Developing relevant learning paths, keeping the learning material up-to-date, and creating engaging learning experiences are the main challenges in making a customer training solution really effective.
Customer success teams should want to build more advanced programs and elevate the quality of their educational training in the years ahead. Learning Management Systems (LMS) are key to overcoming these obstacles. The good news is that in the years 2020 to 2022, 75% of customer training programs got a boost in budget, indicating that more executives are realizing how important customer education is, according to the “2022 Customer Education Benchmarks and Trends Report.” This increased budget signals a growing recognition of LMS platforms and customer e-learning courses among decision-makers.
In this article, we’ll talk about why using a learning management system is beneficial for customer training. We’ll also explore important features that make an LMS effective for on-demand e-learning customer training, and we’ll highlight some of the best LMS platforms.
What is a customer training LMS?
An LMS platform is a software designed to facilitate the delivery and management of online training courses and tutorials. It is a centralized hub for organizing and distributing educational content, allowing SaaS companies to deliver targeted training to their customers.
Some customer training use cases for LMS software are:
- Customer Onboarding: Streamline the onboarding process for new customers by providing essential information and teaching them the skills required to get started.
- Certification programs: Implement certification programs to validate customer expertise and build confidence in their ability to use your product effectively.
- Customer support enhancement: Provide training modules to help customers troubleshoot common issues independently and reduce reliance on customer support.
Why use a learning management system for customer training?
Using LMS software for customer training offers several advantages for businesses looking to educate and support their customer base. Here are some key reasons to use an LMS platform for customer training:
- Centralized training hub: A robust LMS platform is a centralized hub for all your training materials and resources. This ensures learners have easy access to the latest course content and updates only need to be made in one place.
- Consistent training experience: Through standardized learning paths, an LMS guarantees a consistent training experience for learners based on their specific needs. This not only maintains quality but also helps in conveying a unified message across your customer base. Additionally, If your company already has existing eLearning content developed following SCORM standards, using an LMS platform that supports SCORM is important.
- Self-paced learning: An LMS’s self-paced learning functionality accommodates the diverse needs of your learners. Whether onboarding new customers or providing ongoing education, individuals can progress at their own speed.
- Intuitive learning experience: An intuitive LMS ensures that the learning process is smooth and user-friendly. This enhances the overall user experience, making it easier for customers to navigate the training platform.
- Progress tracking and analytics: The LMS provides in-depth insights into learner progress and engagement. This functionality is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of your customer training program so you can make data-driven decisions for continuous improvement.
- Cost-effective training: Cloud-based LMS solutions significantly reduce the cost of training compared to traditional methods. With no need for physical materials, locations, or on-site instructors, you can provide comprehensive customer education at a fraction of the cost.
- The ability to create a certification program: Certification programs provide a formal way to recognize and validate the skills and knowledge acquired by customers through training. Earning a certification can motivate customers to actively engage in the training material — it provides a tangible goal for learners to work towards.
See this case study to learn how Gong hit 1,500+ certification registrations within the first five months of its launch using Skilljar.
Key LMS features for eLearning customer training
When selecting a learning management system for customer training, look for the following key features.
1. Custom assessments
Custom assessments in an LMS allow administrators to create tailored evaluation tools that align closely with the specific learning objectives. This feature becomes particularly valuable when considering the diverse knowledge levels of learners. Some learners may already have expertise in a subject and might prefer to skip lessons they are already familiar with.
For example, if a customer training program includes optional lessons on a product’s advanced features, a learner with prior knowledge can skip these lessons, but still assess their comprehension of those advanced features. This evaluation can be facilitated through quizzes, allowing learners to demonstrate their understanding without necessarily completing the entire course.
Completing the assessment would then grant them credit for those specific lessons, acknowledging their pre-existing knowledge and allowing them to focus on the aspects of the learning program that are more relevant to their needs.
2. Multiple learning pathways
A comprehensive LMS recognizes diverse learning preferences and offers multiple pathways. These pathways, whether linear or exploratory, allow users to customize their learning experience. By providing different paths, LMS platforms promote effective customer onboarding and ongoing training.
In addition to diverse paths, a customer training platform should offer various learning formats such as videos, interactive modules, and live sessions. This variety caters to different learning styles and allows users to choose the format that best suits them. The adaptability of formats enhances overall engagement and contributes to a more personalized learning journey.
Learning paths help training professionals boost engagement and increase the likelihood of learners finishing their courses or paths. This is done by:
- Customizing learning paths: Making specialized learning routes with different content to suit the preferences and requirements of various learners.
- Sending reminder emails: Using automated emails to remind and prompt learners who haven’t finished their courses in a chosen path to take action and continue their learning journey.
