Customer education is the process of equipping potential buyers with the necessary knowledge and information to make informed decisions about our products or services.

With everything moving so fast, consumers need to be educated on how to choose the best product and service options out there, as well as how to use them.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve skimmed through customer support queries only to realize our customers weren’t using the tool correctly or to its full potential.

But it’s not their responsibility to know that. It’s yours.

Maximize Your Business Impact With Customer Education

By prioritizing customer education, you can demonstrate your commitment to their needs and well-being, earning their trust and loyalty.

In 2023 alone, successful customer education programs have shown a significant business impact. Companies with structured customer education strategies experienced an average revenue increase of 7.6%, a 2024 Forrester study finds. This growth is primarily due to enhanced product adoption rates, increased customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction scores (Csat), upsells, cross-sells, and completion rates in customer education programs are only some of the most crucial KPIs you need to monitor.

Here is a list of 12 customer training KPIs to measure success.

Before I explore some of the fundamental customer education statistics and trends, let’s see why this matters in the first place.

Why Customer Education Matters

Educating customers on how to effectively use your products or services significantly boosts adoption rates and usage. Informed customers are more likely to take full advantage of your offerings’ features and capabilities, getting more value from what they receive.

This boost is linked to customer education efforts that make it easier for users to explore the software’s functionality fully rather than relying solely on basic or self-taught features. Through comprehensive training, tutorials, and ongoing support, companies like Adobe can ensure their customers are well-equipped to maximize investments, leading to higher retention and growth opportunities.

Adding customer training to your marketing strategy is also an excellent way to build strong relationships with your target audience. You can empower your customer base to become more knowledgeable about your products or services through various educational initiatives, such as informative blog posts, tutorials, webinars, or personalized support.

Customer Training Best Practices: 7 Practical Tips for Optimal Results

This, in turn, fosters customer loyalty and encourages word-of-mouth marketing.

Furthermore, I’ve noticed that solid customer education has helped brands differentiate themselves from competitors. By effectively communicating the value and advantages of an offer, you can position your brands (and teams) as industry experts and trusted advisors.

Hence, companies are increasingly adopting digital educational platforms, making learning more accessible and flexible. The global eLearning market is expected to hit $400 billion by 2026, highlighting the growing demand for online education and training solutions.

Key Customer Education Statistics

Next are some of the up-and-coming trends and benefits of customer education that will shed light on how well-implemented learning management systems (LMSs) can significantly impact customer satisfaction and reduce churn rates.

Influence on Retention and Engagement

Organizations that are highly focused on customers experience 51% better customer retention than those that are less customer-centric. According to Salesforce, nearly 90% of buyers say that a company’s experience is just as important as its products or services.

Part of that experience? Customer education. Every step of the way.

According to the Technology & Services Industry Association, 68% of respondents say they use products more frequently after training, and 56% use more product features than without training. Improvements in customer experience strategies resulted in 84% of companies seeing a rise in revenue and 79% achieving cost savings.

And there are diverse factors contributing to these results:

• Educational content increases consumer purchase likelihood by 131%.
• 89% of U.S. consumers expect brands and organizations to offer an online self-service support portal.
• 52% of consumers are interested in AI that assists them during their experience with a product, website, or feature.

Impact of Customer Education on Business Growth

Help resources significantly reduce support tickets by enabling customers to solve issues independently, saving costs, and improving productivity.

Lokalise’s launch of its online academy on LearnWorlds underscores this impact. Initially facing a gap in localization education resources, Lokalise created 32 courses and attracted over 2,000 active learners.

The platform’s user-friendly features and strong community-building capabilities helped establish Lokalise as a leader in the localization field. This investment in educational resources boosted the company’s visibility and positioned it as a go-to expert, advancing its market presence and business growth.

Expanding reach and enhancing market authority is another key effect you can expect.

Codefresh’s GitOps certification program exemplifies this. Initially aiming for 1,000 learners, Codefresh quickly exceeded expectations, enrolling over 20,000 students. The platform’s ease of use and robust analytics capabilities allowed Codefresh to create 9 courses and integrate seamlessly with existing tools efficiently.

This enrollment growth established Codefresh as a leading authority in GitOps and converted learners into potential customers for their enterprise products, significantly boosting their market presence and sales opportunities.

Customer Education Strategies & Results

Now that you have a better grasp of what you can achieve through improved customer education efforts, let me walk you through three simple strategies you can implement straight away:

Build Online courses

Two-thirds of businesses use a learning management system to provide customer training. Develop comprehensive online courses to create structured learning paths that cover all aspects of your product or service.

Use platforms like LearnWorlds to design interactive, engaging content that captures learners’ interest. Offering certification programs can further validate customers’ skills and knowledge, enhancing their commitment and fostering advocacy for your brand.

Ensure your courses are mobile-friendly and accessible to accommodate diverse learning styles and schedules. Emphasize ongoing education by incorporating interactive elements like gamification—such as quizzes, badges, and leaderboards—to make learning more engaging and rewarding.

This approach helps maintain learners’ motivation and keeps them updated with the latest information.

Example:
Rajvir Singh, Founder of Code and Compile, shares highly interactive courses with resources and assessments. Using LearnWorlds’ robust features, Rajvir has achieved a monthly revenue of $2,000. With over 8,000 learners enrolled in Code and Compile courses, he is on a promising trajectory for success.

Specialized courses on the Code and Compile website

Conduct webinars and live events

Host live webinars to facilitate real-time interactions and address questions, creating an opportunity for dynamic discussions and immediate feedback. This format fosters engagement and allows for spontaneous exchanges that enhance the learning experience.

Record and archive these webinars to make them available on-demand, broadening their reach and serving as a valuable resource for those who couldn’t attend the live sessions.

Additionally, featuring industry experts or product specialists can provide valuable insights and bolster the credibility of your training content.

Example:
Unblinded Mastery achieved a 150% YoY growth with the help of live events and online courses. Of 1,800 people who registered for a live event, 1,500 attended and immediately enrolled in the mastery program.

Within just seven days, Unblinded Mastery developed its course content, filmed all the videos, and launched its core training program using LearnWorlds. Remarkably, the team attracted major clients and achieved high growth without advertising.

Create customer support content

Build a comprehensive knowledge base that includes detailed articles, FAQs, and how-to guides, allowing customers to access self-service support whenever needed. This resource provides a centralized place for users to find answers and resolve issues independently, enhancing their overall experience.

85% of consumers are more confident in their purchasing decisions after watching a video, which enhances their decision-making and boosts satisfaction. I always recommend producing video tutorials visually demonstrating features, troubleshooting steps, and best practices.

Such videos make complex information easier to understand and follow. To further support users, build community forums where they can ask questions, share experiences, and assist one another, promoting peer-to-peer learning and reducing the overall support workload.

Example:
Here are a couple of videos we produced during my time at Paymo, a project management SaaS:

Support video examples tackling diverse product use cases

It’s important to remember these were never stand-alone videos since we wanted to use them at different stages of the customer lifecycle. They were part of our help center articles and we promoted them on your social media channels as well as through in-app pop-ups targeting new customers.

All three strategies are effective and can easily be integrated into your business goals should you choose to invest in customer education. That said, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with current trends and industry demands at every step of the way.

Customer Education Research Findings

The 2022 Customer Education Council Report that CustomerEducation.org led presented several interesting insights into customer education.

Over 200 customer education professionals participated in the study, which revealed valuable data on many fronts, including organizational structure, CEd partner teams, CEd program audiences, program objectives, budgets, and challenges.

Here is the valuable information in a nutshell:

• The top three objectives CEd teams have are product onboarding, reducing churn, and reducing support tickets.
• Improving existing programs and tracking business outcomes remain the top two priorities for teams.
• While many CEd teams are still unsure of the budget they want to dedicate to customer education programs, most companies are investing over 250k into these.
• Getting resources and proving ROI continues to be among the top challenges for Customer Ed teams.
• Most teams track metrics that are easy to measure, like course enrollments and course completions.
• CEd teams primarily use LMS surveys and customer interviews to collect feedback for their customer education programs.
• When it comes to monetization, opinions are split: 50% don’t monetize their programs and have no plans to do so, while 45% do monetize in some way.

This report highlights the growing importance of customer education across organizations. While many teams face challenges like securing resources and proving ROI, they remain focused on driving key objectives such as product onboarding, reducing churn, and improving business outcomes.

Product Training for Customers: A Complete Guide

With considerable investment in these programs and a mix of monetization approaches, the findings suggest that customer education will continue to play a pivotal role in enhancing the overall customer experience in the long term.

Next Steps: Ready to Invest in Customer Education?

Understanding these educating customers statistics will help you drive business success. By equipping customers with the knowledge they need to make informed decisions and fully utilize your products or services, you boost adoption rates, enhance loyalty, and reduce customer support costs.

Investing in comprehensive educational initiatives—such as online courses, webinars, and detailed customer support content—can lead to significant long-term benefits, including increased revenue and market authority enablement.

Companies like Lokalise and Codefresh have already demonstrated the impact of well-executed education strategies on business growth and customer engagement. To harness even greater benefits for your business, LearnWorlds offers powerful tools for course creation, analytics, and interactive learning that help customer education teams build and scale customer training programs.

Ready to speed up your customer education game? Start your free trial with LearnWorlds and see how it can help you engage and retain customers.

The post Key Customer Education Statistics You Need to Know appeared first on LearnWorlds.

A study commissioned by Adobe showed that of businesses with customer education programs, more than 75% saw an increase in product adoption. Additionally, 63% saw lower support costs and 58% had a reduction in customer turnover during a set period.

While these are exciting numbers, the study had a small caveat: customer education can boost your business…when it is done properly. This means you need a good strategy to see the numbers you hope for. Luckily, setting up a strong customer education initiative is well within your reach.

In this article, we guide you through what customer education is and detail its many benefits. We also offer some real examples from successful businesses and top tips for creating the best customer education program for your business goals.

