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It’s far easier to retain current customers than to gain new ones – and it’s much more profitable. Acquiring a new customer can cost as much as five times more than keeping an existing customer, and that’s only the beginning.
According to a study by Rosetta Consulting, engaged customers purchase 90% more frequently, spend 60% more per transaction, and deliver 23% more revenue and profitability over their lifetime. Thus, the need to focus on customer retention is a no-brainer.
How do you improve your SaaS customer retention and save your piece of the $1.6 trillion pie lost each year due to customer churn?
It all starts with proper SaaS training. Keep reading to learn how SaaS training creates loyal customers and reduces churn.
SaaS platforms face unique struggles in retaining customers. For example, customers may mistakenly believe similar tools offer more than your platform or be unaware of new updates with additional value.
Additionally, a customer may be unable to figure out how to effectively use the platform— prompting them to cancel quickly. Your initial walkthrough will help, but in-depth training ensures new customers know exactly how to use your platform.
SaaS customer retention greatly benefits from keeping existing customers aware of everything your platform has to offer. Hands-on training reinforces your value proposition and teaches customers about new features.
Training is a powerful tool to enhance customer retention for SaaS businesses. Using an easily accessible cloud-based platform empowers customers with on-demand training so they’re always up to date on what your platform offers and how to use it effectively.
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Customer training helps keep your customers aware of the value they receive from your platform.
Ready to create or enhance your customer training program to retain your users? Here are five things you can do to ensure high retention through an improved training program:
Appropriate Saas training can significantly impact your business in various ways; the key is to track its benefits. For example, report the impact that training has on your renewal rates. According to Brevet Group, continuous training can give as much as 50% higher net sales per employee.
Other training metrics that you should include are answering the following questions:
In each case, answering these questions will show upper management the benefit of training and help you determine how best to focus and design your SaaS training to maximize customer retention.
Training is only as valuable as it is available. If your trainees can only learn and access materials during certain times or in certain situations, they won’t receive the full benefit.
Make sure you enable your trainees to learn when it is convenient for them. This way, they are in control of getting what they need and when they need it.
Just as important is providing trainees with a virtual training lab where they can get real, hands-on experience using your software in a safe, isolated environment. However, trainees learn better when these sessions are interactive and accompanied by a live instructor, trainees learn better. They are more likely to use your software and follow best practices (which will also increase their organization’s dependence on it and increase renewal rates accordingly).
Training shouldn’t be relegated to “training courses” in a physical or virtual classroom. You can start training when you market to new customers by creating a technical marketing video that displays your software while teaching customers how easy it is to use.
You can also supplement it by embedding short performance support videos that explain how to do specific tasks. These will help improve user knowledge at the moment of need.
And don’t forget training materials can also encompass informative articles, white papers, simulations, quizzes, webinars, and more.
Training shouldn’t happen in a bubble. Don’t keep it separate from the rest of your customer experience processes. Instead, think outside the traditional training box to make your SaaS training an integral part of your company’s entire customer success program. You’ll need to look at your training in a whole new light.
With the right content and focus, your training program will stay within its maximum contribution to customer retention. In addition, you’ll do much better if you align with your support team. Your support team has in-depth knowledge of your customers’ daily difficulties. For example, they might be able to tell you that your customers’ greatest frustrations are with point-of-sale, not configuration.
So, if you address your training content to focus on the right areas, you’ll not only help to reduce demand for your support services, but you’ll also be helping to increase customer satisfaction and retention.
It can be a challenge to align your training and support teams. But by working together, you can better drive product adoption and renewals. The key is open communication to clearly understand customer pain points so you can provide the best and most valuable training experience possible.
Use your SaaS training as another selling tool. Provide your customers with statistics of the value they’ll receive from sufficient training. Reveal their efficiency and effectiveness with proper training on your SaaS software. Use case studies to demonstrate the improvement that can be gained from your training services and to explain how they provide an advantage over competitive products.
Once you show customers the value of your training services, you also realize a significant opportunity for monetization. Training provides excellent value to your customers and partners that many are willing to pay for.
What do all these five tips have in common? They all show that the key to increasing SaaS customer retention rates is to provide an exceptional customer experience with training that provides real value and relevant content.
Be creative in finding ways to package, price, and make it more consumable on your customer’s terms. For example, a quick customer survey can provide important information about what your SaaS customers want and need in a training program.
If you give them when and how they want it, you can increase their satisfaction and, ultimately, their loyalty.
Ready to learn how CloudShare can empower you to create robust training programs? Reach out to us today to talk to a virtual training expert to learn more.
This post was originally published on August 2019 and updated on October 01, 2022.