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How to Build Customer Training Academy Using an LMS [Checklist + Tools] 

Grab any of your 2-min Maggie Packet and look on its label back, there’s always a recipe for your delicious dish. They don’t just sell you a product but teach you how to make use of it.  

This is the purpose of your customer training academy — teaching customers about how to make the most out of your product. This educational process simplifies the complexity (too technical sounded) around your product & services & helps to advance leads further down to dedicated customer onboarding even creating a lubricative sales funnel. 

It’s high time! Surface the value of your product by educating your customers and letting them become experts in what they’re using. Because an expert product user is hooked to become your brand advocate. 

So, shall we start by understanding why you need a customer-training portal for all this education and how to build customer training academy using an LMS? 

Why Do You Need a Customer Training Portal?

Why do you need a Customer Training Portal

Essentially, you aim to create an academy for your customer to make them aware of your product, but, then why do need a customer training portal for that? Is it worth your investment? 

Every customer needs something more or less when they’re buying anything online, so it all drips down to the amount of information they have, supporting them in their buying decisions. In simple terms, you need an advanced approach to identify your user’s expectations, goals, nature of work, requirements at their job, etc to create a personalized learning experience.  

And hell no, you’re using excel sheets & data segmentation tools to accomplish that process, you need an intuitive portal. You need an AI-tech-driven portal that accommodates a few factors: 

  • Provides a personalized customer experience through Intuitive Onboarding 
  • Reduces churn by providing value-driven solutions 
  • Upsells your sales funnel 
  • Enables your users to become Brand Advocates
  • Increases Lifetime value (LTV) & customer retention rate

An expert user is like a loyal addition – they will see the value earlier in your sales cycles. Even if they’ll consider activating or up-gradation your higher-end services as your academy serves as a gainful experience, they will stick for longer. 

To upscale your educational bar, consider offering high-quality industry-related education. It will establish your organization as a though-leader or leader in your industry. Furthermore, it improves your position as a strong brand, attracting more and more leads & easy conversions. 

How Companies are Using LMS for Customer Training? 

High chance that you already have customer onboarding in place through various means — resource sections (blogs, ebooks, case studies, etc), an auto-responder email sequence, live webinar sessions, or even a live demo about your product use. Considering the time factor, these are time-consuming mechanisms to achieve any desired sales goals. 

You need to keep a constant tap on your customer’s life cycle and regulate your training process to enable an environment of self-paced learning. A dedicated customer training portal helps to tap such aspects by personalizing the right content mix to teach the use of your product until the customer reaches their “Aha!” moment. 

Segment the courses from basics to expert-level of your product. That’s exactly what Hubspot Academy does with its education academy. They created courses on how to use every tiniest feature of their product, resulting in users buying their premium features to explore more. 

How Do You Build a Customer Academy Using LMS? 

Let’s take the example of Articulate 360 academy to understand the need for a dedicated training portal. Now, you don’t have to align your goals based on these current academies, just a tap of how successful an academy can be for inclusive lead generation. 

This portal was built using Rise 360, a top-rated online course platform (application) and LMS. Rise 360 is a white-label solution with full-customizable features to educate the customer and train the employees or provide courses to a wide audience. 

Tips for an Effective Training Portal 

When we talk about tools that any organization can employ to create an effective academy – there is a wide variety to implement a training portal. Depending on your S.M.A.R.T goal set in to channel the purpose of your academy. E.g:- You can use tools to establish a knowledge hub. They have an integrated system, providing a range of features to achieve your academy goals. 

The Following are Effective Training Portal Features 

  • Lesson-segmenting capabilities 
  • Course-access restriction 
  • Interactive E-books 
  • Interactive Video Content 
  • Media Solutions (Visuals, Audio, Exercises, Quizzes, and Text-format) 

These features help enable a unique learning experience for your users and encourage them to upskill enjoyably. 

Quick Checklist to Build Customer Training Academy (Using an LMS) 

A self-hosted LMS can cost expensive range to set up, but a cloud-based LMS setup might cost somewhere lesser, comparatively. Even though purchasing a learning management system is essential for enhancing your training programs, if you’re hesitant to spend the time setting up your platform properly — your training initiatives may not succeed.  

We’re going to assist you in properly setting up your LMS today by guiding you through the checklist of an LMS setup, are you ready? (Sip up a coffee, you might need these pointers for later whiteboard sessions

  • Schedule a launch date 
  • Prioritize the first steps 
  • Define your KPIs 
  • Familiarize yourself with LMS 
  • Set up Integration 
  • Establish User Roles 
  • Set up Customer Portals 
  • Upload Relevant Content 
  • Customize Email Notifications 
  • White Labelling & Branding 
  •  Finalize Courses & Platforms 
  • Onboard & Enroll Users 

1. Schedule a Launch Date 

Choose a day/date when your platform will be ready to accept users. This is the first implementation step. So, let’s start from scratch.  

Yes, we are aware that the launch of your LMS is less significant than the launch of Elon Musk’s rockets into space, but setting a deadline will help ease the planning stage for a successful training program launch. All we want to suggest is to keep working with your team to choose a day on the calendar so that your business and the stakeholders are trained enough to keep their necks up. 

2. Prioritize the First Steps 

Prioritize to work on essentials (features, integrations, and learning resources) before launching your LMS. In other words, there may be some features, functionalities, and other course suggestions that might need a detailed inspection eye, not necessarily for the first launch of your training programs. 

3. Build an implementation team 

Some businesses will take up considerably more time than others, depending on several factors;  

  • Learning resources you need
  • The size of your business
  • The level of training delivered

Another thing to consider is that, if your company is getting started (startups), there are chances of hiring any full-time eLearning and training managers or specialized training managers that may get out of budget. For that situation, you can train your employees to implement the program. Start by sketching the picture through questions you need answers for, e.g.:-

Question to Ask to Form the Customer Training Program Implementation Team

  • Who will upload the content and who will produce it? 
  • Who will consult with and employ specialists to aid in the LMS’s setup? 
  • Who will write customized code for the LMS (if permitted)? 
  • Who is in charge of marketing the new training system to your stakeholders—customers, staff, etc.? 