What is Customer Education?

Customer education can take many forms, but they all share a common purpose: to educate, onboard, engage, and retain new and existing customers. Businesses (mostly SaaS companies) use customer education to equip customers with the information and skills they may need to use their product or service to its full potential.

Customer education content can range from comprehensive how-to guides and video tutorials to interactive webinars, detailed FAQs, product walkthroughs, and community forums or in-person training.

While customer education often overlaps with customer training, it differs in purpose.

A customer education program offers resources to help users understand a product or upskill in an industry. A customer training program focuses on structured teaching of a specific skill for a specific product. Both, however, are focused on customer success.

Having a strong customer education strategy can lead to improved customer success overall, especially if you have:

• A complex product that is difficult to navigate without instruction
• A wide customer base with unique needs and roles
• A product or service that is frequently updated with new features or functions
• A suite of products that can be combined or upgraded
• A product that is highly customizable and/or can be integrated with products from other companies

According to McKinsey & Company, creating an excellent customer experience can boost your profitability, which is one of the many benefits of using customer education for your business.

The Benefits of Customer Education

Effective customer education can enhance your overall customer experience. But what does that translate into for your business? What are some other benefits of building a customer education program?

Businesses that use effective customer education programs may see:

• Increased customer success and satisfaction: Customers are more engaged and feel more confident and empowered when using your product.
• Reduced support costs: With the tools and resources at their fingertips, customers can prevent and resolve common use issues without reaching out to a customer support team.
• Higher customer retention rates/reduced customer churn: Satisfied customers who fully understand how to use your products are less likely to look elsewhere.
• Enhance customer loyalty: Customer education can help you build strong relationships with your customers, which can help them stay loyal to your brand.
• More word-of-mouth referrals: Satisfied, loyal customers are more likely to tell others about your product, which boosts your organic reach.
• Faster product adoption and better product usage: The more effective your user onboarding process, the faster customers can use your product and the more value they are likely to see in it.

To see what these benefits look like in practice, it can help to see some real examples of customer education programs. Below we’ve listed several customer education examples from prominent companies.

Effective Customer Education Examples

Grab your pen and take some notes, these examples of successful customer education programs will help you get inspired to create or improve your customer education program.

HubSpot Academy

American company HubSpot develops and markets software products focused on inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. To help onboard new customers and give them the support they need, it offers HubSpot Academy.

HubSpot Academy has 100% free educational content on topics like email marketing software, social media marketing, and more using training content like webinars, blogs, and guides.

Several of their courses offer industry-recognized certification upon completion, which boosts their learners’ credibility. Some globally recognized certifications they offer include:

• Social media
• Content marketing
• Inbound sales

One great feature of HubSpot Academy is that users have instant access to the chatbot, which I was able to quickly use to narrow down the best course options for me.

A snapshot of HubSpot Academy’s course offerings and chatbot. Source: HubSpot Academy

Salesforce Trailhead

Salesforce is famous in the customer relationship management (CRM) software space and offers its Trailhead as a way to “Skill up for the future.”

Salesforce positions Trailhead as a fun way (think gamification, badges, and points) for users to learn in-demand skills, resume-worthy credentials, and certifications.

Their training materials include interactive modules that have quizzes and challenges to encourage learners to use their new-found knowledge in the real world. The platform also uses badges and points to motivate continuous online learning in a fun and engaging way.

Salesforce Trailhead’s course offerings, featuring points offered per module. Source: Salesforce Trailhead

LearnWorlds Academy

As a premium all-in-one online learning platform, LearnWorlds specializes in creating, selling, and marketing online courses centered around the learner’s experience. As a way to support educators, coaches, trainers, and businesses, LearnWorlds offers LearnWorlds Academy.

The online academy is “The one-stop source for all things LearnWorlds.” Membership is free, and with it, learners have access to a wide range of free courses and resources.

LearnWorlds creates a comprehensive customer education experience by offering a multitude of learning formats including video lessons, articles, case studies, and interactive quizzes.

Some popular courses it offers include:

• Build a Course
• Acquire Leads and Customers
• Manage users and Collaborators
• Create Personalized Training Micro-Flows

To help support customers even further, LearnWorlds also provides:

• Daily webinars
• On-demand resources such as checklists, ebooks, templates, and guides
• A customer support team of real LearnWorlds pros

One of LearnWorlds Academy’s many free courses. Source: LearnWorlds Academy

LinkedIn Learning

Professional networking platform LinkedIn offers LinkedIn Learning to help its users increase their knowledge base and get the most out of the platform. To do so, it offers personalized and guided learning tailored to fit learners’ careers.

It has a vast library of courses (around 23,300) from nearly four thousand industry experts and thought leaders on topics ranging from business to tech to the creative fields.

To motivate and engage learners, LinkedIn Learning features:

• Personalized learning paths
• Certifications
• Skills assessments
• Group learning

Learners can even customize their search for relevant courses by inputting their job title and industry when using the search function.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn Learning isn’t free. Learners do have access to ten free courses per month with a LinkedIn premium subscription or they can opt to buy a Learning subscription. Either way, learners get a free month-long trial to sample the educational content before they commit.

The LinkedIn Learning dashboard, where learners can sign up and search for courses. Source: LinkedIn Learning

Canva Design School

Canva is famous for its mission of making graphic design approachable and user-friendly for everyone. Canva Design School takes this one step further by offering free courses that walk users through how to use the platform to its fullest potential.

Canva’s courses are interactive, using hands-on tutorials to walk learners through topics and techniques step-by-step. Popular tutorials include Create Videos with Canva, Managing Content in Canva, and Create Websites with Canva.

Canva uses a combination of video learning and interactive lesson activities to maintain customer engagement. And like other customer education programs, Canva also offers its learners official certificates. At the time of writing, learners can take tests to earn certifications in:

• Canva Essentials
• Teacher Essentials
• Graphic Design Essentials

Canva’s Design School is completely free, and learners can take advantage of its offerings without creating an account. The only exception to this is the certification program which requires users to be logged in with a free account.

A snapshot of Canva Design School’s “Canva Essentials” course. Source: Canva Design School

Slack Success Hub

Slack is a messaging app mostly used by businesses and online communities to communicate and collaborate. It boasts a host of features for connecting teams no matter their location and to maximize its benefits for its users, it offers the Slack Success Hub.

The Success Hub has resources for beginner Slack users all the way to their advanced Slack Champions, meaning there are plenty of opportunities for its users to upskill on its platform.

Courses range from User Onboarding to Slack for HR, Recruiting, and DEI training and learners can earn badges and certifications for specific courses. In addition to courses, the Success Hub supports user learning through:

• Use-case examples for Slack
• Tutorials and webinars
• Onboarding and start guides

To take advantage of the Slack Success Hub, users need to have an account with the platform.

New user onboarding with Slack Success Hub. Source: Slack Success Hub

Zendesk Training

Zendesk positions itself as “The complete customer service solution” and provides software-as-a-service (SAAS) companies products designed to improve the customer experience. Its Zendesk Training is designed to ease users into leveraging its products to their fullest potential.

Zendesk Training offers both free and paid options, with the paid options leading to the possibility of becoming Zendesk Certified. For free options, learners can browse and choose courses and resources according to their company positions, such as admins, agents, or developers. Zendesk Training offers a wide range of certification options, including:

• Zendesk Support Administrator
• Zendesk Guide Specialist
• Zendesk App Developer I Expert

Despite having a vast course catalog, Zendesk Training makes it easy for learners to filter for and bundle courses to suit their specific needs.

A sample learning journey for Zendesk Training users. Source: Zendesk Training

Tips for Creating an Effective Customer Education Program

A customer education program can be a strategic investment that helps you reach your business goals. With a solid program, you stand to increase overall customer satisfaction, reduce your support team costs, and make it easier for customers to use and enjoy your offerings.

Check out our article on Customer Enablement: Why It Matters & Best Practices

Here are some top tips for implementing your customer education program:

Establish clear objectives

Define clear goals for your program and outline the outcomes you wish to see. These could be to increase sales, improve learner retention, or improve your customer onboarding process.

Ask yourself: What are my primary goals for the program, and how can achieving these goals impact my business success?

Analyze your audience

Take an in-depth look at your users and put them into groups. These groups could be based on things like their knowledge level, job role, industry type, or use case (how they use your products). Clearly defining these groups can help you develop content to address their needs.

Ask yourself: Who uses my product and what are their specific needs and pain points?

Choose an LMS

You need a reliable LMS (learning management system) for your program, so look for one that meets your customer needs and your program objectives. The best LMSs offer analytics and integrations and are highly customizable.

Ask yourself: Does the LMS offer analytics and can I customize it to offer various content formats like videos, tutorials, assessments, and gamification options?

Start developing content

Using your goals and audience analysis as the backbone, start developing the content for your course. Try to offer a wide range of learning formats like videos and tutorials, group learning, mini-lessons and webinars, and assessments.

Ask yourself: How can I make maintain customer engagement through my educational content?

Incorporate certifications and badges

Using some sort of reward system for learning is an excellent way to motivate learners and keep them involved. Badges and certifications are both great ways for learners to feel acknowledged for their efforts and to measure their progress.

Ask yourself: What certifications/badges would my users find most valuable?

Don’t forget accessibility

Make your program accessible and inclusive to all users. Use a variety of learning formats, offer subtitles and transcripts for videos, and if you can, offer translations to expand your reach to speakers of other languages.

Ask yourself: How is the learning experience for my customers? Is it accessible to all learners?

Promote your program

Consider how you can promote your program to first-time users and return users. For instance, using social media and testimonials can be a way to attract new learners, and using email lists to inform current users about new courses can encourage continuous learning.

Ask yourself: How can leverage the tools I already have in place to attract and retain learners?

Analyze and iterate

This is where having an LMS with analytics is so important. You need to measure the success of your program to know how you can improve it. Use the metrics from your LMS to see what is working and what isn’t, and adjust accordingly.

