New Absorb Software and Lighthouse Research & Advisory Study Reveals How the Highest-Performing Customer Education Programs Turn Learning into Measurable Growth

Benchmarking study of more than 500 organizations maps the practices behind the strongest programs

CALGARY, Alberta, June 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Absorb Software, the leading global learning technology company, today released The State of Customer Education 2026, a benchmarking study of more than 500 organizations conducted in partnership with Lighthouse Research & Advisory. The report identifies the practices that distinguish high-performing customer education programs delivering measurable business results, from retention to product adoption, and outlines a clear path for programs to achieve them. The strongest programs report a two-to-three-times advantage across learner return, ROI confidence, and strategic positioning, and the research isolates the specific, repeatable habits behind that gap.

Absorb and Lighthouse Research & Advisory will present the findings, and what the top programs do differently, in a live webinar on Thursday, June 25 at 11:00 a.m. ET. Save your spot.

The report gives the field something it has lacked: a shared, evidence-based picture of what a high-performing customer education program actually looks like, and a sequence for getting there. It focuses less on how programs rate themselves today and more on the specific, repeatable practices that connect learning to the outcomes leadership already tracks, so any team can benchmark where it stands and see what to do next.

"For years, customer education teams made the case that their work mattered, and that case is largely won," said Leslie Kelley, Chief Growth Officer at Absorb Software. "What the research makes clear is that recognition has arrived faster than the infrastructure most programs have built to support it. The most useful question a leader can ask is not whether their program is mature. It is whether they can connect the work to an outcome the business already counts. When the answer is yes, the program stops needing an internal advocate. It has a number, and the number does the work."

The study takes a deep dive into where customer education programs stand on maturity, measurement, and the operating practices that separate top performers from the rest, drawing on survey responses from over 500 organizations and qualitative interviews with practitioners and industry leaders conducted in early 2026.

Key Findings: What Separates the Programs That Endure

• Five habits separate the leaders. The programs with the highest learner return rates are not the best funded or the best staffed. They share five operating habits: continuously refreshed content, tiered certifications, repeat participation driven by Customer Success, proactive engagement across the customer lifecycle, and a defined plan to re-engage inactive learners. Content and certification are the clearest dividing lines: keeping content current gives learners a reason to come back, and the certification gap is just as concrete. 51% of high-return programs offer multiple or tiered certifications versus 25% of low-return programs, and 44% offer none at all. A single tier gives learners a reason to complete; multiple tiers give them a reason to return. Programs with three or more of these habits pull significantly ahead.
• Measurement is the biggest unlock. 52% of programs say they are very confident they can demonstrate return on investment, yet more than half of that group still reports at least one fundamental measurement gap, from missing analytics capability to disconnected systems. Closing it is what lets a program show its value with a number rather than a narrative.
• The attention is real; the foundation is the opportunity. 44% of organizations now treat customer education as a strategic growth lever and 78% review it at least quarterly, but only 19% have built the foundation that sustains it: an accountable sponsor, a dedicated budget, current content, and proactive engagement across the customer lifecycle. A third still operate with no executive sponsor at all.
• Retention is the goal, and investment can follow it. 57% of programs name retention as their top objective, yet 42% concentrate their spend on onboarding, well before the renewal and expansion moments where churn risk concentrates. The 18% with both a dedicated budget and an accountable sponsor report 72% strategic positioning and 74% ROI confidence, versus 25% and 36% for programs with neither.
• AI adoption is early, and that is the opportunity. Only 29% of customer education programs report significant or fundamental change from AI, leaving the highest-value uses, including personalized learning paths and measurement infrastructure, largely untapped. The programs that move first stand to widen the gap on those that wait.
• Selling training as a product is a different game. The 216 organizations that run training as a revenue line have already won the battles customer education is still fighting: 62% have a formally accountable sponsor, versus 33%. Their challenge is reaching buyers and keeping them. Programs running three or more sales channels report roughly twice the high-return rate of single-channel programs, and 65% still call their content periodically updated or outdated, the shared weak point with customer education.

"The data is consistent. Leadership belief is no longer the bottleneck. Proof is," said Ben Eubanks, Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory. "The programs that break out are not the ones with the biggest teams. They are the ones that can show, in numbers an executive already cares about, that education changed the result. Once that connection exists, budget and sponsorship follow, and the data shows exactly what to build first."

For customer education teams, the connected measurement the report identifies as the dividing line is exactly what Absorb is building toward. Aura, the company's AI intelligence layer, ties learning activity to the systems where customers already track outcomes, so teams can show impact without stitching disconnected tools together by hand.

See the Data Live: Join the Webinar on June 25

Absorb and Lighthouse Research & Advisory will host a one-hour webinar unpacking the findings on Thursday, June 25, 2026, at 11:00 a.m. ET. Ben Eubanks will walk through the data, joined by Debbie Smith, President of CEdMA, who will translate the numbers into what high-performing programs do differently day to day. Attendees will leave with a clear read on where their own program stands and a short list of the moves that matter most right now. Registration is open now at absorbl.ms/up11u.

To read the full report, visit: The State of Customer Education 2026

To learn more about Absorb Aura, visit https://www.absorblms.com/products/absorb-aura.

Methodology: The 2026 Customer Education Benchmarking Survey was conducted by Lighthouse Research & Advisory and commissioned by Absorb. Of 875 total respondents, 502 completed the full survey: 286 from the customer education cohort and 216 from the training-as-product cohort, across more than 20 industries. Findings were supplemented by qualitative interviews with customer education practitioners and industry leaders conducted in the first quarter of 2026.

About Absorb Software

Absorb Software is the leading global learning technology company that drives the business forward. Trusted by more than 3,800 organizations and 37 million learners worldwide across customer, partner, and employee audiences, Absorb is the only system that connects workforce readiness to business outcomes. With Aura as its AI intelligence layer, Absorb gets smarter with every interaction, and is the learning system enterprises can rely on and the readiness system their business cannot run without. For more information, visit absorblms.com.

About Lighthouse Research & Advisory

Lighthouse Research & Advisory is a modern analyst firm dedicated to setting the standard for excellence in talent, learning, and HR. By providing compelling research and actionable insights for business leaders, our team’s mission is to navigate the rapidly changing field of human capital management to support today’s talent and learning functions.

Our advisory, research, content, events, HR Awards Program, and other offerings serve tens of thousands of employers across the globe every year.

Put simply: our goal is to chart a new course for talent. We do this with compelling research, innovative ideas, and a strong grasp of the current state of talent and technology at work. We have supported hundreds of organizations with our research, advisory, and insights since our beginning in 2016. In addition, our data also inform key product and strategy decisions at the industry’s leading technology and service providers.

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