Customer education is the lifeblood of every successful software company — and if a customer education program isn’t already an integral part of your customer success and growth strategies, it should be.
Of course, a program is only as good as the systems and tools that support it. Without the right customer education tools, it doesn’t really matter how much effort you put into your initial strategy. You’ll lack an effective means of developing, optimizing, and delivering your training.
We’ll go over what you should look for in your customer education software, then conclude with an overview of some of our top picks.
Types of Customer Education Software
Generally speaking, the tools your business will use to enable customer education fall into a few broad categories.
Learning Management System
The bread-and-butter of customer education, LMS solutions help an organization develop, deliver, and maintain educational content. They frequently include features such as native content authorship and the capacity to integrate with other types of educational tools. Most LMS tools are designed to be SCORM-compliant.
A learning management system might be used in a complimentary manner with a knowledge management system, a tool for managing and distributing essential information such as best practices, frequently asked questions, guidance on product features, and product roadmaps.
Digital Adoption Platform
Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) represent a slightly different approach to customer education. Whereas a learning management system typically focuses on comprehensive deep dives into a topic, DAPs are more concerned with providing in-app guidance such as onboarding checklists and tutorials. As with knowledge management systems, a DAP compliments the functionality of an LMS, and it may be in your best interest to employ both.
Virtual Labs
Also known as virtual training labs, virtual labs are cloud-based environments that allow businesses to quickly deploy hands-on learning experiences. Most virtual labs are built to integrate seamlessly with learning management systems, knowledge management systems, and digital adoption platforms. Consequently, virtual labs have gained increasing popularity in recent years for both customer and employee training, largely owing to their cost-effectiveness and ease of use.
Must-Have Customer Education Software Features
When choosing a customer education platform, we suggest prioritizing one that has most or all of the following features and characteristics:
- Easy to implement, configure, and use
- Advanced reporting and analytics functionality
- Support for multiple assessment options, including quizzes and surveys
- Highly customizable
- Seamless integration with other customer education tools
- Native mobile app functionality
- Built-in sales and marketing tools
- Support for real-time interaction via text, audio, and/or video
- Capacity to deploy a white-label user experience
- Flexible user management and user roles
- Transparent pricing
7 Customer Education Solutions Worth Considering
With all that out of the way, let’s go over some of the top customer education software currently available to your business.
CloudShare
CloudShare is a virtual product experience platform that empowers businesses to create compelling, high-impact virtual training and demos. Designed for ease of use, CloudShare’s virtual labs allow instructors, salespeople, and customer success professionals to effortlessly spin up hands-on, complex environments without support from developers or IT. Trusted by leading enterprise companies and Fortune 500s, the cloud-based solution is both scalable and secure, with straightforward pricing and sophisticated built-in analytics with custom reporting.
UserPilot
UserPilot is an all-in-one digital adoption platform designed for non-technical product managers and sales teams. It allows new users to discover features on a gradual and contextual basis via interactive walkthroughs and a self-service resource center. Built to integrate with virtually any tech stack, UserPilot also provides comprehensive analytics and reporting.
LearnWorlds
LearnWorlds is a learning management system, website builder, and content authoring tool. Featuring a user-friendly interface with drag-and-drop functionality and built-in analytics, it also supports live session hosting via platforms such as Zoom and WebEx. Arguably the most compelling feature, however, is that the platform incorporates artificial intelligence for recommendations and personalization.
Docebo
Docebo is an AI-powered learning and development solution with multiple integrations, support for both webinars and virtual instructor-led training, and a comprehensive feature set including gamification, certificate development, analytics, and user roles. They also provide their users with access to Docebo University, as well as a robust community for sharing insights, learning, and providing feedback.
LearnUpon
LearnUpon is designed, above all else, for user-friendliness. The cloud-based platform integrates with multiple business and communication tools to support a range of different training modalities while offering everything you’d expect from an LMS, including intelligent automation, user segmentation, and more. With all that said, LearnUpon’s reporting functionality is less robust compared to other tools, which may be a deal-breaker for some businesses.
Adobe Learning Manager
Formerly known as CaptivatePrime, Adobe Learning Manager is laser-focused on providing an engaging and compelling learner experience. The cloud-based tool is both intuitive and versatile, designed as much for use in a post-secondary context as for corporate training. Its integration with Adobe’s broader product portfolio is also a big plus, though its API quality and customer service both leave something to be desired.
TalentLMS
Billing itself as the number one cloud LMS for online learning, the AI-driven TalentLMS features an intuitive interface, a range of ready-made courses on soft skills, and the ability to create new training materials with just a few clicks. Through versatile AI personalization, it supports nearly every corporate training use case you can think of, from sales enablement to customer onboarding. It’s also heavily geared toward supporting collaborative learning.
Choosing the Right Solution to Support Your Strategy
Supporting your customer education program requires more than the right strategy. It also demands the right mix of software to support your strategy. You need a learning management system capable of creating and managing content for every customer use case coupled with a solution capable of delivering that content in an engaging, compelling way. That’s where CloudShare’s hands-on experiences shine by allowing you to create engaging training modules that boost knowledge retention and overall engagement.CloudShare can be that solution — book a demo today, and we’ll show you how.
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