Ask yourself: What will be my key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for measuring success?

These tips will help you build a customer education program that is both valuable to your learners and helps you grow your business. Throughout the process, don’t forget to circle back to the very beginning and stay connected to your goals.

Ready to Use Customer Education to Scale Your Business?

An effective customer education program can be a game changer for your brand. As we’ve seen through the examples in this resource, educating customers can do wonders in many areas of your business.

Use it to improve customer satisfaction, reduce support tickets, and ease product adoption for your users. By educating and empowering your customers, you increase loyalty for your products and growth for your business.

Get your free trial with LearnWorlds today and start educating your customers!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• SCORM 101: The Definitive Guide to Choose a SCORM-Compliant LMS
• The 19 Best Learning Management Systems
• 8 Best Online Course Platforms: A Comparison Guide for 2024
• How to Start a Profitable Online Course Business From Scratch
• What is an LMS (Learning Management System)?
• How to Create and Sell Profitable Online Courses: Step-by-Step Guide
• How Much Money Can You Make Selling Online Courses?

Learn more about:

• Certificate Templates For Your Online Academy
• Connecting your favorite tools to LearnWorlds

The post 7 Effective Customer Education Examples & Best Practices for 2024 appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Effective product training can be the difference between a frustrated user and a brand advocate who can’t stop raving about your solution.

A great way to do this is by offering comprehensive product training to help customers get the most out of their purchases, therefore building long-term loyalty and a recognizable, trustworthy brand.

In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of product training for customers, tips and strategies, and ways to accurately measure training impact. Let’s dive in!

9 Key Benefits of Customer Training

By equipping customers with the knowledge they need to leverage your product or service, you can successfully enhance the overall customer experience and foster loyalty.

From improving customer satisfaction to streamlining operations, effective product training offers numerous advantages.

Let’s dive into 9 key benefits to see how they can transform the relationship with your customers and drive business success.

1. Improved Customer Experience

Product training plays a crucial role in enhancing the overall customer experience. When customers understand how to use a product effectively, they are more likely to appreciate its features and benefits, leading to increased satisfaction. In turn, a positive customer experience fosters trust and encourages repeat business, reducing churn and increasing lifetime customer value.

2. Higher Customer Satisfaction

Product training empowers customers by equipping them with the knowledge and skills needed to achieve their goals, especially in the SaaS industry.

Empowered customers are more confident in their ability to utilize the product effectively, leading to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. This empowerment fosters a positive relationship between the customer and the brand, enhancing customer satisfaction (CSAT) and NPS scores.

3. Increased Product Adoption

Comprehensive customer onboarding and product training lead to higher rates of product adoption. When customers are well-versed in a product’s features and benefits, they are more likely to integrate it into their daily routines and workflows.

4. Enhanced Brand Loyalty

By investing in their success, companies demonstrate a commitment to their customers’ needs and goals, which is a great way to build trust and loyalty. Plus, they create their own vibrant community where customers connect with each other and the brand.

Loyal customers are more inclined to become brand ambassadors and recommend the product to others whether among their circle or by leaving positive reviews online.

5. Shorter Sales Cycle

Customers might be sometimes skeptical about sales reps, but they will trust user testimonials. Having a strong brand name to work with and a powerful customer education academy, your sales team should be able to close deals faster.

6. Reduced Customer Support Costs

Providing customers with thorough product training can significantly reduce the burden on your customer support teams. When customers are well-informed about a product’s functionality and troubleshooting techniques, they are less likely to ask for assistance.

This reduction in support requests allows companies to allocate resources more efficiently and focus on improving other aspects of their business.

7. Better Customer Support

Like we just mentioned, effective product training alleviates the demand for customer support services. When customers are equipped with on-demand resources and the necessary skills to troubleshoot common issues, they are less likely to seek assistance from customer support, therefore alleviating their workload and enabling them to serve customers better.

8. Improved Customer Retention

Investing in customer success through product training courses is a powerful strategy for improving customer retention. Satisfied and knowledgeable customers are less likely to switch to competitors, reducing churn rates.

By prioritizing customer retention, companies can build a loyal customer base that contributes to long-term business success.

9. Stronger Customer Relationships

Product training serves as a valuable touchpoint for building and strengthening customer relationships. By offering personalized and valuable training experiences, companies demonstrate their commitment to customer success.

Strong customer relationships lead to increased trust, loyalty, and advocacy, creating a positive cycle of growth and engagement throughout the customer journey.

4 Key Components of Effective Product Training for Customers

To make product training truly effective, it’s important to focus on key elements that cater to the diverse needs of your customers. With strategies that promote engagement, personalization, and flexibility, you can ensure your training is both accessible and impactful! Let’s explore how these elements come together to create a powerful and successful training experience for your audience.

Comprehensive Curriculum

An effective product training program should encompass a comprehensive curriculum that covers all essential aspects of the product. This includes basic functionalities, advanced features, best practices, and troubleshooting tips.

A well-rounded curriculum ensures that customers can confidently navigate the product and leverage its full potential.

Interactive Learning

Incorporating interactive learning elements can significantly enhance the effectiveness of product training. Hands-on workshops, quizzes, simulations, and real-life scenarios enable customers to apply their knowledge in a practical yet safe setting.

Interactive learning not only reinforces key concepts but also keeps customers engaged and motivated throughout the training process, so make sure to include interactive elements even if you offer an entire self-paced program.

Personalized Approach

Recognizing that customers have varying levels of expertise and learning preferences is essential for successful product training.

Offering personalized training options, such as beginner, intermediate, and advanced modules, allows customers to choose the level of instruction that suits their needs.

Another way to increase the level of personalization is to include some live, instructor-led training sessions (ILT) and, of course, one-to-one or group tutorials with Customer Success Managers.

Accessibility and Flexibility

To accommodate diverse customer schedules and preferences, product training should be accessible and flexible. Providing self-paced training resources, such as video tutorials, webinars, and online courses, allows customers to learn at their own pace and convenience.

Additionally, offering multilingual training materials can cater to a global audience, ensuring inclusivity and reach.

Step-by-Step Strategy for Successful Product Knowledge Training

To create a successful product knowledge training program, it’s important to adopt a strategic approach that addresses the unique needs of your customers.

Although no two customer training programs are alike, there are some best practices and strategies to ensure optimal results.

Identify Training Objectives

Before designing a product training program, it is crucial to identify clear training objectives. These objectives should align with the company’s overall goals and address specific customer needs.

For example, objectives may include increasing customer satisfaction, reducing churn, or driving product adoption. Defining objectives that align with business goals provides a roadmap for developing targeted and impactful training content.

Not doing so is actually one of the most common customer education mistakes that will hurt your budget and jeopardize the effectiveness of your program.

Collaborate with Subject Matter Experts

Collaborating with subject matter experts (SMEs) is vital for creating accurate and authoritative training materials. SMEs possess in-depth knowledge of the product and its intricacies, enabling them to provide valuable insights and guidance.

By working closely with SMEs, like product engineers, training teams can ensure that the online training content is both informative and reliable.

Leverage Tech Tools

Utilizing technology can enhance the delivery and effectiveness of product training. Learning management systems (LMS) with built-in authoring tools and integrations able companies to organize, track, and assess training activities efficiently.

Additionally, incorporating gamification elements, like rewards and badges, can motivate customers and make the learning experience more enjoyable.

Needless to say, utilizing an LMS is the best way to scale your training and serve customers in multiple locations.

Personalize Training Content

It’s essential to tailor content to different customer segments, ensuring that training is relevant to specific industries, roles, use cases, or expertise levels.

Provide access to a library of on-demand, elearning resources that customers can explore at their own pace and revisit as needed. Offer a variety of microlearning resources in various formats, including real-time sessions where customers can interact with a product expert.

Facilitate Peer Learning

A built-in community or social media group will encourage customers to share their experiences and tips with new customers. Moreover, it’s a great way to foster brand loyalty among your customers!

Promote The Program

Marketing is an indispensable part of your training strategy. Ensure customers are aware you already have or are about to launch a new product training program.

Create in-product notifications, advertise it on your website and social media, and make sure that all team members of your customer facing departments, like sales, customer success team CSMs, and customer support, communicate it individually to customers.

Gather Customer Feedback

Regularly gathering customer feedback is essential for refining and improving product training programs. Feedback provides valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the training content and delivery methods.

By actively listening to customer input, you can make necessary adjustments and ensure that the training remains relevant and effective.

Strive for Continuous Improvement

Use data analytics to identify trends and areas for improvement (we share tips about this right in the next section), allowing for evidence-based adjustments to training programs.

Regularly update and refresh training content to keep pace with product developments and new features and evolving customer needs for effective product knowledge always.

6 Ways to Measure the Business Impact of Customer Product Training

In order to ensure your training programs are always on point and yield positive results, you have to continuously track and measure its impact. This can be done via several channels, let’s see the most common and reliable ones:

Surveys and Feedback Forms

Surveys and feedback forms are essential tools for measuring customer satisfaction and the perceived value of training programs.

Post-training surveys can capture feedback on the training’s relevance, clarity, and usefulness, while periodic surveys can track long-term satisfaction and the impact on product usage.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a valuable metric for assessing customer loyalty and satisfaction.

By asking customers how likely they are to recommend the product after completing training, businesses can gauge the effectiveness of their education programs in enhancing customer experience and advocacy.

Product Usage Metrics

Analyzing product usage metrics is crucial for measuring changes in customer behavior.

Tools that track user engagement, feature adoption, and frequency of use can help identify whether training has led to increased utilization of the product, highlighting areas where customer education has been particularly effective.

Support Ticket Analysis

Support ticket analysis helps measure the impact of training on customer self-sufficiency.

By tracking the volume and nature of support inquiries before and after training, businesses can determine whether customers are better equipped to handle common issues on their own.

Revenue and Sales Metrics

Tracking revenue and sales metrics provides insights into the financial impact of customer education.