3. Reporting and dashboards
A robust LMS for eLearning customer training should include built-in reporting and dashboards to provide admins with real-time insights into learner progress, completion rates, and engagement metrics, by user and by account.
This feature enables a data-driven approach to make better decisions to enhance the training program and contribute to successful customer onboarding and long-term customer retention.
For example, some of the best LMS software keeps a really good track of what users are doing on your training platform. If you want to know how many courses a user signed up for or finished, you can use new user reports. These reports list all users in training and show how many courses each user signed up for, completed, or the certificates they earned.
Learn how Entelo increased customer retention by 95% using Skilljar
4. Integrations
Seamless integration with other tools and platforms is key for efficiency and a unified user experience. An effective LMS platform should support native integrations with popular applications, CRM systems, or third-party tools.
For example, some LMS platforms have CRM integrations (such as with Salesforce) that allow seamless data sharing, ensuring that customer training data is synchronized with customer profiles in both systems.
For organizations offering paid training courses or certifications, integrating with eCommerce and payment gateways simplifies managing transactions and user access.
Similarly, integrations with customer experience or customer success platforms enhance the understanding of customer behavior and satisfaction levels. Customer success managers can use this data to tailor training content and delivery methods, ensuring that the training program is aligned with customer needs and contributes to increased customer satisfaction.
5. User permissions
User permissions allow administrators to control and regulate access to various functionalities and data within the training platform. This feature enables organizations to tailor the user experience based on roles, ensuring that individuals have access only to the information and tools essential for their specific tasks.
With user permissions, administrators can customize dashboards for different user roles. For instance, employees responsible for analytics may be granted access only to the analytics dashboard, while those involved in course management have access to the course management page.
Assigning permissions based on roles contributes to workflow efficiency. Users can focus on their specific tasks without being overwhelmed by unnecessary features or content. This targeted access reduces the risk of errors and simplifies processes within the LMS.
Top 7 learning management systems
Here are some examples of the best customer training solutions that are recognized for their features and capabilities.
1. Skilljar
Skilljar is a cloud-based LMS that focuses on enabling businesses to deliver customer and partner training. It’s specifically designed to help companies build and manage online training programs for their external audiences, such as customers and partners.
Skilljar use cases are:
- Customer training
- Channel partner training
- Certification programs
- Software adoption
- Training analytics and reporting
Source: Verified user review | G2
2. Northpass
Northpass is another LMS that focuses on providing a simple and intuitive platform for creating and delivering online courses. Northpass is designed to be easy to use and is suitable for businesses, training organizations, and educational institutions.
Some of the Northpass use cases include:
- Customer success
- Customer education
3. Litmos (Formerly known as SAP Litmos)
Litmos is corporate training software that provides an e-learning platform for the administration, delivery, and tracking of educational courses and training programs.
Litmos use cases are:
- Employee training
- Compliance training
- Sales training
- Customer training
4. TalentLMS
TalentLMS is a cloud-based learning platform that offers a variety of features for course creation, management, and delivery. Businesses use TalentLMS often for employee training and development.
TalentLMS use cases include:
- Employee training
- Sales training
- Onboarding training
- Compliance training
- Cybersecurity training
5. 360Learning
360Learning is an LMS that emphasizes collaborative learning. It allows users to create and share training content, as well as engage in social learning activities. 360Learning aims to foster a sense of community and collaboration among learners.
Practical applications of 360Learning:
- Employee onboarding
- Compliance training
- Sales enablement
- Customer training
- Software training
6. Docebo
Docebo is a cloud-based LMS that provides a range of features for creating, delivering, and tracking training and educational programs. Docebo is known for its scalability and is used by industries like financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and software.
Docebo use cases are:
- Employee onboarding
- Talent development
- Customer education
- Sales enablement
7. iSpring
iSpring specializes in eLearning solutions, particularly in the development of tools for creating online courses and interactive multimedia presentations. iSpring is known for its authoring tools, free quiz makers, and interactive simulations.
Where iSpring proves valuable:
- Compliance training
- Product training
- Sales training
- Microlearning
Other Learning Management Systems include AbsorbLMS, LearnUpon, Lessonly, SkyPrep, UserGuiding, and Workramp.
How Skilljar helps businesses create personalized customer learning experiences
Skilljar is an award-winning LMS platform for training customers via e-learning. It has an intuitive user interface along with practical tools for customer onboarding, engagement, and retention. These tools include personalized learning experiences, custom themes, badges and certifications, analytics, learning paths, and integrations, all available within a single platform.
Sign up for a Skilljar demo and see how it helps you drive business impact with personalized customer learning experiences.
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