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What is Customer Training? The Complete Guide For Your Business
In today’s world, customer-facing teams need to be doing everything they can to hold on to every customer. And, critically, it needs to be done fast, effectively, and at scale.
That’s why so many businesses are embracing customer training; a powerful way to provide your customers with the knowledge and tools they need to not only see the value you’re offering, but also ensure that they’re happy, long-term customers.
So, whether you’re beginning your customer training journey or looking to level up your current strategy, this post is for you. We’ll explain why customer training matters, the different ways to deliver it, and how your business can build a customer training strategy that’s efficient, scalable, and really impacts what matters – your customer’s success.
What is Customer Training?
Customer training arms customers with the knowledge and skills they need to use a product or service effectively. It involves your business offering courses, guidance, support, and resources to help customers understand how to use your product or service, troubleshoot problems, and maximize its benefits.
Common across lots of industries, customer training is particularly popular when it comes to software, tech, and professional services. These are businesses looking to deliver value at every phase of the customer lifecycle – from sales to onboarding to product engagement – and consistently prove their value to their customers.
The Benefits of Customer Training
What makes customer training worthwhile is that it not only has big benefits for your customers but your business too. Let’s see how:
Faster onboarding
With 23% of customers churning due to poor onboarding, it’s something that can make or break your customer’s experience.
So, when a new customer comes along, you need to have an efficient way to show them the value of your product from the get-go. And customer training does that.
From the moment they join, you can offer resources, like courses and tutorials, that get them up-to-speed quickly, equipping them with the knowledge and skills they need to effectively use your product, and most importantly, ensure you’re retaining them for the long-term.
Increase product adoption
Be it your existing products or services or new ones available, customer training is the perfect way to encourage product adoption.
By providing training materials that show how your products work and best practices on how to use them, it gives your customers the best chance of seeing what your product does for them. And, of course, the more products your customers are using, the stickier your offering is to them.
Reduce churn and improve retention
Today’s customer success teams are actively embracing education to curb churn, with more than 60% ranking it as one of their go-to strategies.
And it makes sense.
Customer training equips your customers with the tools and support they need to see value in your product, and when they see value they’re successful, and stay with your business for the long-term.
Reduce strain on support
If you’ve fewer customers contacting you for help because they know how to use the product themselves, then this frees up resources that could be better spent elsewhere. It also helps keep customers happy by reducing frustration levels when dealing with technical issues or problems related to using the product/service correctly – they won’t need as much assistance from your support team, who might otherwise get bogged down by too many requests at once.
Scale customer support
As your business grows, there becomes a point where training each and every customer one-to-one is no longer scalable. It takes too much time and man hours that your business can’t afford.
Thus, customer training is a great way to scale customer support resources, by up to 75% in some cases. Courses, online tutorials, webinars, and knowledge-based articles can be used by thousands of customers, reducing the need for costly hand holding sessions. Additionally, it empowers customers to become more self-sufficient as they can help themselves whenever they need.
Increase stickiness and upsells
Building customer stickiness all boils down to providing an exchange of value. Since customers tend to make purchases based on their perceived value, offering repeated value is the key to encouraging repeat sales. Sticky customers are more likely to become brand advocates, who in turn may promote your product or service, write reviews on platforms like G2 and Capterra, and provide social proof that you can leverage in your marketing efforts.
Personalized experiences, ensuring users experience the promised value fast, announcing features and impactful updates, offering self-service support are just a few tactics you can use to offer repeated value within your product.
Build your brand
By providing training and resources that help customers succeed, you can build strong relationships and foster customer loyalty. Loyal customers are more likely to continue using your product and recommend it to others, leading to increased adoption and revenue. Additionally, providing customer training can help position the business as a thought leader in the industry, as customers are more likely to trust and rely on businesses that demonstrate a deep understanding of their needs and challenges.
Customer training programs in action
Now that we know what customer training is and how it can help your organization, let’s dive into the ways businesses today are using it:
Onboarding
The onboarding process is an important part of your customer training strategy, as it sets the tone for the entire customer experience. By incorporating customer training into the onboarding process, businesses can ensure that customers have the knowledge and skills they need to use their product or service effectively from day one.
There are several ways to blend customer training into the onboarding process, such as providing online tutorials, training videos, and interactive walkthroughs. These resources can be tailored to the specific needs and goals of the customer, and delivered through a variety of channels, such as email, mobile app, or in-product messaging. By adding customers to training from day one, you can set the stage for a successful and productive customer journey.
Onboarding can be done either manually or automatically; both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, so it’s important for you as a business owner or manager to decide which approach best meets your needs.
Product education
It’s important to provide your customers with the information they need in order to use your product effectively and efficiently, but it’s also essential that you do so in a way that doesn’t overwhelm them or make them feel like they’re being sold something. Here are some tips for creating an effective product education program:
- Make sure all of your customers understand the value of product education. If they don’t believe in what you’re doing, then no one else will either!
- Use visual aids whenever possible, this can help people retain information more easily than simply reading text on a page or screen.
- Always keep things simple; don’t try too hard when explaining something new; don’t assume everyone knows what something means just because it seems obvious to you; avoid jargon unless absolutely necessary.
Overall, showing customers how to use existing and new products will keep them engaged and fuel adoption.
