According to new research by Absorb LMS and Lighthouse Research & Advisory, 51% of customer education programs describe themselves as "mature and continuously optimized." But when researchers tested those programs against what maturity requires, only 19% passed.
Are you in the 19%? Or do you sit inside that 51% majority who’s confident in the maturity of their program, but may not be able to prove it?
Below is a completely unscientific quiz. But it might spark some thinking about the maturity of your own customer education program. The real research is in. Download the state of customer education in 2026 report to see where you rank among 500 organizations on customer education maturity, measurement, and best practices — and get specific practices that’ll boost your program, no matter where you’re starting from.
Eight questions. Zero judgment. And a way to win.
The non-scientific customer education maturity quiz
Share the quiz among your colleagues in customer education, customer success, enablement, and ops. Talk through the questions honestly. Your answers might be a catalyst for building your own program with proven, specific practices of top-performing organizations.
1. Who's your executive sponsor?
A) A named executive who's formally on the hook for our outcomes. A real human with real investment who knows the stakes.
B) Karle in the C-suite "really believes in what we're doing." Karle has no budget authority.
C) We don’t have a dedicated sponsor, but we do have a dedicated Slack channel. (In fact, I just posted the Elmo-on-fire-gif in it this morn.)
2. Where does your customer training budget come from?
A) A dedicated, recurring line item. It survives planning season without me sending chocolate bribes.
B) We split a budget with another team, and every quarter is a hostage negotiation. We sometimes win.
C) Whatever's left after the offsite.
3. When did you last update your content?
A) It's refreshed continuously, tied to product releases and the customer lifecycle.
B) We do a heroic update once or twice a year, then lie down.
C) Our flagship course can be described as dusty. Or moldy.
4. What happens after a customer finishes onboarding?
A) They hit a planned sequence of touchpoints mapped to renewals, releases, and the moments churn happens.
B) They get a newsletter. Sometimes.
C) They vanish into the mist, like a ghost. Godspeed, learner.
5. Leadership asks: "What's the ROI of this customer education program?" You say:
A) "Here's the number," and then you show them an actual number connected to retention, adoption, or support costs.
B) "We're very confident in our impact," while quietly knowing your LMS and CRM have never been formally introduced to each other.
C) You change the subject to completion rates and hope nobody follows up.
6. A learner goes silent for 60 days. What's next?
A) A defined re-engagement play kicks in — CS outreach, a nudge tied to something they care about.
B) An automated email goes out. Subject line: "We miss you!" (We don’t look at the open rate.)
C) Nothing. We assume they're thriving.
7. How does customer success factor into your training program?
A) CS actively recommends it to customers and gets our engagement data ahead of quarterly reviews. We live and die by the idea that training’s part of the relationship.
B) CS mentions it if a customer asks. Or if a renewal situation is looking too quiet and there’s panic building.
C) CS and the LMS have never officially met. (We’re assuming they’re both doing fabulously.)
8. What's the top customer training metric you report to leadership?
A) A business outcome like retention lift, adoption, or ticket deflection, with learning data feeding it.
B) Enrollments. The numbers are going up.
C) Vibes, beautiful vibes. Such a strong quarter for vibes!
Your results
Mostly As — The operationally proven (a.k.a. The 19%)
Congrats, you're the program everyone else benchmarks against. You have a sponsor, content that doesn't smell like 2022, and — rarest of all — a number leadership trusts. Your homework: See how the rest of the top tier compounds those advantages, because the gap between you and everyone else is widening.
Mostly Bs — The confidently optimistic (a.k.a. The 32%)
Welcome to the most crowded club in customer education. You’ve got a program that feels mature but you’re also one leadership change or one budget cycle away from re-justifying its existence from scratch. The research Absorb and Lighthouse did found the fix isn't more confidence, it's sequencing. You're closer than you think; you're just building in the wrong order – and building a customer education business case that gets approved is usually where the right order starts. Your homework: Download the report, see where you are, and build it into a top-performing program.
Mostly Cs — The beautiful chaos
Big respect. You're running a program on duct tape and belief, but the report data has really encouraging news for you. The highest-performing programs aren't better funded or better staffed — they just built a handful of specific habits first. You don't need a million-dollar budget or a miracle. You just need a starting point. And we’ve got you.
The plot twist
In the actual research behind this quiz — 500 organizations, real methodology, no tongue and cheek like this quiz — more than half of the programs that said they were "very confident" in their ROI had at least one fundamental measurement gap like missing analytics or disconnected systems.
Confidence is good. But confidence without receipts is a problem because leadership needs those receipts when it’s budget time.
The full report breaks down what the top 19% built, the five operating habits that separate programs where learners come back, and a sequenced path forward whether you scored As, Bs, or "please stop asking me questions."
One more thing before you go (doesn't count for a score, just checkin’)
AI isn't one of the report's four pillars or five habits, but it's a conversation happening in some customer ed team meetings. So no scoring, no judgment, just tell us if any of these sound familiar.
Overheard in the office...
A) "We're using AI for personalized paths and rethinking how we measure things." (We also started saying “agentic” unprompted. Go us.)
B) "AI drafted the outline and we didn’t tell anyone."
C) "We asked AI to make training more fun. It suggested something about a miniature goat mascot. Do we have budget for that?"
If you picked A, congrats — you're ahead of the 71% of programs still stuck on "incremental." If you picked C, you're not alone. Most programs don’t have budget lines for miniature goats... and haven't gotten past outlines and quiz questions with AI yet. Bottom line? Start wherever you are.
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