"Making a List, Checking it Twice" An EOY Checklist for Customer Education Program Managers
Summary:
Closing out the year with a solid plan is essential for customer education leads and program managers. This post provides a practical end-of-year checklist, helping managers wrap up key tasks like auditing course content, reviewing engagement and performance metrics, gathering stakeholder feedback, and setting preliminary goals for the coming year.
With 2024 winding down and 2025 lurking just around the corner, there's no better time to evaluate the past year’s successes and challenges and begin making strategic plans for the future. Seriously, we have - what... ~6 weeks left in the year?
Use this checklist to focus on core aspects of your education programs, like content audits, strategic goals and performance metrics, stakeholder feedback, and forward planning. With these steps as a guide, you'll be ready to close the book on 2024 and dive into 2025. Alongside that, it can help identify opportunities to optimize the work you and your team do to deliver exceptional learning experiences.
Your End-of-Year Checklist:
Review goals, metrics, & KPIs for strategic alignment
Analyze Key Metrics: Pull data and reports to ensure your program is on track to meet strategic business goals. Common metrics to examine include completion rates, knowledge retention scores, customer satisfaction, and overall program ROI.
Set and Compare Benchmarks: Compare this year’s data with previous years to identify trends - positive and negative. Have certain course metrics improved year over year? Are there areas where performance has dipped? Capture data for any new performance metrics that could serve as a benchmark in 2025.
Highlight Successes and Gaps: Document areas where your program excelled and any noticeable gaps that require additional focus in the coming year.
Action item:
Create a summary of successes and areas for improvement, and draft next steps for KPI adjustments in 2025.
Resources
5 Signs It’s Time to Refresh Your Customer Education Strategy Echtus
State of Education Services 2024 TSIA
Measurement Framework Template Echtus (PDF download)
Gather stakeholder & customer feedback
Survey your Customers: Capture customers’ opinions on your educational content and its impact on their success. Ask for their insights on content clarity, relevance, and any specific requests to support their learning. Collaborate to incentive-ise responses with company swag, a gift card, or a tin of holiday cookies (ok, maybe not the last one…or maybe…).
Schedule Stakeholder Reviews: Meet with cross-functional teams and stakeholders to discuss their goals for customer education, including collaboration for new features, product updates, or other initiatives that may impact the team or program in the coming year.
Identify Collaboration Opportunities: Note potential collaboration opportunities with other teams like Product, Support, or Marketing, for efficiency and accuracy in content development and holistic learning experiences.
Action item:
Summarize key feedback from customers and stakeholders and list potential new topics or initiatives for 2025.
Resources:
When Content Collides: Content Marketing and Customer Education can be a Powerful Duo Echtus
How Customer Experience Evaluations Can Improve Education Services TSIA
The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration in Learning Thought Industries
Set preliminary goals & metrics for 2025
Define Success Criteria: Set clear goals for the upcoming year. That could be increasing engagement with existing content, improving completion rates, or launching a certain number of new courses. Dig in to identify the key metrics and data that demonstrates success.
Set Monthly and/or Quarterly Targets: Break down annual goals into achievable monthly or quarterly benchmarks for easier tracking and course correction.
Build a Reporting and Review Schedule: Create a reporting cadence (monthly or quarterly) to keep stakeholders informed. Consider setting up quarterly check-ins in the new year for ongoing opportunities to highlight program performance, ensure ongoing alignment, and build bridges with stakeholders and teams.
Action item:
Finalize your goals for 2025 and build a draft reporting schedule to ensure continuous tracking and alignment.
Resources:
The Myth of the "Trained Customer" Echtus
6-Step Guide to Customer Education Program Planning Echtus (PDF download)
Conduct a content audit
Review for Relevance: Analyze your current program offerings to see if they still align with your customer needs, products, and services. Call out and log any outdated content that needs to be refreshed, reorg-ed, or removed.
Check on Engagement: Which courses had the highest and lowest engagement? Low engagement may signal a need to revamp the content or reconsider its delivery method.
Optimize for Accessibility: Review content to ensure it meets accessibility standards and is usable across devices and formats.
Action item:
Build an inventory of content needing updates, removal, or improvements to accessibility.
Resources:
How to Run a Content Audit in 2024 Hubspot
Customizable Content Audit spreadsheet Google Docs
Why Accessibility Should Be the Foundation of Your Customer and Partner Education Skilljar
Plan for content refreshes & new initiatives
Prioritize Key Content Updates: Take what you learn from your content audit, customers, and stakeholder feedback and prioritize updates to your learning content . Start roadmpping or scheduling these updates for the first quarter of the new year.
Identify New Learning: List and prioritize the new topics or modules you'll need in 2025, include justifications for how these will meet evolving customer needs or product changes.
Build a Content Calendar: Create a high-level content calendar to help roadmap new content creation, updates, and marketing promotions to ensure your team stays aligned and on track.
Action item:
Draft a roadmap for content updates and additions, with tentative deadlines and team assignments.
Resources:
How to Choose Optimal Content and Delivery Formats for Customer Education Programs Echtus
How to Repurpose Training Content for Different User Roles Intellum
Perform a technology & tools assessment
Evaluate Existing Tools: Have you reviewed your LMS, CRM, and other tools to ensure they are supporting your customer education goals efficiently? Identify gaps in functionality, user experience, and other pain points.
Explore Emerging Tech: Explore technologies that have the potential to enhance your program in 2025, like AI-driven content recommendations, interactive modules, or more advanced reporting tools.
Action item:
List any tools that need to be upgraded, replaced, or added to your tech stack, along with a budget estimate for next year.
Resources:
14 Top Features to Look for in a Customer Education Platform Echtus
20 Leading Customer Training Tools (& Why an LMS is The Best Option) LearnWorlds
Celebrate your wins & recognize your Team
Highlight Program Achievements: Take time to reflect on your team’s successes, big and small, throughout the entire year. Share these achievements internally to recognize contributions.
Encourage Team Development: Identify training and professional development opportunities for yourself and your team that can strengthen or enhance your customer education program.
Capture Team Ideas and Opinions: Hold space for your team to share insights, ideas, and opinions toward improving programs, content, workflows, and more.
Action item:
Schedule a year-end team meeting to celebrate achievements and discuss development goals for the coming year.
Resources:
What’s in a Team? : A breakdown of roles and reporting structures for customer education teams Echtus
Team Connectedness Atlassian
Set "Future You" up for Success
Wrap up 2024 on a high note and head into 2025 with a solid, ready-to-roll plan. Whether you’re giving your content a fresh look, realigning on strategic goals, or trying out new tools, every step brings you closer to a program that’s agile, effective, and totally in sync with your customers’ and organization's success.
Looking for a partner to support your program’s strategic alignment or help launch new initiatives in 2025 ?
Schedule a call today to see how we can help you build alignment and show results!
