Lab Essentials

About this episode

Vicky Kennedy, CEO and Founder of Echtus Software, shares a framework for measuring ROI that Customer Education teams can implement to tell the full story of training’s impact on business objectives.

Transcript of the video

Jeremy Davis:
Hello everybody and welcome. We’re excited to host another CloudShare webinar with Vicki Kennedy. We’ll give everyone a couple of minutes to join before we start. In the meantime, feel free to add in the chat where you’re joining from so we can see where everyone is around the world. I’m joining from Tel Aviv.

Great to see participants from Wisconsin, San Diego, Puerto Rico, Austin, Baltimore, Michigan, and Maine. We’ll give it another minute before we start.

A quick story while we wait: my family is always late to things. For Thanksgiving, relatives would tell us the start time was 30 minutes earlier than it actually was so we’d only arrive about 40 minutes late.

Alright, welcome everyone. We’re excited to host Vicki Kennedy, an expert in customer education. Today we’ll discuss a topic that’s very relevant right now: how to ensure customer education delivers ROI. It’s a question many teams—and many CFOs—are asking. Thanks for joining us, Vicki.

Vicki Kennedy:
Thanks Jeremy. I’m really excited to be here. Customer education and ROI are two of my favorite topics, so I’m looking forward to the discussion.

Jeremy Davis:
Before we start, we have a tradition of asking a fun poll question. The first one is simple but controversial: how do you pronounce GIF? Is it a hard “G” like gift, or a soft “G” like giraffe?

Vicki, where do you stand?

Vicki Kennedy:
I say “gif” with a hard G. I’ve never been able to hear it any other way.

Jeremy Davis:
Looks like most people also prefer the hard G. It’s funny how long this debate has been going on.

Vicki Kennedy:
My background is in graphic design, and this debate has been going on for more than 20 years.

Jeremy Davis:
Let’s jump into today’s topics. We’ll discuss:

• Different approaches to customer education ROI

• How to establish clear goals

• How to identify critical metrics

• Tools that help make customer education successful

We also want this to be interactive, so feel free to share thoughts in the chat.

Our next poll: what is your role in the company?

Results show about 59% are training managers, 10% instructors, and 31% L&D professionals.

Jeremy Davis:
Now let’s introduce you, Vicki. You have over 22 years of experience in education and tech, have worked with companies like Amazon and Meta, and you recently launched your consulting company, Ectis.

Vicki Kennedy:
Yes, Ectis means “authentic.” My experience spans academia, tech, product roles, and business strategy. I’ve worked as a practitioner and also served as a Chief Strategy Officer, so I bring multiple perspectives to customer education.

Jeremy Davis:
Let’s start with another poll: how does your organization use education?

Options:

• Compliance

• Service

• Strategy

Results show most use education as a service, some as strategy, and fewer for compliance.

Does that match what you see in the industry?

Vicki Kennedy:
Yes, that’s fairly typical. Let me explain the differences.

Education for compliance is common in HR—for example, security training or regulatory training. These programs exist mainly to meet compliance requirements.

The more interesting categories are:

Education as a service:
Education is sold directly to customers. It generates revenue through subscriptions, training packages, certifications, or live training sessions.

Education as a strategy:
Education supports broader business goals. For example:

• Improving customer retention

• Entering new markets

• Increasing product adoption

• Improving partner sales

In this model, education drives outcomes that benefit the business.

Jeremy Davis:
Do companies often start with one approach and shift to another?

Vicki Kennedy:
Yes. Many startups begin by using education as a strategy. As the company matures and demand for training increases, they may begin monetizing it.

However, one of my “hot takes” is that companies sometimes monetize education because they haven’t fully connected the strategic value. Education used strategically can generate far more value than simply selling training.

Jeremy Davis:
That raises an important question: how do you measure ROI for education when it’s not directly generating revenue?

Vicki Kennedy:
Great question. Measuring ROI for education as a service is straightforward because you can track revenue.

Measuring ROI for education as a strategy is more nuanced. It requires connecting education outcomes to business outcomes.

