Glossary

Customer Training

Customer training: a definition

The goal of customer training is to help your customer use your product or solution and thus improve the customer experience. 

You are likely familiar with the need to train your employees. It’s an essential aspect of good onboarding and ensures that the people you pay to grow your organization, actually know what they are doing right from the start. 

Customer training, especially popular in the technology industry, has a similar remit. The best customer training platforms and programs help your customers understand, use, and get more from your product—which has several great benefits. 

Putting customer training software at the heart of your business

A key component to great customer training is an intuitive and sophisticated customer training platform. Go beyond a folder of static documents or an FAQ and choose software that supports your customers with all the information they need. The right customer training software should include tools like learning management systems (LMS) where organizations can store, manage, and deliver customer education via digital content and other learning experiences.  

The best customer training software enables your customers to learn at their own pace from wherever they are in the world. Customer access is quick and convenient, their progress can be tracked, and they have access to 24/7 support from your organization’s administrators. And for your organization, adding up-to-date program content is simple, while getting continuous customer feedback is built in. 

Your customer training platform can also be combined with your organization’s CRM tool to create an effective customer retention strategy that leverages the power of training to keep customers engaged and track when they are not. 

The importance of customer training best practices 

No matter how great your product is, if your customer doesn’t understand it correctly, they won’t get the value they expect, and your relationship could suffer. Customer training is key to making sure your customer is getting from your product what they expect and what you intend. By incorporating some customer training best practices into the beginning of your relationship, you can make sure that your product is being used in the right way. Best training practices include bringing your teams together to understand your customer needs; keeping content short and relevant; encouraging collaboration; making it interactive; and using the right customer training software. You can read our best practices in more detail here. 

The benefits of good customer training 

• Better overall customer experience – In the hyper-competitive world of technology solutions, CX is the name of the game. Giving your customers the right level of support through training ensures that they understand your product in greater detail and can begin using it efficiently and without problems right from the beginning. 
• Improved customer onboarding – Onboarding plays a key role at the beginning of a new customer relationship and can often make or break the future outcome of the relationship. The right training during this crucial period can help new customers get up and running faster and see the value in your solution sooner.  
• Differentiator from competition – Customer training software can help to increase the levels of engagement with your product. There is a lot of competition out there and a good customer training platform can help you stand out from the crowd. 
• Reduction in customer churn – A customer who ‘gets’ your product or solution and is more likely to use it correctly will then see the value in the product sooner and likely stay a loyal customer. 

Frees up IT – A good customer training platform can reduce the volume of support requests your IT team gets from customers using the product. By teaching your customers how to use the product correctly, they will have less need for IT support. And that frees up your IT team for work on higher-value projects.