In the latest report of the Havas Group, 77% of brands could disappear overnight and no one will even bother to care. This could be due to a lot of factors but one thing is for sure—unsatisfactory customer experience tops the list.
86% of customers are willing to pay more just to have a great customer experience. There is no wonder why in the same survey by SuperOffice, results show that 45.9% of businesses are prioritizing customer experience over pricing and product.
Investing in customer experience enables your company to achieve the following goals:
- retain customers longer
- improve customer satisfaction
- upsell and cross-sell more
- increase revenue
- attract more customers
One of the ways to enhance the experience of your customers with your business is to conduct customer training.
What Is Customer Training?
Customer training refers to providing customers the necessary resources and materials, whether textual, visual, or a mixture of many types of resources, so they can use your product successfully and enjoy your services better.
Most customer training programs are either guided or self-paced. Others provide a combination of both. Also, these programs are generally accessible online. You can make your prospects, resellers, and partners go through this program and get them on board with your product and service offerings.
The main goal is to ensure that with the resources, materials, and guidance given, customers will be able to resolve any need that could arise while using a product or service that you have sold them.
In return, customer training can lead to several advantages for your business.
Benefits of Customer Training
How beneficial can customer training be for your company?
These statistics from Talented Learning should give you an idea:
- 68% of customers who are trained tend to use your products more often
- 56% of them know how to use more product features
- 87% can use your products independently, without assistance
In case these statistics don’t compel you enough to invest in customer training, dive deep into the following benefits of customer training:
- Refined customer onboarding process
- Increased product knowledge
- Better Customer Retention
- Customer Loyalty
- Lower customer support costs
1. Refined Customer Onboarding Process
If you are running a SaaS business or any similar type of business, you know just how important it is to conduct customer onboarding.
Customer onboarding is critical in ensuring that your customer’s journey starts off on the right foot. You want to avoid leaving your customers feeling lost as soon as you make a sale. This could end up in unnecessary refunds, or in losing any chance of getting a repeated customer.
Training customers during the onboarding process entails orientation on the following areas:
- product knowledge
- what it means to be your customer
- the exclusive benefits your customer can access
- customer service and the type of support you provide
- customer loyalty programs
You can save ample time from having to answer each of these questions every time you have a new customer. Just create a custom training program that includes the business areas mentioned above.
2. Increased Product Knowledge
Since the customer training program you will be providing should include training on product knowledge, your customers will be more informed about your products and services.
Increased product knowledge among your customers could mean reduced dissatisfaction among them. If your customers are knowledgeable about your product and how to use it, they:
- become less confused about usage instructions
- enjoy more product features
- avoid damaging your product
Also, sufficient product knowledge prevents your customers from prematurely giving your products poor reviews which could be detrimental to your reputation and brand.
3. Better Customer Retention
Did you know that it is 16 times more costly to chase new customers than to keep existing ones? This is why businesses should invest in strategies that can help improve customer retention.
Better customer retention is possible with customer training. By conducting customer training programs, you can provide added value to your offerings for the benefit of your customers. Most customers would rather stay with a brand they have excellent customer experience with, than constantly switch to new service providers.
The training allows you to keep track of the activities of your customers, thus allowing you to monitor any signs that you are losing a particular one. You can act promptly and avoid escalations resulting in huge loss.
4. Customer Loyalty
Encourage customer loyalty through your customer training programs.
Loyal customers tend to become a company’s brand ambassadors. You do not only get to keep your customers, you also gain more prospects through them without having to shell out extra. When customers are happy about your product and the services you extend, they will market the product for you.
Nothing beats word-of-mouth marketing. The reach is organic, and the results can be very impressive.
5. Lower Customer Support Costs
26% of businesses surveyed by the Brandon Hall Group Extended Enterprise in 2017 claim that customer training reduces client support interactions.
Instead of messaging you every time they have an issue with your product, your customers can first access the resources and materials you have provided. This significantly helps you and even them as well.
There is less possibility for friction to occur between your customer service professionals and your customers when they interact less. Because of this, there is no need to hire more people or invest in extensive customer support.
Reduced client support interactions mean more savings. Who wouldn’t want that for their company?
Just be reminded also to opt for an online delivery mode when planning to conduct customer training. If your resources are online, you avoid having to spend on the production of materials and tools every time you gain a new customer.
Indeed, customer training can be highly beneficial. Are you ready to take on the challenge and create a solid customer training program?
Provided you use the right tools and integrate a reliable system for customer training, you are surely bound for optimal business growth driven by excellent customer experience.