Tools that analyze renewals, upsells, and cross-sells can help correlate training participation with revenue growth, indicating the influence of education on customer lifetime value (CLV).

Customer Reviews

Monitoring customer reviews provides qualitative insights into the real-world impact of training programs. An increasing number of positive customer reviews is indisputable proof of a satisfied and loyal customer base.

Final Thoughts

Customer product training is a powerful tool that boosts user satisfaction and loyalty.

By offering personalized training and not merely a one-size-fits-all knowledge base with user manuals, you equip customers with the skills to gain the most value out of your product. This, in turn, leads to multiple benefits for your business.

As you embark on this exciting initiative, you’ll need a reliable customer education platform like LearnWorlds. With powerful features, like AI assistant, interactive content, built-in community, multiple schools, user roles and user groups, customer service and CRM integrations, and many, many more, you know you can lean on LearnWorlds for an utterly engaging, scalable, and effective customer training.

Don’t wait another day. Try LearnWorlds with a 30-day free trial now!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• 10 Best Customer Education Platforms
• 10 Warning Signs You Need a Customer Education Program ASAP
• Customer Training Best Practices: 7 Practical Tips for Optimal Results
• What Is Customer Training? Definition, Benefits, And A Quick How-To Guide
• Top 12 Customer Training Software
• Customer Onboarding Strategies: Why Tech-Touch is the Best Option

The post Product Training for Customers: A Complete Guide appeared first on LearnWorlds.

In this post, we’ll explore the benefits of customer training, strategies for rolling out successful customer education initiatives, and the best tools for the job!

The Importance & Benefits of Customer Education

Customer education is pivotal in bridging the gap between a product’s potential and its actual use. It involves creating resources and programs that help customers understand and use products effectively.

An effective customer education program boosts customer success by reducing the learning curve and ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes.

Companies that prioritize their customers’ success see improved customer retention, increased satisfaction, and a stronger market position. This is all the more true in the SaaS industry where products are more complex and require a level of tech-savviness.

Skip to your 8-step guide for a successful customer education strategy, or keep reading to explore the advantages of customer education:

Shorter Time to Value

Customer onboarding is quintessential for a smooth user experience from the get go of the customer journey.

The onboarding process refers to the early stage of a training program that focuses on offering educational resources and personalized support to help the customer set up a product and become familiar with key functions.

Enhanced Customer Retention

Customer education can also reduce customer churn, since educated customers who can fully utilize the product’s features and benefits and have a positive customer experience, are more likely to remain loyal.

Higher Customer Satisfaction

Your customers choose your product for a reason, be it to overcome a challenge or make a daily routine somehow more efficient. Helping them reach their goals with your product will make them feel confident they made their right choice and drive customer satisfaction higher.

Reduced Support Costs

Offering self-service resources, like a knowledge base with support articles, FAQs, and tutorials, lowers the volume of support tickets while enabling your team to serve clients who come to them with more intricate issues better.

Improved Customer Engagement

Engaging educational content fosters a sense of community and connection with your brand, encouraging ongoing interaction and loyalty.

Customers learn about new features and updates before they’re released, they engage through customer communities, and interact with you during live product events.

Higher Customer Lifetime Value

Customer education is a great way to not only expand the customer lifecycle and therefore secure repeat sales and renewals but also to drive upsells and cross sells.

Stronger Brand Reputation

Companies known for their customer education efforts gain a reputation for caring about their customers’ success, which enhances overall brand perception outside the limits of your exciting customer base.

Shorter Sales Cycle

Positive word-of-mouth, reviews and testimonials, and the mere existence of a customer training program are great benefits to showcase potential customers. This makes it easier for your salespeople to close sales deals.

Your 8-Step Guide to Building a Customer Education Program

Creating a successful customer education program requires careful planning and execution. Make sure your customer education team follows these steps to build an effective strategy:

Step 1 – Identify Customer Needs

Start by understanding your customers’ specific needs and pain points. Conduct surveys, interviews, and feedback sessions to gather insights into the challenges they face and the information they seek.

Customer feedback forms, product analytics tools, and support tickets can help pinpoint common issues and knowledge gaps.

Step 2 – Define Clear Objectives

Set clear learning objectives for your education program tied to your business goals. Determine what you want to achieve, such as reducing support costs, increasing customer retention, or accelerating product adoption.

Having defined goals will guide the development and implementation of your strategy. Use the SMART methodology to set specific and measurable goals.

Step 3 – Develop Educational Content

Create a variety of educational content and content formats to address different learning styles and preferences. This can include tutorials, guides, videos, webinars, quizzes, case studies, and interactive courses.

Create microlearning modules and use game mechanics and community for enhanced engagement in online learning.

Ensure the content is relevant, engaging, and easy to understand. Consider creating customer education programs tailored to different user levels, use cases, job roles, or even locations. Offer a certification to add more value for your learners.

Step 4 – Choose the Right Delivery Channels

Select the appropriate channels to deliver your educational content. Consider using a mix of platforms, such as a Learning Management System (LMS), customer portals, and social media, to reach a wider audience. Webinars can serve as a dynamic way to engage with customers and provide real-time learning opportunities.

Step 5 – Implement Technology Solutions

Leverage technology to enhance your customer enablement efforts. Use tools like customer education platforms to deliver content, track progress, and assess the effectiveness of your program.

Consider using analytics to gain insights into customer engagement and learning outcomes after the deployment of your program.

Step 6 – Promote the Program

Both existing and new customers should know about the available resources for them. This can be achieved through in-product notifications and pointers, on your website and social media, and communicated by all your customer facing employees from sales to customer success and support.

Step 7 – Provide Continuous Support

Offer ongoing support to your customers as they engage with your educational content. This can include live webinars, Q&A sessions, and community forums where customers can ask questions and share experiences.

Building a community around your product encourages interaction and learning.

Step 8 – Measure and Optimize

Regularly evaluate the success of your education program by tracking key metrics such as course completion rates, customer feedback, and changes in support requests.

Use this data to refine your content and improve the program’s effectiveness continuously. Adjust your strategy based on feedback to ensure it remains relevant and valuable.

Best Tools for a Successful Customer Education Academy

Building a robust customer education program requires leveraging the right tools to create, deliver, and manage content effectively.

Here are some popular types of tools that can help you develop and enhance your customer education strategy:

1. Online Course Platform

Customer education platforms, which are designed specifically for customer training or Learning Management Systems (LMS) that serve multiple educational purposes, are excellent solutions to deliver, track, and manage educational courses and training programs.

They provide tools for creating content, managing student progress, and generating reports to enhance the learning experience.

LearnWorlds stands out as a top solution for customer education. It serves diverse use cases and is consistently ranked high by users due to its ease of use, wealth of features, and advanced customization and scalability – all this at a fair price that is not restrictive to SMBs!

2. Content Creation Tools

Content creation tools are software applications used to develop multimedia learning materials, such as videos, tutorials, presentations, and interactive courses. They enable educators and trainers to design engaging and professional-quality content for various learning purposes.

Again, this is why going with an all-in-one online course platform like LearnWorlds is the most stress-free option that saves you from the trouble of juggling between tools. See on action how LearnWorlds works:

3. Webinar and Live Training Platforms

Webinar and live training platforms are online services that facilitate real-time virtual training sessions, workshops, and presentations. They offer features like screen sharing, audience interaction, and session recording to enhance live learning experiences.

4. Community and Collaboration Platforms

Community and collaboration platforms are digital spaces that allow users to engage in discussions, share knowledge, and collaborate on projects. They foster interaction among users, enhancing learning through peer-to-peer support and knowledge sharing.

5. Course Marketplace Platforms

Course marketplace platforms, like LinkedIn Learning, are online platforms that offer a wide range of courses from various providers. They provide learners with access to diverse educational content, allowing for personal and professional development across multiple subjects.

Ready to Build a Winning Customer Education Strategy?

An effective customer education strategy is a powerful tool for driving customer success, enhancing satisfaction, and reducing churn.

By understanding your customers’ needs and delivering targeted educational content, you enable them to achieve their goals and build lasting relationships with your brand.

As customer expectations evolve, continue to innovate and improve your education efforts to ensure your customers derive maximum value from your products and services.

And if you’re looking for the best tool for the job, look no further than LearnWorlds. Our platform is equipped with all the features you need for a scalable and engaging customer education academy.

With intuitive content authoring and website builder, multiple schools and custom branding, mobile app and AI tools, there’s so much you can accomplish we can’t even begin to describe it!

Discover LearnWorlds with a 30-day free trial today!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• Top 12 Customer Training Software
• Customer Onboarding Strategies: Why Tech-Touch is the Best Option
• How Can You Improve Customer Education? 5 Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
• Customer Enablement: Why It Matters & Best Practices for Successful Implementation
• 7 Customer Onboarding Challenges and How an LMS Can Beat Them
• 11 Benefits of Customer Training That Drive Business Growth

The post How to Build Your Customer Education Strategy appeared first on LearnWorlds.

The Elusivity of Customer Education ROI

The History of Customer Education Measurement

The journey of customer education (CE) from being a mere task to a strategic initiative is fascinating. Initially, customer training was an afterthought, something that happened informally through account managers or customer service representatives. However, as products and services grew more complex, the need for structured education programs has become evident. Businesses are recognizing that well-informed customers are more likely to be satisfied, loyal, and successful.

This realization has led to the formalization of customer education programs. Companies are investing in dedicated training departments, online learning platforms, and comprehensive resources to educate their customers. Despite this transformation, measuring the impact of these programs often remains elusive. Attempts at measurement often rely heavily on engagement metrics, such as the number of training sessions attended or the completion rates of online courses. While these metrics provide some insight, they fail to capture the true business impact of customer education.

Why It’s Difficult to Measure

The difficulty in measuring the ROI of customer education stems from several factors. Firstly, there is an overreliance on engagement metrics, which, while important, do not directly correlate with business outcomes. Metrics like course completion rates, quiz scores, and attendance figures can indicate participation levels but do not necessarily translate to improved customer behavior or increased revenue.

