The importance of customer training solutions

With 96% of customers saying customer services are important in their choice of loyalty to a brand, it’s no surprise that 84% of companies working to improve their customer experience report an increase in income.

However great your product or service is, if your customer doesn’t know how to use it, they’ll simply go elsewhere. That’s where customer training solutions come in.

What is customer training?

Customer training is how you show your customers how to use your products or services. It’s how you can make sure the customer can use your service or product to its maximum potential.

Customer training solutions come in many forms, including:

– Manuals
– FAQs
– User forums
– Online tutorials
– Instructional videos
– Gamified simulations

Every solution has the same goal: maximize customer satisfaction, confidence and retention.

How your organization can benefit from customer training

Customer training can bring many benefits to an organization. Here are some ways that customer training can benefit your organization:

Improve the customer onboarding experience

Customer training helps people to get the most out of your product, making the onboarding process as seamless as possible. For first time customers, it’s a great way to introduce them to your organization, what you do and how you do it.

A customer’s onboarding experience is integral to whether they’ll return to your brand, with 63% of customers saying onboarding is key when deciding to subscribe to a product.

Maximize retention and build loyalty

86% of customers say they will remain loyal if onboarding and continuous education is provided, highlighting the importance of consistent training throughout the customer experience.

If your product is difficult to master, confusion quickly leads to frustration. It can easily result in your customer giving up and going elsewhere. A comprehensive customer product walkthrough will hopefully enhance your customer’s experience with you.

Think about the likes of IKEA. We all know and love them for their easy-to-follow flatpack instructions. But you can head to their YouTube channel where there are plenty of online tutorials and how-to’s – always adding value to their customers.

Customer product training should be a clear example of how your business cares about your customer, not just selling your product.

Competitive advantage

90% of customers share their experience with others. A positive customer experience yields 11 referrals on average. Providing a positive experience doesn’t just result in a happy customer, but a brand advocate.

If you can invest time and resources into continuous client training and positive experiences, you’ll hopefully see that return on investment through your customers adding to your marketing through their own brand advocacy.

Become known for great customer support

Your organization has an opportunity to become known for excellent customer support.

Give your customers plenty of opportunities to learn and master your product themselves – whether that’s through video, demonstrations or FAQs. This should hopefully take some of the strain off your in-person customer service teams and dramatically reduce wait times.

What should I look for when choosing a customer training program?

Customer training solutions come in many forms. Here are just some of the tools you can use to create an exceptional onboarding experience.

Simulation and interactive experiences

Simulations combine advanced 3D technology with knowledge of the human psyche, resulting in an interactive experience that is both effective and fun. Your customers can live it, rather than just learn it.

For customers learning how to use your products, allowing them to walk through the process by themselves can be a great learning tool. If you can make this a multimedia experience with chatbots or avatars to help your customer along their way, you’ll be offering a well rounded, thorough customer training experience.

Gamified customer training solutions

Shake up customer training by adding gamified elements. These can be a great addition, particularly in simulation or interactive experiences.

Gamified elements may include:

–  Leaderboards
–  Battle modes
–  Mini-games
–  Journey games

This can give your customer training a real element of fun, and make the process more engaging. Not to mention, this might be a place you can create a community within your customer base.

In-depth reporting, tracking and analytics

These solutions will often give you a chance to see what’s working and what’s not. Use this data to improve your customer training for future products and services.

For example, if you notice a particular product requires more training than another, you can then go and make the necessary alterations – whether that’s to the design or to the training. Good data analytics allows you to be proactive about changes in your business, guiding your company in the direction you want to go.

You may have already made significant investments into your employee training solutions, but what about your customers? It’s important that they’re not forgotten about.

Building a well-rounded customer training program will hopefully support you in creating life-long advocates for your business, and ultimately helping your organization grow to be exceptional.

For more information on joining our community of game-changers in training, talk to one of our Attensi team today.