How important is customer satisfaction? Brandon Hall Group research finds that companies consider customer satisfaction the number-one business priority as they recover from the pandemic.
It ranks higher than revenue generation, return-to-work strategies, and managing ongoing change. The fact that 71% of companies also say that the pandemic had at least some negative impact on customer satisfaction means that it has become even more critical.
Learning and development’s role in customer satisfaction
For many organizations, learning and development has only an indirect impact on the customers’ relationship with the business. By providing training on customer service, sales, etc., L&D can enable the workforce to drive customer satisfaction. However, more companies are recognizing the direct impact learning can have by providing training to customers.
In some cases, customer training is handled by other parts of the business, such as Marketing, Sales, Customer Success, or Operations. Still, these groups don’t necessarily have the right skill sets to create an engaging learning experience. The tools and technology they have are likely not purpose-built for training, either.
Learning needs to step in and either partner with the groups accountable for customer training or take control. L&D teams, equipped with the right technology, are aptly positioned for onboarding (new customers), upskilling (new products) and reskilling (product updates).
Understanding customer education
Customer education is not a one-off token for someone who purchased a product. It represents an opportunity to strengthen and deepen the customer relationship, improve satisfaction and create repeat clients.
By delivering engaging and compelling experiences, customer training can enhance the use of the product and cut customer support needs. That means a happier customer and reduced costs for the support desk. Repeat customers are far more cost-effective than trying to replace lost ones.
Training also increases engagement, adoption and involvement with your products and services. Customers can lose interest or faith in a product because they don’t know how to make the most of it. Additionally, they may not be aware of features or functionalities that may be useful beyond their original need. Customer training can address these issues and keep the relationship strong and fresh. This kind of involvement also lends itself to better upsell opportunities.
Docebo: your partner for customer training
Brandon Hall Group Platinum Preferred Provider Docebo has a wealth of experience helping their clients leverage the platform’s extended enterprise capabilities to deliver engaging, impactful customer training. Not every LMS is designed with the extended enterprise in mind, but Docebo can make the process more streamlined, efficient and effective. It allows users to:
- Centralize customer training materials. Since many people and functions within an organization touch the customer relationship, it is essential to have a central source of truth for training.
- Enable formal and informal eLearning. Customers need a learning experience that is just as flexible and engaging as internal learners — perhaps even more so.
- Measure the program’s success. One of the biggest challenges with any extended enterprise training is the difficulty of measuring effectiveness with audiences of people who don’t work for the organization. Docebo provides detailed learning analytics and impact reports into every level of learner activity to gauge success and drive improvements.
- Integrate with other tools. There are typically systems outside of learning that are necessary to manage customer relationships. Docebo has built-in integrations to connect with a company’s CRM and leverage that data to drive training programs.
We encourage you to visit the Docebo website to learn more about how their products impact customer training and satisfaction at each stage of the learning process.
–David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst, Brandon Hall Group @davidmwentworth