We recognize that your company might have specific demands, so even if these are generalized questions to ask when assembling an implementation team, don’t be hesitant to add additional ones and make them more goal-oriented. 

4. Define your KPIs (Measuring Learner Performance) 

This step will make sure that as soon as your LMS is operational, your team will be able to assess learner performance right away. Moreover, your company and its trainers can quickly monitor learner progress by using analytics & reports in your LMS. 

5. Familiarize Yourself With the LMS 

In this phase, you’ve set a date when your LMS will be operational for registered users to access courses, and you’ve organized an implementation team.  

The exciting phase is about to begin, Sit tight!  

Entering the LMS. Depending on the size of your business, only a few members of your implementation team should be operating the LMS rather than the entire team.

6. Set Up Your Integrations 

Integrations are one of the reasons LMSs are such in-demand training solutions for hybrid training of consumers, employees, and other audiences. Through integrations, your company can link external 3rd party programs with your LMS, so that they can support your training requirements.  

Whether you utilize default features included in the LMS, it’s always worth checking with your provider to see if it can be connected while you’re setting up the integrations. 

Common Integrations in an LMS  

  • Google analytics 
  • Facebook pixel 
  • Hubspot 
  • Salesforce 
  • Other webinar solutions include Zoom, GoToTraining, and GoToWebinar. 
  • Accredited single sign-on (SSO) (for storing CEU and certifications) 

7. Establish User Roles  

Your LMS needs a systematic approach that clearly defines the access permissions and responsibilities that your trainers and admins have for learners. Just like in universities, when students take tests that are graded by professors.  

8. Set Up a Customer Portal 

Customers Portals acts as an exclusive training ground for various user demographics you are educating. Therefore, you can skip to the next step if you’re utilizing the LMS for internal training and are not interested in segmenting training by the department.  

But, in the case of B2B training, your team must create portals for each of your clients. While creating a portal, you should designate an administrator to run the training sessions for the group of learners being trained.  

9. Upload Relevant Content 

You have so far started building your training programs in the LMS and uploaded some learning resources, but you haven’t fully developed a course that is prepared for users to enroll in. If you faithfully adhere to this LMS implementation plan, your courses are currently in the form of outlines or drafts rather than finished products (training courses) that are prepared for distribution through internal and external channels. 

It’s now time to complete your training programs in the LMS to get everything ready for launch. 

10. Customize Email Notifications 

If you’re using a cloud-based LMS, you might already have an email notification system built into your platform, depending on your LMS provider. What are these LMS notifications for? 

4 Reasons Why to Use LMS Email Notifications

  • Sending out notifications to users to tap their learning progress. 
  • Updating your learning about new resources or relevant courses.  
  • Enhancing learner’s involvement in a course. 
  • Promoting new training and courses. 

The LMS can help you keep your learners more engaged and on schedule in completing their training programs. So, you must try to customize your email notifications according to your course requirements.  

For example, a trainee who enrolls in a course using your LMS ought to get an email including their account and password. The ones who need to reset their LMS passwords also require an email. 

11. White-Labeling & Branding 

Since many LMSs are white-label platforms, you may replace any vendor ties by attaching your logo and brand assets to the platform. Your user may feel more at ease when your training LMS is visually customized representing your brand (colors, graphics, and unique pages & URLs). 

Advantages of White Labeling: 

  • Enables a Learning Environment (customizable branded features) 
  • Hide vendor ties 
  • Provide personalized instructions 

Since each LMS is unique, find out what your provider has to offer in terms of white-labeling before starting to customize. 

12. Finalize Courses and Platform 

In this step, many of you are ready to click “Publish” and onboard your users. But since there are many factors responsible for the training to be successful — invest as much time as you need to detail your road map. 

After that, you can access templates to evaluate your training programs here, check that everything is functioning as it should, and polish all of your courses and learning materials.

13. Onboard and Enroll Users 

The team manager feature sells online staff training courses in bulk directly to businesses’ LMS eLearning platforms.  

Put your LMS to the test right now. Get your team managers to send out bulk direct mails to businesses “LMS e-learning platforms” and onboard them into the LMS system. Easily said than done, we understand, that’s why you might need a customer training onboarding guide to keep your process in flow.  

Aye, high time to launch your customer portals as well if you’re conducting external training. Make sure you implement the best practices you can go about onboarding users into the system if you haven’t already. 

Challenges for Making a Customer Training Academy  

  • Traditional customer training methods in different learning environments (Hybrid Workforce) 
  • Course promotion and Increased competition 
  • Lack of time or resources to finish objectives 
  • Failing to make a good first impression 
  • Using old training manuals  
  • Burning out your customer training team 

Conclusion

Educating customers is a continuous process. You might face friction points while establishing your seamless training program, but setbacks are meant to let you restructure your entire process & re-create using tools & strategy to evolve your entire organization dynamics.  

So, to ensure your customer training academy is helping your customers to understand your products & services better – Start with a Free LMS Demo to have a peek at how it shapes your training strategy in a personalized manner.  

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Blog Customer Training

Importance of Training Software in Customer Training

Today, training employees is not enough for a company to succeed – training customers has become equally important. Yes, you read that right! That is why the point comes to know more about importance of training software in customer training.

Customer training has proven to be incredibly successful in customer retention. In fact, with the numerous benefits of retaining customers over acquiring new ones, customer training has become more important than ever.

Such a thing allows customers to be informed and educated about the products and services of a company and helps them make use of these to their utmost. When we talk about products, we are not referring to a pair of heels, and when we talk about customer training, we are not pointing out social media videos related to “How to carry your heels most comfortably?”

What is Customer Training?

What is Customer Training-Importance of Training Software in Customer Training

 

Well, it is all about making maximum benefit from tech products and SaaS (Software as a Service).

Based on the complexity of the product, the training can be completely based on the customer’s pace and in an easy format, such as user forums and FAQs.

In case it is complex, the customers may be offered an on-site demonstration as well. If you wonder why businesses are so invested in training software for customer training, wonder no more. In this blog, we are going to discuss the importance of using such software for training customers.

By the end of this, you will have learned a lot about customer training, examples of customer training software, what to see when choosing the software, and much more.