Secondly, many attempts to measure customer education ROI rely on loose correlations. For instance, a company might notice that customers who participate in some training are more likely to renew their contracts. While this is a positive sign, it does not establish a direct relationship between education and renewal. Other factors, such as product quality or customer service, could also be influencing these outcomes.

To truly demonstrate the value of customer education, a more robust and strategic approach to measurement is required.

A Modern Approach to Measurement

Realizing Positive ROI Starts with the Ability to Measure It

The first step to realizing a positive ROI from customer education is to develop a clear and effective method for measuring it. This means moving beyond traditional engagement metrics and adopting a programmatic approach that aligns customer education with broader business objectives.

A programmatic approach involves designing education programs with clear, measurable goals that are directly tied to business outcomes. This approach requires a shift in mindset from simply delivering training to solving specific business problems through education. By doing so, companies can establish a more direct link between education initiatives and business results.

To achieve this, customer education programs must be strategically connected to the company’s overall business objectives. This means identifying the key areas where education can have the most significant impact, such as customer retention, product adoption, or support cost reduction. By aligning education efforts with these objectives, companies can ensure that their training programs are not only informative but also impactful.

Three Steps to Building Measurable Customer Education Programs

Step 1: Identify Measurable Problems or Opportunities

The first step in building a measurable customer education program is to identify specific problems or opportunities that education can address. This involves working closely with various stakeholders, including sales, support, and product teams, to understand the challenges customers face and the opportunities for improvement. For example, if customers are frequently contacting support with the same issues, this could indicate a need for better education on those topics.

Step 2: Target Education Programs to Address the Problem

Once the problem or opportunity has been identified, the next step is to design education programs specifically targeted to address it. This requires a thorough understanding of the customer journey and the points at which education can have the most significant impact. For example, if the goal is to reduce support calls, the education program might focus on providing in-depth training on common issues and troubleshooting steps.

Step 3: Map Out Leading and Lagging Metrics that Connect Learning to the Business Problem

To effectively measure the impact of the education program, it is essential to establish a set of leading and lagging metrics. Leading metrics are those that can provide early indications of the program’s success, such as the number of customers who complete the training or the improvement in quiz scores. Lagging metrics, on the other hand, are the ultimate business outcomes that the program aims to achieve, such as a reduction in support calls or an increase in customer retention rates. By mapping out these metrics, companies can track the progress of their education programs and make data-driven adjustments as needed.

Tips for Yielding a Positive ROI

Build Programs with a Strong Connection Between the Problem to Solve and Customer Behavior

One of the keys to yielding a positive ROI from customer education is ensuring a strong connection between the problem to be solved and customer behavior. This means designing education programs that are not only informative but also actionable. Customers should be able to apply what they have learned to improve their usage of the product or service, which in turn should lead to positive business outcomes.

Leverage Instructional Design Principles

Effective customer education programs leverage instructional design principles to ensure that the training is engaging, relevant, and impactful. This includes using a variety of learning formats, such as videos, interactive modules, and hands-on exercises, to empower learners to achieve the objectives. Additionally, programs should be designed to be concise and focused, avoiding information overload and ensuring that key concepts are clearly communicated.

Be Efficient Through Targeting Content and Delivery

Efficiency is another crucial factor in yielding a positive ROI from customer education. This involves targeting the content and delivery methods to the specific needs of the customers. For example, instead of providing generic training, companies can offer personalized learning paths based on the customer’s role, experience level, and specific challenges. Additionally, leveraging technology, such as learning management systems and analytics tools, can help streamline the delivery and tracking of education programs, making it easier to measure their impact.

Next Steps

Seeing a positive ROI from customer education requires a strategic and data-driven approach. Boutique firms like Echtus, experts in customer education, can help businesses move beyond traditional engagement metrics and adopt a programmatic approach.

Building programs with a strong connection between the problem to solve and customer behavior, leveraging instructional design principles, and being efficient through targeting content and delivery can further enhance the impact of customer education initiatives. By following these guidelines, customer educators can confidently demonstrate the value of their programs and ensure a positive return on investment.

The post How to See a Positive ROI from Customer Education appeared first on LearnWorlds.

Is it really any surprise?

By helping your customers understand and use your products and services better, you can significantly enhance customer experience, boost satisfaction, build loyalty, and strengthen your relationships with them.

Industries like tech, SaaS, and consumer electronics are often at the forefront of offering great customer education programs. These range from personalized onboarding and interactive tutorials to chatbots and on-demand resources.

As businesses keep growing and evolving, investing in customer education becomes a must for long-term success.

What Can Your Business Achieve Through Customer Training?

Customer education and business growth often go hand in hand. Let’s break it down and see how exactly deploying customer training helps you grow your business!

Deploying a customer education program will help customers discover and learn how to use more product features, therefore maximizing the value they get out of your product. Here’s how it happens:

• By browsing the resources on your knowledge base, like webinars and documentation, clients discover all the features available to them.
• When customers have helpful resources that guide them through your product, the learning curve is minimized, and they’re better able to use it. Plus, knowing that they have help readily available, they are more likely to play around and explore.
• By incorporating feedback mechanisms into your program and applying the learnings afterward, you enable customers to not only express their opinions and ideas but also improve and shape your product into a product that best meets their needs!

A structured customer onboarding program helps new users set up your product (if needed) and start utilizing it with confidence faster.

• Self-service resources like FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and support documentation enable customers to resolve issues independently and at the point of need, right after the purchase.
• Detailed instructions can help even the less tech-savvy customers master a complex product from the start.
• By offering different training courses per use case, feature, job role and other criteria, customers find the information they need and do not go through lengthy courses with information that is irrelevant to them.
• Onboarding material is also a great way to offer proactive support, which means customers are ready to dive right in and get their questions answered before they become a problem and hinder the user experience.

Early customer churn happens due to a lack of customer onboarding, insufficient product understanding, unmet expectations, poor customer support, and a failure to demonstrate product value quickly.

These issues lead to frustration, dissatisfaction, and ultimately, customers discontinuing the use of the product or service.

• When customers are well-informed about how to use products or services effectively, they are more likely to achieve their desired outcomes, leading to higher customer satisfaction early on. This makes it unlikely they will discontinue using the product.
• By providing resources such as tutorials, FAQs, and webinars, companies help new customers to troubleshoot issues independently, minimizing negative experiences that could lead to churn.
• Educated customers also find greater value in their purchase, which reinforces their decision to stick with the brand. As they become more proficient and confident in using the product, their loyalty grows, further reducing the likelihood of switching to competitors.

Customer education helps you reduce the number of customer support agents and take a load of work off their shoulders. Your team works more efficiently and meaningfully!

• Customers have access to self-service resources like video tutorials and step-by-step guides, which fosters independent problem-solving enabling them to find answers and troubleshoot minor issues on their own, therefore reducing the average number of tickets per customer.
• At the same time, your customer service teams are not occupied by an overwhelming number of tickets. They can respond more timely and efficiently, fully focused on each customer. Not to mention that, having to reply to simple inquiries time and time again becomes boring.
• Customers will often contact customer support not only for questions but also for complaints! With a customer training program, they become more proficient and enjoy a better customer experience, which means they have less to complain about.

Offer one more convincing argument to sales team members to seal the deal by showcasing an up-to-date customer training academy.

• Having a customer onboarding program in place gives prospective customers the confidence your company cares, that you provide excellent customer support, and that they will have the assistance to use it.
• The perceived value and competitiveness of your product also increases. Offering certifications as part of your training program adds credibility and attractiveness to your product, making it easier to convince potential customers.
• Effective customer training leads to higher customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are more likely to share their positive experiences, creating organic word-of-mouth advertising. This positive reputation makes it easier for your sales team to approach and convert new prospects, who may have already heard good things about your product.

Customer training can also lower Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) for your company.

• Customer training programs transform educated customers into brand advocates, who promote your brand through word-of-mouth and social media. This organic promotion attracts new customers at a lower acquisition cost.
• Additionally, satisfied, knowledgeable customers generate positive reviews and testimonials, enhancing your brand’s credibility and appeal. Leveraging these advocates reduces the reliance on expensive marketing campaigns, thereby lowering overall customer acquisition costs.

Providing continuous education and support strengthens the trust and bond between the customer and the brand, leading to a long-lasting relationship that benefits both sides.

• First of all, educated customers are more satisfied and loyal, leading to repeat purchases and subscription renewals, which translates into a steady revenue stream for your business.
• Secondly, through customer education, you open up upselling and cross selling opportunities. As customers become aware of the full range of products and as they already trust and are happy with your product, they are more likely to see the value in upgrading, making additional purchases, or buying complementary products, increasing their overall spending.
• Educated customers often make more informed choices and see the benefit of additional features or products, leading to higher average order values.

Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) are key business metrics that signal the future financial health of your business. If they drop, this is a surefire sign that you need to deploy customer training. In any case, it’s best to act proactively and keep them high with your customer training program.

• By providing practical resources that help users navigate your product, they don’t experience feelings of frustration or impatience – they are capable of using the product on their own without having to interrupt their experience or wait for a response from your support team.
• In addition, knowing the full capabilities of your product, they find more value in it and integrate it into their lives, successfully addressing a pain point or achieving a goal. These foster high customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, and make customers more likely to recommend your brand to others.

One of the most important KPIs for a business, customer retention is closely linked to business growth. Customer training improves the customer experience end-to-end and during multiple stages in the customer journey, therefore building a solid foundation for long-term customer relationships and increasing customer retention rates.

• Customer training builds trust and improves customer engagement by showing a commitment to customer success. Through live events and webinars, your brand can interact directly with clients, while feedback mechanisms allow you to gather their insights and tailor your product to better meet their needs.
• Customers get a satisfying experience and feel more empowered using your product with little or no need to contact customer support.
• Customers not only have a seamless experience but also get the most benefit from your product: they discover all features, they stay up to date with new ones, and make informed decisions for upgraded and additional items.