Brand-building academy
A valuable resource for any business looking to improve customer relationships and increase retention rates. Essentially, it’s an educational program aimed at empowering customers to become proficient users of your product or service, equipping them with in-depth knowledge and skills to become experts. It can take various formats, such as online courses, webinars, in-person workshops, or training sessions. The key is to create a program that is accessible, engaging, and informative, and that meets the needs of your target audience.
By building a customer training academy, you can help your customers get the most out of your product or service, which in turn can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Customer training solutions
There are several customer training platforms and tools available that businesses can use to create and deliver effective training programs for their customers. These solutions are designed to help companies create engaging and effective training programs that can improve customer knowledge, skills, and adoption of their products or services. Here are some examples:
- Using a learning management system (LMS) is a popular and effective solution for delivering customer training. An LMS is a software platform that allows you to create, manage, and deliver training content to your customers in a structured and organized way.
- Video hosting platforms – These are platforms that enable businesses to create and host training videos that can be accessed by customers. Some popular video hosting platforms include Vimeo, YouTube, and Wistia.
- Interactive content creation tools: These tools enable companies to create engaging and interactive content such as videos, quizzes, and simulations that can improve customer learning and retention.
- Virtual classroom tools: Virtual learning tools enable companies to conduct live, online training sessions with customers. These tools can include features such as video conferencing, whiteboarding, and screen sharing.
- Course authoring tools: Course authoring tools enable companies to create and customize online courses and training programs. These tools can include templates, pre-built content, and multimedia assets.
- Knowledge base software: These are software platforms that enable businesses to create and manage knowledge bases, where customers can access articles, tutorials, and other training resources.
- Analytics and reporting tools: Useful for tracking and analyzing user participation, performance, and feedback. The use of analytics and reporting tools can help companies improve their training programs and identify areas for improvement.
Overall, the key to selecting the right customer training platform or tool is to understand the needs and preferences of your customers, as well as the goals and objectives of your business.
What to look for in a customer training platform
Whether it be used to offer training, education and certification programs, a good customer training LMS will allow you to:
- Offer a catalog of courses: An LMS should provide an easy way for users to browse through all the different courses available on the platform. You may also want an LMS that offers white labeling so that your branding appears on each page where someone takes a course in your organization’s name.
- Brand and white-labeling: An LMS should allow you to customize the look-and-feel of each page within its interface by changing colors, fonts and other elements such as logos or images without having any technical knowledge about web development. This saves time as well as money when compared with other alternatives, such as building custom solutions from scratch using off-the-shelf components like WordPress themes.
- It’s also important to consider integrations with your CRM, such as LearnUpon’s integrations with HubSpot and Salesforce. Integrating your LMS with your CRM allows you to track and analyze your learners’ progress, engagement, and performance, and use that data to make informed decisions about your training programs.
- An engaging learning experience is essential for any LMS. An LMS should offer a variety of multimedia content, such as videos, interactive quizzes, and simulations, to keep learners engaged and motivated. A user-friendly and intuitive platform will ensure easy navigation and incorporate features like progress tracking and gamification to enrich the learning experience.
- Reporting plays a key role in gaining insights into the ROI of your training campaigns. An LMS should provide comprehensive reporting features, such as completion rates, assessment scores, and learner feedback, so you can measure the effectiveness of your training programs and identify areas for improvement. With these reporting features, you can also track the ROI of your training investment, including the costs of creating and delivering the training, and the impact on your business goals.
How to train your customers
Here are some steps that you can follow to effectively train your customers:
- Identify your customers’ needs: Before starting a training program, it’s important to understand your customers’ needs. Talk to your customers and find out what they struggle with, what they need help with, and what their goals are. This will help you tailor your training program to their specific needs.
- Define learning objectives: Establishing precise and focused learning objectives is crucial in customer training to align with your business objectives. Clearly define the specific skills, knowledge, or behaviors you aim for your customers to acquire or enhance through the training program. This ensures a targeted approach that addresses their needs effectively while driving desired outcomes for your business.
- Develop training content: Once you have defined your learning objectives, develop training content that is relevant, engaging, and effective. Depending on the learning objectives and customer needs, you can create online tutorials, user manuals, workshops, videos, or other types of content.
- Choose the right format: There are many different ways to deliver training, including videos, webinars, e-learning modules, and in-person workshops. Choose the format that best suits your customers’ needs and preferences.
- Create a training plan: Create a training plan that outlines the learning objectives, content, delivery method, timeline, and assessment criteria. Make sure the training plan is tailored to your customers’ needs and goals.
- Deliver training: Deliver the training content through the chosen delivery method. Make sure the training is engaging, interactive, and accessible. Encourage customer participation and provide opportunities for feedback and questions.
- Assess the learning outcomes and effectiveness of the training program. Use analytics and reporting tools to track user engagement, performance, and feedback. Use the results to improve the training program and optimize future training efforts.
- Get feedback: Finally, don’t forget to ask for feedback from your customers. Use surveys and other feedback mechanisms to find out what’s working and what’s not, and use that feedback to improve your training program over time.
Overall, effective customer training requires a customer-centric approach, clear learning objectives, engaging content, and an appropriate delivery method. By investing in customer training, companies can improve customer satisfaction, reduce support costs, and drive business results.
By following these tips, you can create a training program that helps your customers get the most out of your products or services, while also building a loyal customer base that will keep coming back for more.