So without delaying any more, let us dive right in to know importance of training software in customer training.

Customer training is a kind of program, specially designed to aid customers access and utilizing a company’s services and products most efficiently. This covers a range of things, including tutorials for product setup, the onboarding process, and much more.

The major aim of all kinds of customer training is to aid the customers to make maximum out of a service or product and to provide them with the most wonderful experience.

In some cases, customer training also includes external parties, like partners and suppliers. In such instances, customer training is offered to them to make sure that they can utilize the products and services effectively, conduct demonstrations, and share their advantages of these to the potential clients on the behalf of the business.

If you are thinking about the best method of training customers, considering the wide variety of these, let us tell you – there does not exist a wrong or right way for such a thing. It all depends on the medium you opt for. Based on your consumer demographics, create a custom training program for your customers.

Do You Know the Key Trends in Customer Training?

Key Trends in Customer Training

 

With companies realizing the increased need for customer training, here are some key trends that you must know before beginning with a customer training program.

1. Increase in Training Budget

For businesses that sell software, customer training has always been an essential component. However, a common practice followed by them is to cut down on the costs associated with customer training every time they fell short of budget.

With the changing expectations due to COVID-19, positive customer experience became a priority for all businesses. This is why companies are investing more in customer training this year.

2. Self-Direction & Engagement are Priorities

Companies are now focused on providing the best customer experience. Based on the technology investment priorities in customer training, the majority is directed toward customer experience, which is 34% of the total investment. Followed by this are:

  • Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) – 24%
  • Analytics Tools – 22%
  • Content Management / Curriculum – 11%
  • Personalization – 9%

3. Adapting to Hybrid Learning Environments

With the hit of the pandemic, hybrid working has become the norm. The same is the case with customer training as well. These programs will progressively take place in hybrid and blended learning environments.

Companies will continue to make impressive virtual encounters that involve potential consumers in-person as well as online.

4. The Rise in Analytics: Customer Training Insights

With companies investing in customer training, the higher authorities must ensure that the investment has a positive impact. Thus, to gain insights into these, the use of analytics is rising. The data gathered for the same include:

  • Success rate
  • Behavior and engagement patterns
  • Usage trends
  • Usage details
  • Customer demographics

5. Mobile-Friendly Customer Training

According to a study, it has been estimated that in three years, about 72% of people will access the internet using their mobile phones. This is why companies have started to make their customer training mobile-friendly.

Why Do You Need Training Software in Customer Training?

Why do you Need Training Software in Customer Training

 

If you are reconsidering your choice of opting for training software for customer training, do not worry. Mentioned below are some of the reasons why using this can turn out to be beneficial for you and your customers. After reading these, you will be sure about your choice.

1. Higher Security

Using a trustworthy vendor for training software means a lower risk of data breaches associated with confidential information associated with customers and the company.

2. Developed Reporting

When you opt for training software, you get advanced reports regarding several aspects of customer training, such as the total number of customers who finished the training, and the test scores. This will eventually aid in understanding the overall impact of training on the objectives of the company.

3. Better Accessibility

The right training software can help your customers undergo training via any device, including Linux, Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. Higher accessibility further means that your clients can make training a part of their daily life as well.

4. Effective Learning Abilities

The up-to-date training software can offer dynamic learning abilities, which makes learning more useful, engaging, and exciting. These can include:

  • Virtual machines
  • Self-labs
  • Two-way interaction through a live training that is led by an instructor
  • Providing recommendations for learning based on previous activities
  • Personalized learning paths

5. Intuitive UI

The most recent learning management systems offer a user interface that is intuitive, modern, as well as effortless to navigate.

Examples of Training Software in Customer Training

With continuous advancements in technology, various kinds of learning management systems and software are available for training customers.

So before we help you in identifying the best customer training software for your business, let us first have a look at some examples of customer training software.

1. Docebo

An e-learning platform that is scalable for meeting the needs of a business associated with customer training, Docebo offers a subscription-based Software as a Service plan. Organizations can also opt for a 14-day free trial to experience the working of the software.

2. CXcherry

Cxcherry makes use of an on-demand customer educational platform to enhance customer retention, generate potential clients, and build brand awareness. The AI-enabled LMS with consultative solutions, knowledgeable team, and Cxcherry culture offered by the platform is a one-stop-solutions for training solutions.

3. TalentLMS

TalentLMS is an eLearning tool, which is also cloud-based like Litmos. It provides an entire platform to businesses to help them grow and offer efficient training to their customers.

The software allows companies to perform a variety of tasks, such as offering certification tests, managing customers, carrying out virtual classes for external and internal clients, and even tracking their progress.

4. Paradiso

Paradiso is the software that is utilized by some of the major businesses in the world. It offers services associated with managed learning, course creation, and ready-made courses as well.

5. Litmos

The Litmos LMS software allows companies of all sizes to provide engaging training exams and courses, manage programs, and track the progress of learners. This learning management system is cloud-based and is rich in features, affordable, and easy to use.

6. UserGuiding

UserGuiding enables companies to onboard their customers with walkthroughs of products and services that do not need any kind of coding. The software allows the creation of personalized user segments, NPS surveys, resource centers, user onboarding lists, hotspots and tooltips, and engaging product tours.

Checklist for Selecting Training Software in Customer Training

Checklist for Selecting Training Software in Customer Training

 

With an extensive range of training software for customer training available on the market, it can be daunting for you to choose the right one for your business. To help you overcome this challenge, we have prepared a checklist for you, which is given below.

1. Identify Your Objectives

Ask yourself the 4W’s and 1H of the LMS – who, what, where, when, and how. The answers identify your business objectives associated with software training.

2. Determine Your Requirements

Think about what you require from an LMS. This will further aid you in determining the usability and features you seek in the training software. Once you are done with the process, make a list of features that your company requires in the software.

3. Shortlist LMS Software Vendors

Look for all the LMS software vendors, online and offline, and find out about their online existence, involving free trials and demonstrations. Some of the common parameters for judging a software vendor are:

  • SaaS availability
  • Features
  • The ratio of pricing to features
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • Future upgrade plans
  • Sustainability of the business
  • The workforce of the business
  • Client testimonials
  • Case studies
  • Functionality and form factor
  • Service support

Based on these factors, narrow down the vendors that meet your requirements for training software.

