This article is a deeper dive into the Customer Education Manifesto, our short and sweet summary of six principles that modern Customer Education professionals follow as we build our programs. If you haven’t read it yet, check that article out and sign it if you agree! We’ll be here waiting for you. This article will dive more into how you can build a Customer Education Strategy and Customer Education Plan using these principles.
How many thousands, or millions, of dollars has your company spent trying to get customers to adopt your product? To use it in a meaningful way? Renew? Expand?
How much time and effort have you thrown at marketing activities to entice them? At ad-hoc training sessions to “enable” them?
How many people have you hired to bombard them with emails, with drip campaigns, with requests for their time that go unbidden because the customer just doesn’t have the time?
Unfortunately, many companies raise millions in funding and hire hundreds of employees before they realize this central tenet: Your customers don’t succeed if they don’t learn.
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Early listeners will remember that we used to do a segment on the show called “Customer Education Mailbag” where we would answer a quick question at the end of the episode, usually unrelated to the main topic.
We’re finally brushing the dust off all those envelopes and open some of the letters that have been coming in. We actually asked our listeners to record their questions, so listen into this episode to hear it in their own voices!
We hope to do this periodically, so if you want to send in your questions you can contact us in our Slack Community or send us an email at learn@customer.education!
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Our next “State of the Industry” report review comes from Forrester and Intellum with their 2019 paper: “Increase Revenue and Improve Customer Retention Through Customer Education Programs”. This report differs from previous ones in that it focuses on how Customer Education programs can contribute to revenue and customer retention. Customer Education is growing, driving a measurable impact in bottom-line revenue, customer retention, and support costs.
In this episode we look at Skilljar’s 2020 Customer Education Benchmarks and Trends report. This report is one of the most comprehensive to-date featuring insights from over 250 customer and partner education teams. Come listen to our response to this report’s insights related to COVID-19 impacts, budgets, target audiences, training formats and engagement, completion rates, monetization strategies, and more!
In this episode we react as we discover that “only 14% of respondents believed that their customers were adequately trained.” Join us as we break down a report from Thought Industries and Claire Schooley (formerly of Forrester Research) that gives us an eye into what training professionals really think about the State of Customer Training in 2020.
In this episode we kick off a new series that focuses on “The State of Customer Education” in 2020. We take a deep dive into Maria Manning-Chapman’s report for the Technology Services Industry Association, or TSIA.
In this episode we feature a fireside chat with Daniel Quick, Head of Customer Education at Asana. How can you really leverage what we’ve learned about game design and apply it to Education and Learning? Tune in to learn more!
In this episode of our CEO Series, Adam speaks with Jonathan Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of Candu on the Power of the User Interface in your Product Adoption journey.
In March 2020, we are experiencing the world’s largest work from home “experiment”. In dark days of a global pandemic, how can Customer Education Professionals shine a little light? Join us as we share how the same strategies we use to reach a wide audience through online technologies can help you, your business, and maybe even your friends connect when in-person options aren’t an option!
Thought Industries also published a blog we wrote on this topic as a companion for this episode. Please check it out on the Thought Industries blog and read on for a summary.
Take the first step to online learning
It took a pandemic to significantly disrupt a common practice of many businesses: In-person training. Trainers find that virtual training isn’t quite the same and demands new skills and somewhat different approaches. Many instructional designers are perfectionists, and the idea of rapidly transitioning to online content goes against conventional wisdom to build methodically using ADDIE and similar frameworks.
But timing is critical. Instead of getting it perfect, you’ll now be saying, “Okay, I’m going to run a class. Do I have my talking points? Yes. Do I know what I’m going to talk about? Yes.”
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In this episode, we talk with Wendy Hamilton of TechSmith. TechSmith creates products that you probably already know and love, because their easy-to-use tools help anyone create great video without needing strong video production skills at first. Listen in and hear how we as Customer Education Professionals can and should embrace video and build content that truly helps our customers – particularly in times where reaching out with On-Demand content is more important than ever!
