How proactive customer education can reduce support costs in SaaS

In the world of SaaS, customer support can quickly escalate into a major cost center. On average, SaaS companies spend €50 per support ticket, and as your user base grows, so does this cost, making it harder to sustain over time.

While the rise of AI offers a way to reduce these costs, especially with copilots handling repetitive queries, one thing remains clear: users don’t become experts overnight. Even with AI and support teams, autonomy doesn’t magically appear. Worse, the more you answer their questions, the more dependent they become, creating a vicious cycle of escalating support requests.

Proactive vs. reactive support

Many SaaS companies rely heavily on support teams to answer user questions. While this may seem like a simple solution, it’s a reactive approach. Support addresses immediate issues, but it doesn’t solve the underlying problem — the lack of autonomy on the user’s part.

Training, however, is proactive. It helps users gain a deeper understanding of your product and build long-term skills. By providing users with the tools and knowledge to explore on their own, you reduce their dependency on support, foster engagement, and enable them to fully leverage the product’s capabilities. After all, if a user doesn’t even know that a key feature exists, no amount of support will help them discover it.

But here's the key: timely, contextual training can make all the difference.

Two common pitfalls to avoid

When it comes to customer training in SaaS, we often see two major pitfalls:

1. The “quick and dirty” approach
This is typically seen in the form of product tours. Many teams believe that a simple, guided walkthrough is enough to train users. While product tours are great for providing quick tips, they don’t offer real skill-building. It's no surprise that companies like Intercom, known for their customer support, have ventured into this space — but these tools are more focused on support, not structured learning.

2. The 1:1 culture
Many Customer Success teams spend hours training users individually. While this approach can be effective in certain situations, it simply isn’t scalable. The solution? Automating parts of the training process and implementing a digital customer success strategy. This not only empowers users but also frees up valuable time for your team.

Best practices for building effective customer education

To truly drive adoption and engagement, your customer education strategy needs to be structured and thoughtful. Here are some best practices:

1. Analyze support requests
   Use your support data to identify recurring needs and create targeted training content around those pain points.
2. Vary your formats
   Microlearning tends to be the most effective. Short, 3–5 minute lessons help users grasp key concepts without overwhelming them.
3. Personalize the experience
   Tailor training based on the user’s maturity, goals, industry, or even language. The more relevant the training is, the more effective it will be.
4. Choose the right delivery channel
   Avoid relying on email (which can be ignored) or external LMS platforms (which disrupt the user experience). Instead, opt for in-app learning — delivering content directly within the tool users are already using, exactly when they need it.

Growing your users alongside your product

Support may solve immediate issues, but training is what empowers users in the long run. Educating your users allows them to get more value from your product, integrate it seamlessly into their workflows, and drive their own success. This leads to better retention and a more engaged user base.

Customer education is a winning strategy in SaaS. While Customer Success teams have understood this for years, today they’re looking for solutions that scale better than endless 1:1 calls.

In an era when software companies are under pressure to cut costs and protect revenue, user education is proving to be one of the most powerful ways to achieve long-term product success.

And the best part? That last barrier — creating content at scale — is crumbling fast. Thanks to AI, generating high-quality learning content now takes seconds… or close to it.

By embracing proactive, scalable training strategies, SaaS companies can empower users, reduce dependency on support, and ultimately drive better product adoption and higher retention rates. The days of reactive customer support as your primary engagement tool are over — it’s time to leverage education as a core element of your customer success strategy.

Ready to get started?

If you’re ready to see how MeltingSpot can help you scale your customer education efforts and reduce support costs, feel free to book a meeting with us. Let's discuss how we can help you build a more engaged, autonomous user base!