4. Issue a Proposal Request

Based on the shortlisting of vendors, propose an RPF to them according to your company’s requirements. After obtaining a response from them, you can request a demo, wherein you must involve your team to acquire feedback on the software’s usability.

5. Evaluate the Vendors

Post using the demo software, evaluate the vendors based on these factors:

  • Deployment model
  • The simplicity of maintenance by the manager of training
  • Support from vendor after deployment
  • Software compatibility with the company’s resource files
  • User interface
  • Form factor

6. Negotiate

Once you have further narrowed down the list of software vendors based on their evaluation, negotiate with them regarding a discounted price or a better deal. Do not forget to discuss timelines for LMS deployment and constant support from their team.

Best Examples of Customer Training Platforms

Some of the best instances of customer training platforms are shared below, with brief insights into the “why” of them being the most satisfactory.

By getting to know the features of these platforms, you will have an idea of which software vendor offers a wide variety and which one you should opt for to meet your business requirements.

1.  Hubspot

Hubspot offers a free certification program associated with marketing and inbound sales. The customer training platform has various segments:

  • Topics, like SEO, social media, and email marketing
  • Kinds of Content, like user guides, certifications, and lessons
  • Categories, like design, marketing, and sales

2.  Outreach

Outreach

Outreach makes use of customer training for actively addressing support queries to obtain novel clients efficiently. The platform clambered its success associated with customers through the utilization of customer education to enhance how its team functions.

3.  ServiceNow

Service Now

ServiceNow is a platform that has changed various of its live classes to on-demand design. They provide a wide range of choices for learners, including public and private live classes’ led by instructors.

4.  Zendesk

Zendesk

Zendesk provides paid as well as free customer training for onboarding their clients at scale. Their training program comprises the following:

  • On-site training
  • Custom training
  • Virtual ILT (instructor-led training)
  • eLearning
  • On-demand content

Conclusion

Customer training is highly valued by most businesses because of its beneficial extent at both ends. While customers learn to make maximum use of the company’s products and services, organizations experience higher customer retention, resulting in better ROI.

Since training software has proven to be greatly useful in providing customer training, tracking clients’ progress, and analyzing the extent to which the company’s objectives are being attained, several businesses have switched to LMS software.

If you are looking for the most effective method of training your clients, you must look for the most suit. We hope that you get all information about the importance of training software in customer training.

 

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Blog Customer Training

Best Practices to Measure Impact of Customer Training Program (Intuitive Method + Templates + Tools)

Best Practices to Measure Impact of Customer Training Program (Intuitive Method + Templates + Tools)

Learning & Development (L&D) isn’t about what you can remember, it is fundamentally how you apply what you learned to improve your life. 

Once you understand that what you are learning are simple tools to operate your complex task without putting extra effort – your interest grows & exercises your will to learn even more. 

That’s how your customer should feel about your training program. But how would you know, if they are already in that phase of curiosity? Or maybe they’re excited but clueless to narrow it down. It is better to know best practices to measure impact of customer training program before implementing customer training.

Again, how would you know which part of your training is making a change? Through KPIs, or feedback starters?  

Know more about the best practices to measure impact of customer training program.

Fundamental Questions You Need to Focus to Evaluate Which Part of Your Customer Training is Making a Change.

  • Did they like it?
  • Did they learn?
  • Are they able to apply what they learned?
  • Is training improving their goals in their organization?

Best Practices to Measure Impact of Customer Training Program (Intuitive Method + Templates + Tools)

 

Yes, there are countless measuring metrics to analyze your customer response & satisfaction rate during training, but, just think about it for once!  

Your self-paced learning program – capable of delivering diverse content according to diverse needs – establishes a personalized benchmark for your diverse audience.  

Such a diverse paradigm of training and you decide to limit your evaluation to just tools? 

Your training evaluation may find customer pain points & improvement insights through analytical meters.  

But, you need an intuitive method to evaluate your training and to establish your success meters. 

Yes, we know, it’s not that exciting part though, but by intuitive evaluation, you can easily figure out if your training works and how to improve it. 

Kirkpatrick’s model of learning is meant to be the most widely used method to evaluate the results of training and learning programs. Although, this model has been an effective benchmark to evaluate employee training programs, but has shown even more successful results when it comes to customer training. 

Donald Kirkpatrick (1924-1950) was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. He developed the four levels of evaluation model in the mid-1950s as part of his Ph.D. dissertation. And, his vision of L&D training evaluation has now been used for over 30yrs by many different companies as a major system for training evaluation.  

Kirkpatrick Model – Four Levels of Learning Evaluation

  • Reaction.
  • Learning Evaluation.
  • Knowledge gain.
  • Results.

 

Kirkpatrick model - Four levels of learning evaluation 

Level #1: How Are They Reacting?  

There are good chances that you already taking a survey after customers’ first learning session. The fundamental idea to evaluate right after the first session is to gain insight into the training experience from the learner’s perspective. 

Ideally, most B2B companies limit their first survey to just collect basic responses from customers because of many reasons like “They might churn off customers soon”, “They are overpopulating after the first signup onboarding emails.  

The problem here is, they are focussing on just a customer response. They need the right questions to pinpoint the accuracy of the first survey: 

Smile Sheets

A smile sheet is simply a form consisting of a series of questions combined, asking your customers about their satisfaction.  

In a recent survey, many B2B organizations were asked about the smile sheet effectiveness, and most responded that “they don’t understand how to bring improvement in training through just good or bad customer responses”. 

We understand it can get hard to find precise pain points to improve when scalability is of a wide range. And, we accumulate such common limitations that smile sheets may have:    

Limitations

  • Data is basic. 
  • It doesn’t necessarily correlate with actual learning or customer behavior. 
  • It is hard to scale. 

Now you might be confused that whether to use smile sheets? Are there any evaluating benefits? Whether to infuse a smile sheet in evaluating your training or not?  

Well! There’s always a good and a bad side to any tool. All you have to do is to find the right way of using it.  

