Customer training: The Key to Increased Brand Devotion

In a dynamic and competitive business environment, customer training is essential for the success of nearly every company. Adding customer training to your business's marketing arsenal can have enormous benefits for your organization, as companies with a customer training program report a higher customer retention rate than their competitors. According to Hubspot, 86% of customers preferred a brand that provided them with educational content when given four brands to choose from. This makes customer training vital for businesses as even a 5% jump in retention can increase profits by twenty-five to ninety-five percent, according to Bain & Company. Customer training is built with the end user in mind; thus, it should assist customers in maximizing their experience with your product or service and help them achieve their goals as easily as possible. In this article, we will explore customer training, why it exists, its benefits, and its implementation to give you a 360 view of the subject.

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What Is Customer Training?

Customer training entails educating customers on efficiently using your products or services to achieve their objectives. Customer training involves providing the customer with the educational materials and information they need to be successful and meet their individual and organizational goals. 

It also assists businesses in communicating the benefits of their product or service to end users without using paid marketing tools such as ads. 

Although customer training is used by businesses of different sizes in different industries, it is commonly used by SaaS and tech-producing companies.

Developing an effective customer training program requires extensive research to ensure customers comprehend the educational material. Knowing the demographics of your customers will assist you in selecting the most appropriate medium for your customer training program to achieve the desired results.

Customer Training Examples

There is no uniform approach to customer training, as each organization's clients and needs necessitate unique strategies. However, all customer training programs share a few common elements, which include: The need to increase customer retention, the need to develop and improve the current customer experience, and the need to make customers more connected to your products and services

Customer training can be implemented in many ways, depending on the nature of your organization and the client’s needs. However, organizations typically use guided onboarding, self-paced learning, on-demand training material, knowledge bases, and training and certification programs.

Why Customer Training Is Important To Businesses

Consumers nowadays exert more influence than ever before over their budgets and what they expect from a product or service. Thus, customer training is an investment in the lifeblood of your company, as you help customers explore ways to use your products and services to make their lives easier. The following are some of the many benefits that companies can reap from customer training:

Reduced Operating Costs & Higher Profit Margins

Businesses that train their customers can boost their revenue and slash costs in many ways. Trained loyal customers can refer new clients and purchase more products, which increases business revenue. Since trained customers are knowledgeable of the product, they are less likely to ask for frequent technical assistance, which means you won’t require a lot of support staff, which in turn means less expenditure on recruitment.

Effective Word of Mouth Advertising & Increased Customer Loyalty

Potential clients are more likely to trust your current clients’ opinions about your business and product than any ad. Customer training helps turn frequent customers into loyal ones that support your business by recommending it to others free of charge. This level of loyalty is powerful because it helps businesses attract new clients without spending a fortune on customer acquisition. Investing in customer training boosts customer retention, which indirectly helps businesses acquire new clients at no extra cost. 

Increased Product Engagement 

When customers know how a product or service helps them do their jobs better, they are more likely to use it and appreciate it. Customer training helps customers learn the benefits and usage of your products much faster, which helps them quickly realize how essential your products are to their lives. As a result, customers become accustomed to your products and services as they use them, which helps them view what your business is offering as an essential good and not just a luxury product. 

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Training your customers enables them to use your product as intended, frequently, and easily. Training your customers will help them understand how your products and services add value and make their lives easier. This increases customer satisfaction and helps your company gain even more benefits along the way.

How To Create A Customer Training Program In 5 Ways

1. Clearly Define Your Training Goals : 

The first step in building a successful customer training program that delivers results is planning how your training program will help solve the problems your customers are currently facing when interacting with your products. Clearly defined goals will help you address real customer issues instead of assuming generic customer support touchpoints. 

2. Choose The Technology You Will Employ : 

After gaining a thorough understanding of the questions your customers often ask and the challenges they face while using your products, it's time to consider the optimal medium and delivery platform for your training program. Depending on your needs and situation, you can either choose a content authoring tool, a computer program that allows you to create e-learning content that interacts with your customers, or an LMS (Learning Management System), a portal that your customers can use to access your e-learning content. Whether you choose to go with an LMS or a content authoring tool, your system should be easy to use for employees managing and uploading the content as well as customers consuming the content. Since there is no wrong or right platform, the right platform for customer training is the one that meets your customers’ needs while enabling you to measure customer learning activity and collect feedback.

3. Design An Engaging & Applicable Learning Atmosphere : 

The success of your customer training is reflected in how customers engage with it. If customers are of the opinion that the training holds little to no value to their lives, they will likely not continue with the program and might begin to have a negative perception of the company as a whole. Due to the wide variety of ways in which people take in and process information, it is crucial to provide a range of learning options that can be customized to meet the needs of as many customers as possible. Your customer training program should use a variety of instructional strategies and content formats to appeal to a wide range of customers. Introducing elements like gamification and allowing flexibility in learning can make a huge difference in how learners view your training and interact with the material. Trying out different formats, such as webinars and interactive sessions for more formal learning, and on-demand videos, slides, and quizzes for self-directed learning, can significantly improve engagement. Finding the optimal method to deliver training to various demographics requires testing out a variety of approaches, including on-demand, self-paced, and micro-learning.

4. Deliver Training At The Right Time : 

It is essential to train customers in ways that are most beneficial to them. Knowing what and when to deliver training can help you develop a more effective strategy for providing the customer with exactly what they need, when they need it. When organizing the delivery, it is essential to prioritize the customer's convenience and accessibility.

5. Assess & Offer Regular Updates : 

Observing how customers access and interact with your training and assessing its efficacy informs you of ways to improve it. Modern platforms typically include built-in learning analytics to assist with this. However, you can also have a platform built to your specifications. By utilizing analytics, reviewing support requests, measuring customer satisfaction, and directly asking customers about their training pain points, you can learn more about your customers and improve your delivery and customer service.

Conclusion

Developing a good customer training program is not achieved overnight; however, with the right team and planning, your organization can implement a training program that goes further than just answering the “hows." When done correctly, it can set you apart from the competition, increase customer loyalty and value, and decrease day-to-day customer support costs. Customer training is a process and not a once-off event. You can improve future releases by carefully planning the training you provide, how you deliver it, and how you evaluate its effectiveness, as you have seen here. Lucky for you, Greenmusk can help you do that and more to enable your business to achieve more through effective customer training. Don't forget to take a look at our previous articles as well as browse our services to see how we can help your business make the most of its training.