For example:

• Reduced churn

• Faster time to value

• Increased product adoption

• Higher trial conversion rates

Jeremy Davis:
Pam in the chat asked how many companies start with education as a professional service.

Vicki Kennedy:
Most of my clients focus on education as a strategy. Some also charge for premium services like live training or certification prep. Often both models exist simultaneously.

For example:

• Free onboarding programs (strategy)

• Paid advanced training (service)

Jeremy Davis:
Let’s talk about education as a strategic lever.

Vicki Kennedy:
Education can influence many areas of a business. It can support:

• Sales growth

• Market expansion

• Customer retention

• Product adoption

• Partner enablement

To connect education to ROI, teams must understand the company’s overall strategy and align their programs with it.

One major challenge I see is organizational silos. Customer education is often buried inside one department, which makes strategic alignment difficult.

Jeremy Davis:
That leads into your concept of a programmatic approach.

Vicki Kennedy:
Exactly.

Many companies treat customer education as one large “academy.” But that makes ROI difficult to measure.

Instead, I recommend structuring education into programs, each targeting a specific business objective.

Examples include:

• Onboarding programs

• Product adoption programs

• Sales enablement programs

• Help center education

• Feature adoption campaigns

Each program targets a specific audience and outcome, making ROI measurable.

Jeremy Davis:
You also describe six dimensions of an education strategy.

Vicki Kennedy:
Yes. The six dimensions are:

1. Program – What business problem or opportunity are we addressing?

2. Audience – Who is the learner?

3. Content – What knowledge or skills must they learn?

4. Delivery – How will we deliver the learning?

5. Marketing – How will learners discover the education?

6. Measurement – How will we evaluate success?

A common mistake is jumping directly to content or delivery without defining the program and audience first.

Jeremy Davis:
When should stakeholders be involved in this process?

Vicki Kennedy:
Early and often.

Different stakeholders participate at different stages:

• Executives help define strategic programs.

• Customer success or marketing teams help define audiences.

• Subject matter experts help develop content.

• Leadership helps select delivery technologies.

Frequent alignment prevents surprises when presenting results later.

Jeremy Davis:
Let’s talk more about measurement.

Vicki Kennedy:
Education measurement typically involves leading metrics and lagging metrics.

Leading metrics (engagement):

• Enrollments

• Course completions

• Participation

• Satisfaction

Lagging metrics (business impact):

• Conversion rates

• Retention

• Product adoption

• Revenue growth

For strategic programs, measurement often follows a sequence:

1. Did learners engage with the education?

2. Did they learn the intended concepts?

3. Did their behavior change?

4. Did that behavior create business impact?

For example:

• 80% of new customers completed onboarding

• 60% demonstrated learning outcomes

• Conversion increased by 40%

That tells a much stronger story than simply reporting course enrollments.

Jeremy Davis:
Tools also play an important role. What tools do you typically recommend?

Vicki Kennedy:
I focus mostly on strategic frameworks and measurement systems. For authoring and delivery, I stay relatively tool-agnostic.

One tool I like is Quantic, which is lightweight and fast for building learning experiences.

But regardless of the platform, the most important capability is analytics.

Jeremy Davis:
I completely agree. Tools must provide strong analytics and integrate well with the rest of your tech stack. Without analytics, it’s very hard to measure ROI.

Jeremy Davis:
As we wrap up, what advice would you give teams building a customer education strategy?

Vicki Kennedy:
Start by answering one simple question:

What is the purpose of this education program?

I often use a template like this:

“This program helps [audience] learn how to [skill] so they can [behavior], which results in [business outcome].”

For example:

“This program helps customers learn how to use advanced features so they can achieve better outcomes, which increases retention.”

Everything—content, delivery, measurement—flows from that statement.

Jeremy Davis:
Great advice. Vicki, thank you so much for joining us today.

Vicki Kennedy:
Thank you for having me. I’m happy to connect on LinkedIn or through my website, ectis.com.

Jeremy Davis:
Thanks everyone for joining us. Have a great rest of your day.