Benefits of Smile Sheets

  • It demonstrates respect for customers thoughts & concerns. 
  • It provides early satisfaction results. 
  • It gives you insights about your training’s valuable side & not so valuable. 

Smile Sheets doesn’t limit to the “Just asking for your feedback” tool, you can employ it as a performance-focused evaluation for your customers during training sessions. 

Performance-Focused Evaluation

E.g. Writing a TPS Report.

Instead of asking your customer, “How are you liking the course/training?

Focus on their progression towards set goals, “How well are you able to imply the reporting skills in the practice of your job?

On a learner scale your feedback to get customer reaction must be of some accuracy, to understand specifically about the customer experience, here’s an example of how you can touch down customer’s understanding: 

Are you able to apply what you learned in the training? 

  • I am not able to apply these concepts. 
  • I have some understanding but require additional training. 
  • I can apply the concepts but require support. 
  • I believe I have competency.
  • I know I can perform to an expert level. 

Level #2: Are They Learning?  

This phase of evaluating your training programs focuses on measuring the customers’ knowledge, skills, and mindset developed as a result of your training program.  

Here we want to ensure that your customers are learning what they are supposed to have learned. Take an example of how Hubspot evaluates their customer knowledge & skills acquired during their delivered training. 

  1. Quick Quiz: Few questions to ensure customer retention level. 

Few questions to ensure customer retention level

 

Hubspot Academy’s – Know Yourself Quiz 

Hubspot ensures that its customers are understanding the concept and also, they provide further assistance by providing helpful resources to make it easy for customers to catch up on what they learned, later on. 

Resources (to Provide & Understand What Audience Needs)

  • Slides. 
  • Transcripts.
  • Goal calculator. 
  • Knowledge Base. 
  • Templates. 
  • Ebooks. 
  • Blog Post. 
  • Reports. 
  • Website.

 

Resources to provide & understand what audience needs.

 

2. Free Certification: Presenting a Learning Win to Grow for Customers.

 

Free Certification_Presenting a learning win to grow for customers

3. Hand-on Surveys & Assignments: To Assess Customer Retention Rate by Providing Assignments Right After Each Training Session. 

 

Hand-on Surveys & Assignments

Hubspot Academy’s – Survey Assessment 

They assess their customer’s demographics and improvement scale after they are done with the course. Perfect CTA!  

Two Major Benefits for Post-Training Session Assessment

  • The customer is still in the learning mode, high response rate. 
  • Customers want to exercise their choice after learning, future improvement in training required would be answered precisely. 

 

Two major benefits for Post-Training Session Assessment

They appreciate customer learning efforts & acknowledge their time, so to improve significantly – They choose accuracy to deliver value. It simply means, “Knowing your customer”. 

Level #3: Are They Applying What They Learned?    

“One of the reasons why most SaaS companies are failing in customer success program is because their program is driven by cost, not value”- Glide Consulting (Customer Success Expert)   

Customers who can achieve success with your product on their own do result in reduced support cost but such consequence becomes your value when you see your customers value in it too. 

So, level 3 is all about evaluation based on, “Are you customers applying what they learned or not?” 

You can further segment this evaluation into 3 steps: 

  • Monitor customer’s performance.
  • Offer support. 
  • Measure the results. 

How to Monitor Your Customers’ Performance? 

Firstly, find a natural data point to monitor your customers’ before and after training performance. Are they improving in any areas of their applied work? Is there any issue they are facing while applying it? 

You can develop a demographic survey (one like given above) to understand the basic needs of your customer before you develop a working environment for them.  

Secondly, you may have noticed your customers feedback filled up this survey form real quick. You can use a start and stop time to measure the accuracy and pace of answered value. This way you will see if there are any errors customers while answering due to limited time. 

After your trainers assessing those errors closely, combine this data with the above data points to understand where the customers are getting that error and offer performance-focused support to customers to improve.     

How to Measure Your Customers’ Results From the Training Provided? 

Okay, Let’s continue with the above TPS reporting example. Let suppose your manager tells your customer to complete 10 TPS report.  

Before training when you delivered this task, customers were able to complete 5 per hour with only 60% accuracy. But after baseline training sessions, your customers can complete 11 TPS reports per hour with 80% accuracy. 

Knowing your customers’ improvement gives you direction to assess your level 1 and level 2 training evaluation accordingly to let your customer keep exceeding the benchmark. 

Level #4: Is There Any Training Impact on Their Organizational Goals?

In level 4, you assess whether the training program was accomplished? Have they achieved their effective goal?  

Now, to evaluate level 4, you need result-oriented data that provides a comparative measure. 

Let’s take an example of a company that spends 20 % of their workweek time in team meetings to structure & plan out things accordingly. 

 

Is there any Training Impact on their Organizational Goals

They plan to infuse training with their work environment to reduce team meeting time as a result. And, they found that after employing training for each employee, they successfully reduced their time spent for meeting & whiteboard sessions.  

Similarly, you can map data points considering your before and after training results for customer’s in their working areas.  

Well, as every L&D experiences this most in their life that no training program ensures perfect results, as there is consideration for using with Kirkpatrick model as well: 

Considering Using Kirkpatrick Model

  • It works best if training results are relatively isolated (It means there are no depending factors that rely on training results apart from customers’ growth itself.) 
  • Degree of accuracy (There are chances that your customer already knows best to be assessed for a basic training test. So, to deliver training, in that case, won’t be necessary.) 

4 SaaS Customer Success Metrics (Tools to Evaluate) 

 

4 SaaS Customer Success Metrics (Tools to evaluate)

  • Product/Services Usage Rate: The more customers use your product, the more valuable is the product for them. Your customer support team can easily track the product use frequency by customers and create a scale for the ideal growth rate. 
  • Active Customers: As a SaaS company, your goal is to land up recurring customers. Measuring daily, weekly, and monthly active users will provide you access to short-term activity time & long-term customer active time. 
  • Free Trial Conversion Rate: Free-trail conversion metric is a must-have in SaaS recurring business model to identify how well your customers are switching from freemium – to – premium services while monitoring churn rate too. 
  • Average Time Spent on Platform: Evaluating the average time will provide you with a detailed story as to how much time your customers are integrated with your software. 

