in a logical progression, writing clear instructional text, developing engaging visuals or interactive elements, and generally making sure that learning objectives are met. An instructional designer often conducts a training needs analysis to understand the audience and pinpoint what skills or knowledge gaps need to be filled. From there, they create storyboards or lesson plans and then build the actual content – be it slide decks, written guides, video scripts, or interactive e-learning modules. A great instructional designer is part educator, part storyteller; they know how to make content digestible and interesting so that customers not only learn, but enjoy the process. In smaller teams, this person may also double as a content writer or even a trainer. In larger teams, you might have multiple specialists (e.g., one focused on curriculum design and another on multimedia development). Regardless, this role is central to producing high-quality educational content that drives product adoption and customer success.
Not all customer education is delivered via self-service courses – many programs include live components like webinars, workshops, or training sessions (either virtual or in-person). The Trainer or Facilitator is the face of the education program in those live interactions. Their job is to teach or train learners in a classroom-style setting, while keeping the audience engaged and ensuring the material is understood. Great trainers are not just subject experts, but skilled presenters who can simplify concepts, answer questions on the fly, and adapt to the audience’s level of knowledge. They use facilitation techniques to spark interaction, whether it’s asking questions, running demos, or guiding hands-on exercises. This role becomes especially important if your product is complex or if high-touch training is a value-added service you offer to enterprise clients. A good facilitator brings energy and clarity, turning what could be a one-way lecture into a two-way learning experience. They also gather real-time feedback – by observing where learners get confused or which topics generate the most interest, trainers provide insights to the rest of the team on how to improve the curriculum. In some teams, the same person might design content and also deliver it; in others, there are dedicated trainers. If you plan to scale instructor-led training or certification workshops, having a professional trainer on the team is invaluable.
Behind every smooth online learning experience is a reliable technical setup. The Technical Specialist (sometimes called an LMS Administrator or Technical Lead) is the go-to person for the tools and technologies that power your customer academy. This role manages the Learning Management System or online platform – configuring course catalogs, user access, integrations with other systems (CRM, product, etc.), and ensuring data flows correctly. As Northpass notes, a technical lead makes sure all the “nuts and bolts” are in place so that the education content reaches the right learners and progress is tracked properly. Responsibilities can include uploading course content, troubleshooting any technical issues customers encounter (e.g., login problems or video playback issues), and implementing analytics or certification tracking. They may also work on integrating the training platform with company systems – for example, linking it with your product interface to provide in-app tutorials, or setting up single sign-on for customers to seamlessly access the academy. The technical specialist needs a mix of IT skills and understanding of learning technology. By having someone focused on the technical infrastructure, your educators and trainers can focus on content, knowing the delivery system is in capable hands.
Depending on the scale of your customer education efforts, you might include additional specialists to enhance the program’s effectiveness. For instance, some organizations have a Graphic Designer or Multimedia Specialist on the team to create polished visuals, infographics, and videos that make the learning content more engaging. High-quality graphics and video editing can significantly improve the professionalism and clarity of your training materials. Another role seen in mature teams is a Customer Education Marketing Specialist – someone who focuses on driving customer awareness and adoption of the educational content. It’s not enough to build great training if no one knows about it; an education marketing specialist promotes new courses (via email, in-app messages, community forums, etc.) and highlights the value of learning opportunities to customers. This role ensures that customers are connected with the right content at the right time, boosting engagement in the program.
Additionally, as your team grows, you may consider a Data Analyst dedicated to the education program. This person would dive deep into learning analytics and business outcomes, helping to track and report the program’s impact – for example, correlating training completion with customer renewal rates. In many cases, the program manager or technical lead might handle analytics initially, but a specialized data role can add rigor and demonstrate ROI more clearly. Finally, don’t forget the importance of an Executive Sponsor (usually a senior leader outside the team) who champions the customer education initiative at the executive level. While not a day-to-day role within the team, an executive sponsor’s support is critical to secure funding, encourage cross-department collaboration, and maintain alignment with company strategy.
Note: Not every organization will staff all these roles immediately. Often, one person may cover multiple responsibilities in the early stages (for example, a single individual might plan the curriculum, create content, and deliver webinars). As Intellum’s experts point out, consider these roles as guidelines – some can be combined or scaled based on your needs. The key is that the functions are covered. A lean team could start with just a program lead and an instructional designer who pulls in SMEs as needed; a larger team might have dedicated hires for each role. Ensure that your team, in sum, has the capacity to strategize, create content, deliver training, manage the technology, and measure results.
Building a customer education team from scratch can seem daunting, but following a few best practices will set you up for success. Whether you’re a small business assembling your first training team or a larger enterprise expanding an existing team, these guidelines will help in hiring and organizing effectively:
By following these best practices – securing leadership support, appointing strong leadership, collaborating cross-functionally, focusing on high-impact content, leveraging data, and scaling smartly – you will lay a solid foundation for your customer education team. Remember that building such a team is a journey. Even world-class customer academies like HubSpot Academy started with humble resources and grew over time. Stay patient and persistent: as long as you keep the customer’s success as your north star, your education team will increasingly drive meaningful results for your business.
Investing in a customer education team is ultimately an investment in your customers’ success – and by extension, your company’s success. When you equip customers with the knowledge to solve problems and achieve their goals using your product, you create a win-win scenario. Customers become more satisfied and loyal, and your business reaps the benefits through higher retention rates, greater product adoption, and more efficient use of support resources. As we’ve discussed, assembling a capable customer education team requires careful thought about the skills (from communication to instructional design to data analysis) and the roles (from program lead to trainers and content creators) needed to drive a strong program.
For HR leaders and executives, the key takeaway is that a customer education team should be viewed as a strategic function, not a nice-to-have extra. It’s a cross-disciplinary effort that, when done right, can turn customers into power users and brand advocates. The process starts small – maybe with one passionate individual or a few borrowed resources – but with clear goals and leadership support, it can grow into a formal team that delivers measurable business impact. In an era where customer experience is paramount, empowering your users through education is a powerful differentiator. By building a team dedicated to customer learning, you demonstrate a genuine commitment to your customers’ success. Over time, this not only improves outcomes for your customers but also builds trust and strengthens your reputation in the market.
In conclusion, building a customer education team is about more than hiring for roles – it’s about creating a culture of continuous learning and support for your customers. With the right people in place and a focus on strategic goals, your customer education team can become a driving force for growth, customer retention, and brand loyalty. Equip your team with the necessary skills, give them a clear mission, and watch as empowered customers fuel the success of your enterprise for the long term
The key skills include communication and empathy, instructional design, deep product knowledge, technical proficiency, data analysis, project management, and adaptability.
Common roles include the Program Lead/Manager, Subject Matter Experts, Instructional Designers, Trainers or Facilitators, LMS or Technical Specialists, and possibly additional roles like multimedia specialists or marketing coordinators.
Begin by securing executive support, defining clear goals, appointing a capable team lead, leveraging cross-functional expertise, and focusing on high-impact content for quick wins.
Scale thoughtfully based on data and feedback, expand roles as demand grows, maintain clear role definitions, and continually revisit goals and strategies to maximize impact.
Data helps measure the effectiveness of training, demonstrate ROI, identify areas for improvement, and ensure the program aligns with business outcomes like customer retention and product adoption.
