Virtual training

Sneak Peek into VILT in 2023: How to Achieve Data-Driven Success

The CloudShare Team

Mar 13, 2023 - 4 min read

We now live in a world of experiences. We’ve reached the natural endpoint of the virtual training trends and training technology trends that surfaced during the pandemic. As a result, the way people train has changed for good. 

Customers now demand more from training and onboarding — more personalization, more flexibility, and more interactivity. And as the importance of effective customer training continues to mount, so too does the pressure for training departments to demonstrate tangible ROI. All the while, many companies are stuck using outdated virtual instructor led training (VILT) solutions and tactics.

What must those companies do in order to find a new way forward? How can they improve their training programs to increase both course completion and student participation? What steps must they take to define, measure, and achieve not just their training objectives, but their business goals as well? 

CloudShare recently hosted a live webinar that answers and contextualizes all three of those questions. We’ve included some of the key insights below. If you’d prefer to skip the summary, you can register now to view Sneak Peek into VILT in 2023: How to Achieve Data-Driven Success on-demand. 

Changing Expectations

We’ve warned for some time now that customer expectations are changing in both B2B and B2C. Generalized, one-size-fits-all experiences are no longer effective, if they ever were. Your customers have already done their research about your company, and they expect your company to have done its research about them.

This means: 

• Personalizing your training based on their unique challenges, pain points, and use case. 
• Providing an engaging, hands-on experience rather than passive video tutorials and slideshows. 
• Giving them an authentic and realistic look at your product and how it works in their environment. 

Companies that successfully deliver on all three of the above points are up to 70 percent more likely to be chosen as a primary vendor or supplier. Conversely, onboarding without that digital experience typically only conveys 20 percent of a product’s knowledge and features. Effective onboarding can also increase revenue by as much as 10 percent. 

The Power of the Classroom Connection

In our 2023 Usage Report, we saw an increase in both self-paced courses and VILT courses — 20 percent and 51 percent, respectively. This keeps with a larger industry trend trend we’ve been monitoring for some time.  Blended learning, a hybrid training methodology that combines self-paced and VILT training, is becoming the norm.

As much as students enjoy the convenience and flexibility of self-paced training, they also seek the interactivity and personal connection offered by VILT. Following that line of reasoning, we found that VILT with in-app video and chat can increase course completion rates by nearly 24 percent. Courses with multiple instructors perform even better, with considerably higher participation rates compared to other methods. 

Bear in mind that a virtual instructor led training platform is only effective if you understand how to use it. Our webinar goes over the specifics of how our platform can help you embrace a data-driven, informed approach to training and onboarding. Prior to viewing, there are a few best practices you should understand, however: 

• Start with clear and measurable goals based on your training objectives. Examples include better knowledge retention, improved customer satisfaction, reduced churn, or increased product adoption.
• Develop your training content. Consider how you’ll incorporate Q&A sessions, polls, feedback icons, and live demonstrations. 
• Test each course extensively, then test it some more. Bring in trial users to interact with the platform, making note of any bottlenecks of roadblocks. 

Instructors should play an active role in developing your courses. The biggest advantage of VILT is that it can be more than a webinar or a slideshow, after all.

The More You Know, The More You Teach

Using CloudShare, our most successful clients increased student participation rates by up to 57 percent and course completion rates by a factor of five. Our analytics and reporting tools played a considerable role in that success. Said tools allowed instructors to identify and engage with struggling students. 

They knew exactly how much time each participant spent accessing additional content. They knew when a participant quit or asked for help. And they knew how much time each section of their course took to complete. 

Automated webhooks also proved invaluable for instructors notifying them of student activity and sending off emails when students joined, completed, or abandoned a course.  Finally, through integrated video conferencing, instructors could work directly with participants. This allowed them to deliver a highly engaging virtual classroom experience, which — as we mentioned earlier — represented a significant difference in course completion rates.

Next Steps: Watch the Webinar, and Learn How to Embrace the Future of VILT With CloudShare

We’ve talked a lot about the things companies can achieve with CloudShare. But we haven’t really gone over how. What are our power users doing to get the most out of our solutions, and what measures are they taking to optimize their training program alongside industry trends?

It’s easier to show you the answer to those questions rather than telling you. Kevin Shauger, CloudShare’s Director of Solutions Engineering and one of the webinar’s co-hosts, ran a comprehensive demonstration for attendees. If you download the webinar now, you’ll learn: 

• Things you might now know you can accomplish with CloudShare. 
• Strategies and tools you can use to increase your training’s ROI. 
• How to view, visualize, and leverage engagement information and metrics as part of your training program. 
• A full view of the administrative and student portal, and how you can leverage the two to create more compelling lessons. 
• What’s involved in creating hybrid training experiences that blend self-paced learning and VILT. 
• How CloudShare goes beyond training, from role-based access controls to proof of concept demos. 

Customer training has never been more challenging than it is today. Between shifting demands, increased pressure, and a rapidly-evolving market, virtual training alone is no longer enough to compete. You need to up your game — and in Sneak Peek into VILT in 2023: How to Achieve Data-Driven Success, we’ll show you how to do precisely that.  Watch the webinar, here.