Customer Training in the new normal: Interview with Matt Adlai-Gail, Model N

According to Brandon Hall Group’s Extended Enterprise survey, 55% of businesses say extended enterprise learning “improves customer relations” and over 76% of organizations use a Learning Management System (LMS) for managing customer and partner training.

Given the massive change in the business landscape, courtesy covid-19, and its subsequent change in user behavior and expectations, training the “new normal” customer calls for “new ways”.

In episode 2 of L&D Insights, a brand new LIVE interview series with the who’s who of Learning and Development, Matt Adlai-Gail, Director of Education Services at Model N, talks about Customer Training in the new normal.

Key takeaways:

1. Customers have pivoted to digital, but core expectations remain the same

The imposed lockdown and isolation led to low out-of-home engagement for most part of the last year compelling consumers to go online for everything: from their daily essentials to entertainment, from working to learning too. This shift to digital has persisted even in countries and regions where lockdowns have been lifted, because the customers’ preference for digitally enabled interactions, through mobile apps and social media, has now become the default expectation. Further, digital has given customers the agency to gain a better experience with a product or a service through an expectation of ‘do-it-yourself’. And self-serve platforms, like LMS with eLearning content, do just that.

However, what customers continue to expect is:

• Similar training as in pre-covid days – Live, exhaustive, intensive workshops but broken into bite-sized learning nuggets
• (Virtual) Instructor Led Training
• Live Collaboration
• Informal learning through the intra-customer exchange of information

2. Knowledge is power when it comes to customer education

The COVID-19 crisis has forced many consumers to change their behaviors. But even for this evolved customer, understanding of the software or product s/he is using for better adoption and engagement is key to the success of the both – the person using it, and hence the business s/he is working for, and the software/ product in question. Along with adoption and engagement, a good customer training program brings about reduction in support queries, and improvement in customer retention and loyalty.

To determine if Customer Training is needed for your client, you need to consider:

• The complexity of your product
• Criticality of the product to the customer’s success/ overall working
• Dynamic changes to market conditions that demand training

3. Extended Enterprise Training needs to do more than make training available to customers

Some must-haves for an LMS to conduct Extended Enterprise Training are:

• Ability to mix out-of-box content with customer legacy content
• Personalized and secured learning area for each customer
• User-friendly interface for learners and admins
• Automation for notifications, reports etc.

Watch the LIVE interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsItmK2KjHo

For more video nuggets, check out our Video Resources.