We hope that you understand about best practices to measure impact of customer training program.

Conclusion: 

As a SaaS company, you may come across a lot of measuring metrics and perfect training evaluation tools to infuse for results. But, eventually, your customers are changing goals on daily basis – So, it becomes an adaptive practice to employ intuitive methods to evaluate your training program. Also, ensure you are using effective L&D strategies to evaluate your training up to the current market benchmark. 

Top 5 Key Tips to Choose the Right Technology for Customer Education

 

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Blog Customer Training

Why Every SaaS Company Must Invest in Customer Training?

This Blog explains how SaaS Customer Training Programs can change the entire dynamics of their current revenue system & retain more customers.

As a SaaS Company, you have launched a new product feature. Your Marketing team is already tackling how to promote through offers to bring the customer attention.

Your Customer Success team is somehow managing how to support customers during the launch. And Sales teams are piled up with information that needs a single communication channel.

If you are also facing the growing pain points as a SaaS company – this blog is specially made for you.

Use the table of content to navigate the guide.

  1. What is Customer Training?
  2. How Are Companies Training Their Customers Now?
  3. Getting Started With Customer Training
  4. Importance of Customer Training for SaaS Companies
  5. Successful Customer Training Growth Metrics
  6. Conclusion

Key Tip #1: Understanding Customer Training.

Customer Training, in practical terms, means that your organization learns about the specific needs of customers, suggest products to meet their required outcome, and instruct them on how to use your product efficiently to accomplish their desired outcome.

3-Step Process to Successful Customer Training Program.

 

  1. Identifying Customer’s Specific Needs.
  2. Suggesting Apt Product & Services to Customers.
  3. Instructing Your Customers About ‘How-To’ Use Your Products.

As a SaaS Company, you might have observed that those customers who are mindful of your product are more brand loyal & are an integral part, compared to those with a short-term usage goal with your brand.

So, to accomplish a long-term customer relationship, It gets crucial that you create a more inclusive training program that conveys your product smoothly into customers’ lifestyles. Furthermore, you’ll be able to conduct more mindfulness around your product’s extra features.

Let’s introspect about customers expecting as a buying & implementing experience.

We co-exist in the era where social-media applications are in use as a natural process. And why not? They are easy to use, effortless to connect with a known face, and bring a sense of longing to old memories.

Similarly, SaaS training programs must be an existing touch for your customers. Or it is a new thing for them – it must be an easy-to-progress platform.

 

Key Tip #2: How Are SaaS Companies Training Their Customers Now?

Many training programs are circulating as a buffet for SaaS companies to enhance their customer retention. Implementing programs just for the sake of achieving an end goal doesn’t lead to customer success.

Because essentially, your SaaS Customer training program must be effective enough to understand, provide, resolve, and evolve customers with their set of your products’ expectations.

And in return, your customers reward you with long-term loyalty. See how these top companies are training SaaS customers now:

1)  Slack Gives You the Basics.

Slack is one of the software-as-service (SaaS) companies – educating customers about their added product functionality through the customer.

They reduced minor customer inconvenience and created a robust product delivering training that eases complex business software understanding.

 

Slack invested in 3 primary types of training content:

  1. New Users Training.
  2. Intro to Slack Training.
  3. Admin Training – Walking Slack admins throughout the basic & complex features.

2)  Hubspot

Hubspot is a renowned Digital Marketing space for startups & existing brands to use to grow their business. Their Inbound Marketing Approach has turned the tables while initiating customer education as a central marketing voice.

 

 

3)  Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey is a leading online survey developer tool that helps with data analysis and representation. They introduced training resources that allow customers for a step-by-step instruction-based guide to achieve their customer satisfaction surveys. Also, it educates customers to measure and monitor survey templates creating a truly inclusive and personalized space for their customers.

Key Tip #3: Getting Started with Customer Training.

 

5 Must Think Reasons – Why SaaS Companies Invest in Customer Training?

 

1.  Lucrative for Subscription-Based Business Model.

Easily understandable & smooth customer experience with your brand means they are more likely to come back to renew their subscription. Because providing enough resources to them leads them in such an experience like they’re pursuing their own desired outcome is freedom.

And, once your customer chooses their expected value from your product, reduced churn rate becomes a consequence of the learning environment they are experiencing as a buyer.

2.  SaaS is Booming in B2B & B2C Industry.

Global Software as a Service (SaaS) market size is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 11% with USD 99.9 billion during the forecast period 2021-2025 – It means that most B2B & B2C organizations are switching to SaaS products.

Current Market Trends suggests that in post-covid situations, global markets are likely to choose SaaS products as their customer deliverables & would mark their marketing strategies according to regional market response.

That’s why most Saas Companies are deploying customer training programs, realizing the immensity of future impacts they will have once the customer gets educated about their products & services.

3.  Adds Resources to Customer’s Specific Needs.

Providing resources like – Learning Ebooks, Video Learnings, Live Sessions, and ‘How-to’ Modules or Guides adds an ongoing edge in customer’s awareness about your product.

Moreover, adding gamification & certifications results in a competitive self-analysis environment. The customer acknowledges the pace of learning progress.

4.  Reduced Customer’s Churn: Effective Approach.

Once your customers are evolving their buyer’s persona in the learning environment, it gets easy for them to understand and implement your product more efficiently.

So, any raised customer query or request for a follow-up automatically resolves during their learning stage – Reliable Customer Support.

5.  Feedbacks & Surveys: High Responsive Rate.

SaaS Companies’ revenue depends on customer recurring & long-term collaboration. To maintain a smooth transaction for the customer’s entire lifecycle with your brand – it’s a must that your feedback is not generalized but inclined towards a specific customer progressing stage.

Grouping different customers according to their needs & promoting feedback through quizzes or puzzles helps customers provide their grasping nature towards your learning content.

 

Key Tip #4: Importance of Customer Training For SaaS Companies.

 

1. Give Your Customer Success Team a Wingman During a New Product Launch.

SaaS companies admit that their customer success teams are not prepared or fully trained to onboard customers about product features during the launch.