Customer education can be used as a great marketing tool that increases exposure to your brand and helps establish a consistent, positive brand image.

• As you foster customer satisfaction and loyalty, all these loyal customers will be happy to recommend your brand either through word of mouth or publicly, by leaving positive reviews, social media mentions, and high ratings.
• Customer education boosts a company’s brand image by positioning the company as a knowledgeable and reliable authority in its field as you showcase your expertise. This is further supported by issuing certifications.
• Customer education reinforces your brand image by consistently communicating your values and expertise through multiple touchpoints with customers. It provides numerous opportunities to engage with your audience, ensuring your messaging remains clear and consistent.
• On a more human level, providing customer training shows you’re a helpful and customer-centric brand that supports customers throughout their journey.

Last but not least, you can choose to sell your training courses and further boost your bottom line. Here are a few ways you can do that:

• Create training content relevant to your niche that customers are willing to pay for – this is a great way to bring qualified leads your way.
• Provide certifications upon course completion to add value for your customers who can showcase them on their resume.
• Collaborate with industry partners to offer co-branded training programs, further expanding your reach, brand awareness, and revenue potential.

Quick Implementation Strategies

So, how can you implement product training for customers? These are the most common implementation strategies that maximize efficiency and accessibility.

• Customer training programs: Structured learning experiences with modules and training materials that guide new customers through the initial stages of using the product and beyond.
• Webinars and workshops: Regular live webinars and workshops that provide deeper insights and advanced usage tips.
• Help centers and knowledge bases: Comprehensive and easily accessible help centers and knowledge bases with support articles and documentation.
• Interactive tutorials: Engaging video tutorials that cater to different learning styles.
• Customer Success Teams: Dedicated teams that proactively educate and support customers.

Using a Learning Management System (LMS) can meet your training needs and significantly optimize your training efforts. It offers diverse content formats, enables seamless management of eLearning and live training sessions from one platform, and supports integrations, allowing for further customization and eliminating the need for multiple tools.

An LMS also includes functionalities like feedback mechanisms, assessments, a certificate builder, and robust reporting, plus features like gamification and quizzes to boost learner engagement and achieve deep product knowledge.

Additionally, you can launch a mobile app for added convenience, ensuring customers can access training anytime, anywhere. This centralized approach helps you deploy an effective, interactive training program efficiently that helps customers build the competencies they need to use your product.

Are You Ready to Reap the Benefits of Customer Training?

Wrapping up, it’s clear that customer education is one of the most effective initiatives to meet your customers’ needs and boost your bottom line. It is a real game-changer for any business. From improving feature adoption and reducing support costs to boosting sales and enhancing your brand image, the benefits are undeniable.

Educated customers are happier, more loyal, and more likely to become advocates for your brand. They get the most out of your products and services, which means they stick around longer and contribute more to your bottom line.

Investing in customer education is not just about helping your customers; it’s about driving your business forward. So, are you ready to start reaping these benefits?

If you’re looking for the best platform to implement customer education, employee training, or partner enablement look no further than LearnWorlds. It offers a comprehensive suite of tools, including interactive video, assessments, certificate & survey builder, customizable website builder, eCommerce capabilities, white-label mobile app, and robust analytics to help you create engaging and effective training programs.

Trusted by top brands, LearnWorlds ensures your customers get the best learning experience, driving better results for your business!

Try LearnWorlds now with a 30-day free trial.

Further reading you might find interesting:

The post 11 Benefits of Customer Training That Drive Business Growth appeared first on LearnWorlds.

A school of thought says it’s best to prepare for every eventuality rather than be caught off guard – when it comes to business, we definitely agree.

In this post, we won’t explore a dystopian world where everything is doomed. But, we will examine some mistakes you might make and unfavorable scenarios you might encounter when deploying customer training, offering you solutions for each one of them!

Let’s see 5 common issues to fix for an effective customer education strategy.

5 Mistakes to Fix In Your Customer Education Program

We’ve said before that customer education is not for large businesses only – it’s the kind of business you’re in that determines whether you need to offer a customer education program, not the size.

For example, customer training is very common in the SaaS industry. If you’re not sure about whether you need to educate customers or not, read our article on 10 warning signs you need a customer education program.

If you’re planning to offer customer training, or if you already offer, watch out for the following 5 mistakes that might jeopardize the effectiveness of your program!

This is one of the most common mistakes – not using your budget and available resources efficiently. But even if you’re working with limited budget and resources, you can still offer an effective customer education program with real impact on your business.

The solution:

• Offer low-touch onboarding. One solution when trying to control your spending or without a dedicated customer education team is to prioritize must-have training material that customers can access on their own. Examples include a knowledge base with support articles, recorded video tutorials, and emails with tips.
• Get buy-in from stakeholders for an LMS. Despite the initial investment, an LMS will pay off and help you overcome common customer onboarding challenges as it will allow you to streamline, monitor, and update your training easily – plus, it’s a scalable solution that can grow with you.

Tip: Choose an affordable LMS with AI capabilities, like LearnWorlds, to repurpose proprietary customer education content you already have into more digestible formats for your target audience. This will minimize cost and development time.

A customer education program facilitates the customer journey and is closely linked to business goals. Ultimately, improving the customer journey and customer experience aims to foster business growth and financial stability.

So, how can you ensure business and customer education goals are aligned?

The solution:

• Identify your customer training needs. Launch exit surveys and focus groups and use product analytics tools to identify areas for improvement where customer education could help. For example, track user behavior when using your product. Do they quit or go black and forth when using a particular feature? This means they can’t figure out how to use it, so you need to assist.
• Then, use the SMART methodology to keep you focused when setting your goals. Here’s how SMART works:

Specific: Your goals should be narrow and concise. For example, the goal to “improve the customer experience” is way too broad. The goal to “improve feature adoption rate” is specific – and it will become even more specific as you add the rest of the parameters below.

Measurable: You should be able to track your goal against a business KPI and metrics. Using the example above, set a desired rate, eg., “by 5%”.

Attainable: The goal should be within reach. Aiming to double or triple feature adoption sounds like a toll order. Increasing by 5% is reasonable and realistic.

Relevant: The goal should be within the scope/context of the training. For example, you can set a goal to reduce incoming tickets – this is something you can achieve through customer education. However, you can’t set a goal to improve your customer support’s communication skills. For this, you need to deploy soft skills training addressed to your customer support team.

Timebound: Set a timeframe for achieving your goal – this will also serve as a milestone for monitoring its progress. Usually, allowing for a few months to pass is a timeframe that gives the program enough time to bring some initial results. Even if your timeframe is wider, you should monitor training impact on a regular basis to catch problems early on.

Having a product with rich functionalities and use cases means you must update your knowledge base regularly as you release new features.

The solution:

• Use AI to assist with content creation. Although AI can’t substitute a subject matter expert in customer education, it can accelerate content creation, editing & proofreading, repurposing, and even translation.
• Notify customers via email. Keep customers in the loop via email to ensure they do not miss not just the instructions but the new feature itself! Let them know that while you’re working on updating your knowledge base, they can contact your customer support team, and offer them quick tips.

Not measuring the impact of customer training can lead to missed opportunities for improvement, gaps in training, and inability to demonstrate the program’s value to stakeholders. So here you have another “riddle” to solve: how do you measure the effectiveness of your customer training program?

The solution:

• Pre- and post-training assessments: Create quizzes and self-assessments to measure learners’ knowledge before and after the training. If you want to offer a certificate, create a final exam as well.
• Product analytics tools. Use product analytics tools to monitor user behavior and interaction with your product. After the training, they should be able to navigate the product faster.
• LMS reports. One more reason to deploy customer education using a dedicated platform like an LMS (learning management system) – the data you can pull out to see how learners interact with your content. Not only that; LMSs also report on sales, so that will come in handy if you’re selling your courses.
• Customer feedback. Conduct surveys (you can include them at the end of the course or send via email, or even add simple popup questions in the product guide (like, did you find this article useful?)

So, you’ve developed training, you’ve tracked it, and the results are disappointing. Your program has failed to engage customers and has low completion rates.

Low customer engagement indicates a poor user experience. Customers don’t get the full benefit of your enablement program and, therefore, your customer education strategy fails to meet its purpose.

For instance, when customers don’t finish their onboarding, they won’t get to leverage all product features, or they’ll still run to your customer support team with requests.

On a second level, customer satisfaction will not get the boost you expected, and customer support costs will not decrease like you were aiming for. The longer the time to value, the higher the chances of customer churn.

Before anything else, ensure that the problem is not your product – a product with bugs or a deep learning curve.

The solution:

Look for alternative methods for customer training to satisfy different preferences.

• Offer a personalized onboarding process. Some clients expect more than self-paced onboarding. Schedule one-on-one calls for live walkthrough tutorials with customer success managers to ensure customers are fully engaged in the process. If possible, meet them in person as well.
• Offer self-service onboarding. Simplify things! Not everyone is up for signing up for a lengthy course. Have several on-demand resources like webinars, video tutorials, knowledge base with articles and FAQs, chatbots, wizards, etc. This will not only satisfy the differing customers’ needs and learning styles but also reduce support tickets.
• Keep the online course engaging. Microlearning modules are more engaging than long-form content. Also, use several content formats and types of content like quizzes, case studies.
• Offer incentives. A certificate is a great incentive that justifies setting a price on your customer education program. Gamification incentivizes learners by taping on their competitive nature. Even simple gamification techniques like badges can motivate them to keep up!
• Segment customers. If you have a diverse customer base, segment them per industry, use case, company size, job role, etc. Create different onboarding flows based on customer segments to address their specific pain points and needs per use case. For example, offer a simplified process for experienced users and a more detailed guide for beginners.
• Personalize communications. This is key to maintaining engagement and also enhancing customer loyalty. Generic emails are annoying. A common mistake is to send the same emails to every customer. Use the customer’s name and specific details in onboarding emails. Send targeted messages based on their segment and progress. Provide content that is relevant to the customer’s needs and interests, such as industry-specific case studies or guides.

