In Training Industry Magazine’s latest issue, Linda Schwaber-Cohen, Head of Training at Skilljar, shared her insights on how we can utilize data in customer training programs. The article was originally published here.
For your convenience, we’ve also included a few takeaways below:
Data is becoming more available, and in the training industry, learners are constantly producing data about their learning activities. However, this training data is meaningless unless we dive deep to uncover what it really tells us. To use this data to inform strategic decision making, we need to understand:
- Purpose of the analysis
- Audience for the data
- Specific metrics needed
Training data is broken down into three levels: business-level, course-level, and content-level.
Discovering the purpose of analysis
Each level of data comes with different information for training professionals to uncover. So it’s critical that we first understand the purpose of analysis. The purpose of business-level data is to demonstrate the impact your training program has on customers. The next level down, course-level data is designed to help you measure the traction of your training program. And last, content-level data gives insight into the performance of individual content assets.
Understanding the audience
Now that we have discovered the purpose of our analysis, we need to understand who the data is being served to.
Business-level data focuses on the impact of your training program, so it is often presented to leadership and executives in your organization. Since course-level data tells the effectiveness of course marketing tactics, it is most relevant to training management, Marketing, and Customer Success. And finally, content-level data is primarily used by instructional designers to evaluate content assets.
Metrics
Business-level data often involves demonstrating your return on investment (ROI). For customer training, it’s typical to take one of three approaches to measure ROI:
- Customer renewals
- Reduced costs
- Increased product usage/adoption
For course-level data, you can track engagement metrics, which include:
- Registration and completion rates
- Audience reaction
- NPS (Net Promoter Score)
This helps you understand the traction of your training program.
Last but not least, training professionals use content-level data to analyze and determine what content is needed. To do that, you can try to pinpoint:
- Popular help articles
- Popular topics for user education support tickets
Additionally, content-level data can help you identify the characteristics of a healthy customer. By revisiting data around product usage, you can ask, “Does my content address certain behaviors that are common for my ‘healthy’ customers?”
Learn more from the original article: From Data to Answers: Using a Data-Driven Approach to Solve Customer Training Problems