This way, customers are either churned or bored away because of too many technicalities introduced to them at a single given hour.

Providing a pre-launch tutorial or explanatory videos to customers about the technicalities of products gives your customer success team a supportive edge of information.

2. Your Marketing Team Will Have a Specific Understanding of How & When to Promote Offers. (New Product Features)

Let’s suppose your product’s new feature is in ask of promotions – your marketing team prepares offers & engaging content to compel customers’ interest towards this new particular feature.

But, would that be enough to gauge the utmost customer’s attention? Because no matter how lucrative your offers are for customers – They still consider it business!

So, once your marketing team is aware of particular customer desired needs, where customers are in their learning stage, you can plan your offers simultaneously – A better solution than an add-on.

3. It Bridges a Communication Info Network for Your Sales Team.

As a SaaS company, you might have observed that information got misled between the internal communication of customer support & sales teams – Hence, costing an expensive fix with a deal.

It’s all about how resourceful your particular sales team is & how easily they are communicating internally with other customer engagement teams.

Customer Training allows your sales teams a piece of updated information to process & communicate, avoiding any minor errors or glitches.

Especially, SaaS startups suffer miscommunications a lot in the starting phase because of meeting the deadlines, managing the information, guiding the employees, deploying customer supports, promotions, and all.

It gets daunting to share detailed information without any mishaps. Here, investing in Learning Management System is a perfect solution for SaaS Startups to create a head-on-manageable platform & AI support to enhance & expand simultaneously.

 

How is LMS – a perfect solution for SaaS Startups?

  • An Intuitive AI Support for your L&D Teams.
  • Very Cost-Effective & Lucrative Tool.
  • It helps in Fresh & Creative Marketing Ideas Strategies.
  • Technological Solution to understand your Customer Specific Needs.

 

Result of Successful Customer Training on Employees & Customers.

 

Conclusion:

Simply having a customer training program doesn’t always lead to a higher customer retention rate. You need to take care of identifying, suggesting, and instructing your customers after onboarding is employed successfully.

As a SaaS company, you have the tips & thinkable points for your whiteboard session introspecting on investing in the education of your customers.

So, once you discuss it over later coffee nights  – Here’s Your Starting Point.

A quick pep-talk to our expertise. Welcome Aboard!

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Blog Customer Training

5 Productive Ways to Leverage on Customer Training LMS

This blog will help you to know 5 productive ways to leverage on customer training LMS

“Customer Training helps to teach mission and vision but employees must put the training into action for it to have a meaning”-Shep Hyken

Online training in the corporate sector is often considered to be for employee development. Internal training is essential, mainly when it comes to onboarding product training, closing the skill gaps, and leadership development. In recent years, organizations are using the online customer training strategy extensively for external groups like vendors, partners, resellers, and customers.

Many companies, from Microsoft to CISCO, the forward-thinking ones, are developing customer training guides to build a loyal brand following and retain their competitive edge. It has become a secret for growing the business successfully.

So, what is customer service training, and how can it be implemented cost-effectively to increase customer onboarding.

What is a Customer Training Program?

In simple terms, customer service training programs content designed to engage, onboard, and retain existing and new customers. This content is delivered either through on-demand channels or in person pragmatically. The main aim of developing the course and also offering customer education is to ensure that they find value and understand the service or product you are offering to the maximum.

Often customer training examples can be found in organizations or companies come with:

  • A product that needs a customer to change their existing workflow, process, and behavior for the service
  • A product that is complex; hence customers need training before using it.
  • A product that has a diverse user base and caters to different needs and roles
  • Products that regularly upgrades with new functionalities and features
  • Products or services that need extensive support
  • Any suit of services or products that requires cross and up-selling

If you are planning on providing the best customer training program, you need to consider the customer service training program outlets.

The training can be delivered in several formats based on the target audience, the complexity of the product/service, the company’s goal, and the level of knowledge of your customers. Some of them are:

  • Recorded screen-captures
  • Recorded webinars
  • Infographics
  • Slideshows
  • Quizzes
  • On-demand training
  • Schedule classes

The next question that is often asked is what are the benefits of providing a customer training program.

Benefits of Customer Training Program.

It has already been well-established the benefits that customer training best practices offer. Some of them are:

  • Faster onboarding of customers.
  • Reduction in churn while increasing the value.
  • Increase in customer adoption and engagement.
  • Enhanced flexibility and availability of knowledge for the product/service.
  • Lowers the overall training cost.
  • Reduction in support tickets, thus freeing customer care service providers to engage with more pressing issues.
  • Increased ROI.
  • Improve in retention, renewal, and expansion of business.

With these benefits in place, the next pressing question for any company that wishes to develop a customer training program is how to create a customer service training program? In the next section, we will look into it along with why LMS is essential in customer training.

Why LMS is Required for Customer Training?

Before you start launching a customer training program, it is vital to layout the training strategy along with the key objectives. Many companies are now using Learning Management System (LMS) to deliver the customer education process and streamlining the onboarding.

LMS is a software platform that enables the company to build, deliver, and track the training process of the partners, employees, and customers on a global scale. The Customer Experience (CX) professionals and the marketers can build a customized customer education portal that is intuitive too. It can deliver learning content that is engaging and offers a personalized learning journey with detailed analytics for the company.

With LMS in place, customers can have a central knowledge platform to find all the required training materials, which can be accessed on-demand and in a bite-size support tool. The other added advantage of LMS is, you can update and deliver the materials quickly. With LMS in place, you can roll out service changes; update the UI about the new products in no time.

5 Ways To Leverage on Your Customer Training LMS to Increase Customer Training Success

The onboarding program hence needs to prioritize and map out the obstacles they need to address during the customers’ journey. With LMS, there are five ways that businesses can leverage customer training.

1. Formal & Informal Training.

A company can offer content delivery with LMS on diverse media, platforms, and styles. The LMS’s social and structured learning feature allows the customers to engage with other users and share insider tips and knowledge. The feature thus enhances the positive experience where the customer service team can interact with the consumers directly.