Here’s a valuable article from one of our experts, Artemis Karadimas, Customer Success Manager at LearnWorlds: Customer Engagement Amplified: How to Create a Compelling Customer Education Experience

Your Successful Customer Education Program is Within Reach!

One of the most important initiatives you’ll ever take for your business, customer education is quintessential for a positive customer experience and has a huge impact on customer retention and business growth. It does, however, require dedication and ongoing monitoring and effort.

The right LMS is a core ingredient for an effective customer education program. LearnWorlds is a budget-friendly LMS that can meet your customer training needs, offering a full suite of features that will enable you to scale your training.

Discover LearnWorlds with a 30-day free trial now!

Further reading you might find interesting:

• The 19 Best Learning Management Systems
• SCORM 101: The Definitive Guide to Choose a SCORM Compliant LMS
• 10 Best WordPress LMS Plugins Comparison
• The Essential Guide on How to Create Cohort-Based Courses
• 10 Best WordPress LMS Plugins Comparison
• The Benefits of Mobile Learning: Unveiling Its Power and How It Works

The post How Can You Improve Customer Education? 5 Common Mistakes & How to Avoid Them appeared first on LearnWorlds.

No one, ever. (If you do, our BI team is hiring!)

Not having a clear, easily accessible, real-time status overview of your academy can prevent you from uncovering issues timely. You may fail to identify important patterns or even miss the opportunity to celebrate important milestones for your learners!

You may need to check if all learners have correctly completed compliance or onboarding training and even answer these kinds of questions within seconds. (Have you ever been phoned by your boss or your clients to get numbers on the spot? Fun, huh?).

Enter the LearnWorlds Training Matrix.

Mixing, matching, and pivoting enrollment data is in the past.

Say hello to LearnWorlds’ new Training Matrix reporting feature, designed to transform how you track and manage learning progress.

With the LearnWorlds Training Matrix, you can quickly see who has completed which courses and spot those who need more help, ensuring every learner gets the support they need. If someone has trouble with a lesson, you’ll know immediately and jump in with personalized assistance.

Whether running an academy, educating customers and partners, or training employees, this tool has your back.

What is a Training Matrix?

A training matrix is a visual chart that displays the training progress status of individuals within an organization or group of learners. It maps out who has completed which training courses, what skills have been acquired, and identifies areas for attention.

It’s like a detailed, always up-to-date checklist that helps you monitor and manage training progress across your entire team or customer base.

Why Use a Training Matrix?

The LearnWorlds Training Matrix feature is designed to optimize how you monitor and track user progress in your academy. By visualizing the training status, the training matrix brings clarity, transparency, and efficiency to your Learning Management System (LMS) reporting.

Plus, seeing all those checkmarks and progress marks can be motivating to keep up the work you’re doing as a training manager!

But it’s not just for platform administrators. If you collaborate with other instructors, team leaders, or B2B clients, you can also monitor their assigned users’ progress. This means more eyes on the prize and better accountability: you’ll easily track compliance and onboarding requirements, keeping everything running smoothly.

With the LearnWorlds Training Matrix, monitoring your vast training programs becomes a breeze, making the whole learning experience more efficient.

Training Matrix in Action: Top Use Cases Explored Across Industries and Scenarios

Let’s see a few examples based on the most common use cases for LearnWorlds Academy.

B2B Course Sellers

For businesses that sell courses to other businesses (B2B), the training matrix helps manage and monitor the training programs provided to various clients. It allows you to customize training paths for different clients, track their progress, and ensure they gain the necessary skills and knowledge.

This personalized approach enhances the value of your training programs and strengthens client relationships. You can also enable your client’s team leads to see the matrix!

• Gain marketing and sales insights: Analyze training matrix trends to identify popular courses and engaged segments, which will inform targeted marketing strategies.
• Track progress and compliance: Monitor your clients’ employee progress and completion rates to ensure training milestones and compliance requirements are met.
• Enhance client communication and support: Use the training matrix to provide regular updates on training progress, address issues, and build client trust.

B2C Course Sellers

In the B2C space, the training matrix can be used to track learners’ progress. You can recommend relevant follow-up training courses, provide timely support when needed, and ensure a high-quality learning journey. This leads to improved training completion rates, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.

Customer Education Academies

For companies focused on customer education, the training matrix is invaluable. It lets you track your customers’ progress through your onboarding and training programs. By visualizing their journey, you can identify common training gaps and proactively offer support.

This ensures your customers are well-equipped to utilize your product, leading to higher satisfaction and retention rates.

• Customer and partner onboarding: Easily monitor customer and partner onboarding progress and decide when follow-up support is needed.
• Assess training impact on product usage: Extract data to evaluate training impact on product usage, engagement, feature adoption, and support ticket volume.
• Track certifications and compliance programs: Monitor compliance completions and product certifications to ensure correct and advanced product usage.

Partners/Resellers/VARs Training Academies

Similarly, when educating partners, resellers, or value-added resellers (VARs), the training matrix provides a clear overview of their training status. You can ensure that all partners are up to date with the latest product knowledge and sales techniques.

This transparency helps maintain a consistent level of competency across your partner network, ultimately driving better sales performance and customer satisfaction.

Employee Training & Internal Academies

The training matrix is a game-changer for internal employee training. It enables HR and team leaders to monitor each employee’s progress, ensuring they meet their training requirements. Whether it’s to compliance, competency, or career development, the training matrix provides a clear roadmap of each employee’s learning path and highlights areas needing attention.

• Employee onboarding: Easily monitor new employees’ onboarding progress and decide when follow-up support is needed.
• Ensure compliance: Monitor compliance program completion to ensure proper adherence to industry standards.
• Check product knowledge and sales enablement: Track training completion to ensure employees are up to date with the latest product updates.

Tracking Learner Progress With the Training Matrix

Understanding and using the training matrix is straightforward and user-friendly: each row represents a learner—whether an employee, customer, or partner—and each column represents a course you offer.

When a lesson is completed, a checkmark or sticker appears in the corresponding box, while empty boxes indicate incomplete lessons. The matrix uses color coding or symbols to show if a course is completed, in progress, not started, or not enrolled, allowing for quick reference and detailed information by hovering over the boxes.

Tailor Your Data Views: Highlight Key Insights

• Customizable views: Tailor the matrix to show specific user segments or courses based on your needs. You can view all learners or focus on specific segments, choose which courses to display, and concentrate on completion rates or scores. You can use all the segments you created in the ‘advanced user progress reports’ section.
• Exporting data: Export your current view to an Excel file with one click for detailed reporting, further analysis, and comparisons.

Effectively Track Your Training Programs with LearnWorlds Training Matrix

With the new Training Matrix feature, LearnWorlds is committed to providing the tools you need to manage training more effectively and ensure all learners achieve their full potential. Whether you’re educating customers, partners, or employees, our training matrix offers a comprehensive solution to track, manage, and enhance the learning experience.

Stay tuned for more updates and start exploring the benefits of the LearnWorlds Training Matrix today!

The post Introducing LearnWorlds’ Training Matrix: Visualize Your Learners’ Progress at a Glance appeared first on LearnWorlds.

So, to get off on the right foot, start with an onboarding process that helps new customers set up and start using your product, such as an on-demand training course, one-to-one or group training sessions with Customer Success Managers, and a knowledge base. However, customer onboarding is just the first part of a customer training program.

Then, you must continue with more training material and live events, like webinars, to deepen product knowledge for new and advanced users to solidify customer loyalty and prevent churn. Of course, all this is extremely hard to carry out in person or even in real-time, which is why most customer education programs are conducted online, especially for SaaS products.

Need some inspiration to create customer learning experiences that will hook your customers and help you boost customer retention rates and achieve your desired business goals? In this article, we have collected the best examples of customer training programs to help you get started!

6 Best Customer Training Examples

Reap the benefits of customer training and make loyal customers following the example of these online academies – secure product adoption, foster customer loyalty, and expand your customer base with a comprehensive and fun customer training academy!

1. HubSpot Academy

HubSpot, being one of the most popular CRM platforms, doesn’t need particular introductions. The HubSpot Academy is an exemplary online academy that offers numerous free and paid online courses, not simply to educate customers but also for lead generation and brand awareness purposes.

The HubSpot Academy offers courses in several languages, eBooks, lessons, and templates. Learners can gain certifications relevant to marketing, SEO, social media, sales, data management, web design, web development, and customer service training. All in all, the academy is a powerhouse for marketing & customer service team members and not only!

2. Trailhead Academy

The Trailhead Academy is Salesforce’s online learning academy with instructor-led courses about the platform, integrations, marketing, and sales. The courses are divided by job role, so they’re more relevant to the users. The Trailhead Academy also features a vibrant community that enables participants to network and join events.

The Trailhead Academy utilizes gamification, rewarding users with certifications, superbadges & supersets, points, quests, challenges, and fun prizes. Learners can choose from guided learning paths (trails), create their own personalized learning playlist (trailmix), or join the Trailhead Academy for instructor-led courses taught by industry experts.

3. Workable Academy

Workable, the popular hiring and employee management software, has launched the Workable Academy with LearnWorlds. The academy currently offers 19 free courses on how to get started with Workable and more advanced courses per use case – recruiting and HR. The courses include interactive links, intuitive content navigation, directive pointers, expert tips, and knowledge checks.

The Workable Academy has been praised by users, who have found the content to be easy to follow and very helpful. At the same time, Workable has managed to reduce incoming tickets in less than a year after launching its asynchronous customer onboarding program!

4. Zendesk Training

Zendesk should know about maintaining good customer relationships. The well-known customer service solution offers Zendesk Training, a series of comprehensive training courses per job role (admin, agents, CX analysts, sales team, and developers). The training courses offer reading material and hands-on activities.

There are also certification programs available with separate courses and bundles that verify you’ve mastered Zendesk, coming at varying costs. The academy offers additional resources to prepare learners for their certification exams.