2. Automated Onboarding.

LMS offers a range of options when it comes to automated learning. A customer can click on the link given on the marketing material, product landing page, or your company’s social media pages, which will direct the user to the appropriate training material. A user can also self-register, use interactive notifications, single sign-on SSO to get the training.

3. Self-Paced Learning.

With different people having different learning styles, other priorities in life, and personal preferences, scheduled learning can be a detractor. Thus self-paced learning offers onboard or prospective customers to learn your product with flexibility. As a result, customers can get the training and information about the product when they need it. Also, fit the learning within their schedules as they want it.

4. Track the Success.

One of the best benefits of the latest learning technology is its ability to offer metrics on the learner’s activity. The tracking of the learner’s success allows the organization to gain insight into the learning program. Find the gaps to ensure they can be improved. As a result, it warrants customer success.

5. Motivate & Reward.

One way to ensure your customers stay engaged with the training process is to motivate them. LMS can help you with the process by creating leader boards, badges, and certifications. Mainly certifications often prove to be confidence builders where at the core is your product and its competencies.

There are several LMS in the market to leverage the technology for your business, so start creating interactive training programs with the learning technology for your business.

Wrapping It.

It has been noticed that a carefully crafted customer training program with online support and knowledge base along with a library can help you to create actionable insights for your business. Content consumption can help you to fine-tune your marketing strategy and increase customer onboarding, thus enhanced ROI.

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Blog Customer Training

How to Engage & Retain Customers with Effective Customer Training Program?

Let’s Know How to Engage & Retain Customers with Effective Customer Training Program?

A range of elements goes into establishing a successful business. At the center stage of it, all is customer service training programs. Any interaction a company or its employee has with a customer affects the business. Hence, in the business world, what separates the chaff from the wheat is the one that offers a succinct customer training program.

As seen in most cases, it is often the customer services that help a company to thrive. It is hence imperative that businesses need to invest in creating the best customer training programs.

Offering excellent and comprehensive customer service training to the employees, stakeholders, and even customers will add value to your product and customers. It will also drive sales and give you an edge over your competitors.

Getting your customers to understand your product and service is vital. By creating a successful customer training strategy, you are putting the business ahead of others.
So if you are still finding this article important and want to acquaint yourself better with the customer training guide and want to know more about it, let’s continue.

We will explain customer training, why it is essential, and how it can help your business.

In businesses, most often, the addressed audience is the internal employees when it comes to eLearning. But in the last few years, there has been a constant surge in expanding the customer service training program outlet. With this service, the target audience is the non-employees, including the stakeholders, distributors, and customers.

The space given with this training allows the customers to enjoy the centralized space to get the answer to their queries and get faster results for their issues.

What is a Customer Training Program?

 

What Is A Customer Training Program

If we look into a customer training guide, it needs to have materials and information about the services or products that are part of your business’s objective. These learning materials can be categorized into three ways:

 

What Is A Customer Training Program

  • Guided learning.
  • Self-paced learning.
  • Combination of guided and self-paced learning.

The kind of category you want to offer depends on your business and also what your customer base prefers and responds to.

A good customer training example is guided onboarding. This can be essential in helping your customers with the launch of new software or products. With this strategy, you can see the result of your product soon.

Along with this, it is also essential to offer customers materials on the product to empower the self-paced learners. They need to have the information they seek at the point of need. One example that we can offer is the on-demand training material or offering a knowledge base.

Why Does the Customer Need to Be Trained?

There are several benefits to creating customer training best practices. This includes a dynamic approach to reaching out to new customers—the opportunity to increase loyalty among the existing customer base.

The simple reason that customer training program work for your benefit is that, like your employees, they also need the knowledge about your products to get the full utility of it. However, without a proper training program in place, mainly an eLearning platform, your customers don’t have access to that knowledge.

Since customers don’t always know where to find the information, often which are hidden in FAQs, Terms of the Service, and Users Guide, providing them with a separate learning module is much more beneficial.

It has often been recorded that most of the information hidden in these formats goes unnoticed while presenting them in a course format does wonder for retaining the information.

Benefits that a Business Can Achieve From Implementing a Customer Training Program Are:

 

Benefits That A Business Can Achieve From Implementing A Customer Training Program

  • Building customer loyalty.
  • Customers will get to know the best way to use your products or services. Also, enjoy the maximum benefit out of it.
  • Ongoing training of the customers also is part of your ongoing marketing strategy.
  • Educating the customers helps with increasing the conversion rate and eventually the ROI of your business.
  • You can engage your customer service team for critical issues instead of mundane know-hows.
  • If you don’t want your customers reading about how to hack into your products, or see unauthorized YouTube tutorials, training them with proper material is essential. They should get the information from the expert, and that is YOU.

How Effective Customer Training Program Helps in Engaging & Retaining a Customer?

How To Engage And Retain Customers With Effective Customer Training Program

 

 

If you want to know how to create an effective customer training program, the simple reason you need to bear in mind is to create a module that will help engage your customers and retain them.

Often when businesses do not engage with their customers, it leaves them unhappy and leads to churning. So if you want to reduce the churn rate, you need to keep them engaging. Relevant training will give them the excitement to know something new. It will give the customers the knowledge and tools to do their work better with your products.

So while you keep the existing customers happy by engaging them, you are also opening up opportunities to get new customers from the references done by the existing pool.

There is also the option of offering an on-demand customer training program, where your customers can access the learning materials directly from your eLearning platform. This method allows you to introduce new products, train them on how to use them in real-time.

The method ensures standardized training for customers while delivering consistent material irrespective of the location.

By creating engaging content, you allow customers to understand your product, the solution, thus enhancing customer loyalty. The process also engages them in a way that support tickets are unable to do with customer services.

Nowadays, many organizations use a learning management system (LMS) to offer online effective customer training programs. LMS helps you measure and track your training material’s success in real-time and see the customer engagement. This ensures valuable insight into the training tools that you offer. You can tie this to the KPIs to analyze the impact it has on your business.

Final Thoughts

If you want to build customer loyalty, keep them engaged and allow them to get the best from your products or services, you must start an effective customer training program. If you are not yet convinced, just think about how your customers will react to the value-added service your competitors will provide with the training program.

Al Enabled Customer Training