5. LinkedIn Learning

The world’s leading networking platform for professionals offers a rich educational hub, LinkedIn Learning, with over 23,000 courses available led by industry experts, short video tutorials, and learning paths for professionals that you can either buy individually or for your team. LinkedIn is another example of a company using education as a marketing tool.

The training resources cover a wide range of trending topics, such as Artificial intelligence, Data Analysis, DEI, Human Resources, and many more. With LinkedIn being the top business-focused social media platform, it’s hard to overlook the opportunity and benefits that come with networking with like-minded professionals when you become part of its learning community!

6. LearnWorlds Academy

Last but not least, we couldn’t help but mention our own customer education academy! Apart from a top-notch customer support team, dedicated CSMs, instructor-led daily webinars, and a vast knowledge base with support articles… our LMS platform, LearnWorlds, also offers eLearning courses that showcase product features and walkthroughs to help you master our training platform, additionally offering you hands-on tips to grow your eLearning business.

The LearnWorlds Academy is free to use and all the courses are available on demand. Apart from the Academy, we offer a resource library with eBooks, templates, checklists, and on-demand webinars to cultivate your knowledge on course creation, customer education, and other topics that could interest you and help you expand your business.

Customer Education is The Way to Go

We hope that these customer training examples have inspired you to build your own customer education hub!

As we go through these successful academies, here’s what we’ve learned:

• Customer education is a great marketing tool for brand awareness and lead generation
• Certification programs add value to your program and justify monetization
• Creating different courses per use case and job role makes them more relevant
• Gamification, microlearning, and quizzes are excellent engagement techniques

Remember to use a Learning Management System like LearnWorlds to streamline your training.

LearnWorlds supports:

Integrations with CRMS and other tools to facilitate your workflow
Built-in content authoring that supports Interactive training content
Website Builder with ready-made templates
Quizzes, certificate & survey builder
Microlearning modules for better customer engagement and faster results
Branded mobile app
Multiple schools, user groups, and user roles

Whatever your needs are, LearnWorlds is your go-to learning platform for effective customer training and beyond!

The post 6 Successful Customer Training Examples That Will Inspire You appeared first on LearnWorlds.

But did you know that, in many cases, you need to train your customers as well? Just like employees, customers also need help mastering a product that has multiple features and use cases.

This “help” comes in the form of a customer training program – a set of initiatives like live or on-demand webinars, online learning courses, setup guides, and knowledge bases that support your customers’ journey.

The benefits of customer education for your business are undeniable. Customer education helps during the critical phase of onboarding and throughout the customer lifecycle, boosting loyalty and helping you build a business that withstands competition.

Similarly, not offering a customer education program can negatively impact core business metrics and your bottom line. But which metrics are tied to customer training? And what other parameters should you take into account?

If you’re unsure whether your business needs a customer education program or not (and let us tell you right now – chances are that it does), you’re in the right place. Here are 10 tell-tale signs you need to offer customer education now!

Is it Time for a Customer Education Program? Here’s How to Tell

The truth is that all businesses can benefit from a customer education program. But, in some cases, the need is even more urgent. If most of the following statements stand true for your business, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves and start working on one!

Low feature adoption is one of the most obvious signs that you need to offer customer enablement right now. When customers underutilize features, they are either unaware of them and their benefits or have trouble using them.

Low feature usage concerns both old and new features that go undiscovered by existing customers – which is a reminder of how customers need support throughout their customer journey and not just during the early stages.

To accurately measure product usage, don’t forget to use analytics tools to check website and in-app user behavior. You can also use product analytics tools to measure the frequency of usage, number of clicks, and time spent with specific features. For more detailed feedback, you can roll out surveys and set up user interviews or focus groups.

If your customer support team struggles with a large amount of incoming tickets, that’s a clear indication that your customers need help navigating your product. Develop a customer education strategy with a comprehensive knowledge base with support articles and some step-by-step tutorials will take a load off your agents’ plates and reduce customer support costs.

Speed and quality of responses is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently by any business. The level of customer support has a huge impact on customer satisfaction – something which is evident from the fact that most customer reviews, especially for tech products, comment very strongly on the level of customer service provided.

Perhaps your customer support team is not overwhelmed with tickets, but they still receive recurring questions on specific functionalities or use cases (“How can I…”). This is another case where you must develop training content to address the issue.

Your customer success team can also give you valuable insights into what customers repeatedly need help with. Make sure you have a proper documentation process in place to keep track of customer requests.

Does your list of free-trial users who never convert to customers grow longer and longer? That’s a surefire sign that they need more support during onboarding. Maybe they have trouble navigating the product or using specific features that are useful to them but hard to figure out.

An updated knowledge base with setup manuals and guides, support articles, and live or recorded interactive demos, are very helpful for successful customer onboarding.

To find out what’s wrong (and reverse the situation), include an exit survey where the user will give their reason for not signing up. Use product analytics tools to see which features prospective customers have used and which went unnoticed or were abandoned, as this will indicate areas they need support with.

Similar to low conversion rates, early customer churn indicates that new customers did not have the customer experience they were expecting and possibly need more support and educational content during their onboarding. While you should cater to every customer’s need, remember that customers on higher plans expect a personalized onboarding process in addition to self-service resources.

Customers who have signed up for your most advanced features might still not have the time or tech know-how to navigate them independently. Schedule one-to-one meetings with their CSM (Customer Success Manager) to shorten the time to value, ensure product adoption, and maximize customer retention.

Businesses that do not offer a customer education program are more likely to struggle with customer loyalty and notice a shorter customer lifecycle. Churn can be attributed to several reasons, so find out with an exit survey or interview: if customers report issues related to product complexity or usability, you need to start working on offering more support right away.

Customer training fosters customer engagement and can not only prevent churn but also facilitate upsells and cross-sells. This ensures not only customer retention but also increased satisfaction and trust, leading to future purchases.

Not having clear instructions on how to use a product can quickly lead to a customer calling your product “hard to navigate” or “not intuitive,” usually backed up by the opinions of all users who are unhappy with your product and have collectively decided it was a bad choice.

Don’t wait until you see a negative review posted publicly online! Conduct NPS and CSAT surveys soon after a customer signs up. Check in with the customers via their CSM or at least via email. Monitor user behavior closely and reach out to customers indicating low engagement. If customers mention they have trouble using your product, contact them for assistance.

Does your team report having trouble getting customers to sign up or securing renewals because customers don’t understand the product or haven’t found it as useful as expected? Product complexity, especially in SaaS products with rich functionalities, can intimidate prospective customers or, if it’s not dealt with, be a reason for not renewing a subscription.

If you have a complex product, make sure you proactively address first onboarding needs by offering a comprehensive knowledge base with guides and step-by-step video tutorials. Also, provide ongoing support with a well-trained customer support team and regular interactive webinars.

If you release new features often, you need to update existing training material or create new ones as you go while also communicating the news via email, social media, and the product. This will help existing customers discover new features and get the most value out of your product!

If your competitors offer a customer training program and you don’t, you’re definitely at a disadvantage. Essentially, you’re oblivious to your customers’ needs and pain points while competitors are attentive, which doesn’t make you look good.

Having not only scattered training materials but a fully-fledged learning program in place not only puts your brand in a positive light, it also increases brand awareness and perceived authority and can be used as additional leverage by your sales team.

5 Tips for a Successful Customer Education Program

In this section, we share 5 quick tips for a successful customer education program.

Mix on-Demand With Synchronous

Offer a mix of self-service resources in various formats (walkthrough product tutorials, on-demand webinars, eBooks, online courses/certification programs) and personalized customer support, even in person if that’s feasible.

For your asynchronous online courses, use microlearning modules to help customers understand the content better and faster. Include quizzes as “knowledge checkpoints” and case studies to demonstrate examples of your product’s best uses!

Segment Your Audience

Don’t create training courses following a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Segment your audience based on criteria like their plan, use case, skill level, or even location to personalize their experience and develop targeted material for each group. The more functionalities and the larger/diverse your customer base, the more courses and training material you will need to create.

Align With Business Goals

Your customer education team must be aware of your business goals and that they tie those to the training resources. Set specific metrics to measure the success of your program, like “reducing incoming tickets by 2% in twelve months” or “boosting CSAT score by 5% in twelve months.”

Use the SMART methodology to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound!

Use a Learning Management System (LMS)

Use a flexible, customizable learning platform like LearnWorlds to create a scalable customer education program for different audiences. Our LMS offers rich integrations with tools like Zendesk and Hubspot and enables you to build customizable learning paths in a branded learning environment.

Here are our top features for customer education:

• Content authoring tools
• Website Builder with templates
• Custom User Roles and User groups for easier administration and access control
• Clone & Sync for fast school creation and content repurposing
• Multiple schools to manage multiple academies from one centralized location
• AI tools for course outline, learning objective, assessment, and feedback generation
• Copyrights protection
• CRM & customer service integrations
• Community for better customer engagement
• API, Webhooks & SSO
• Assessment, Survey & Certificate Builders
• Native, white-label mobile app for better user experience

Measure & Reiterate

You know that when it comes to business, you can’t move ahead relying on your intuition but on concrete data. And here’s where you can get this data from:

• LMS reports to evaluate the learning experience, like course completion rates etc.
• Business metrics like Customer Satisfaction Scores, NPS, and CES (Customer Effort Score) – anything you’ve set a “business goal” – to measure the business impact.
• Customer surveys and focus groups to evaluate both the training provided and how it relates to their perception of your business.

Customer Education Can Transform Your Business

Offering a customer education program is one of the best initiatives you could organize for your business, as it has a positive impact on your brand and your bottom line. With a feature-rich and intuitive LMS like LearnWorlds, you are a few steps away from building valuable training content for your customers.

Sign up for your 30-day free trial now!

The post 10 Warning Signs You Need a Customer Education Program ASAP appeared first on LearnWorlds.