The Key to Any Successful Integration is Implementation. Case in Point: Exponea

You’ve just selected a new technology solution to ramp up your company’s capabilities. Congratulations! Now the fun begins – implementation.

If you’ve ever integrated a third-party solution to help you do what you do better, faster, and with more efficiency, you’ve no doubt encountered the process of implementation.

Implementations vary, depending on your requirements and the provider’s capabilities and as you probably know, it’s rarely as easy as flipping a switch. But with a little preparation and dedicated support on both sides, the rewards can far outweigh any investment required. And if you’re like some of Skilljar’s customers – like Exponea, a Bloomreach company, one of the most innovative customer data and experience platforms on the market – you may find that the implementation process can both surprise and even delight.

Exponea provides customer and partner education as a market leader in Customer Data Platform (CDP) and omni channel marketing automation. They deliver this through Exponea Academy, powered by Skilljar. Most of their technical, step-by-step training courses are product-specific to Exponea, but they’ve also started publishing expert courses on industry-specific topics such as Digital Privacy or Emailing Best Practices to reach a wider audience.

Let’s take a look at some lessons learned from their software onboarding process with Skilljar, and how Skilljar’s commitment to customer education helped Exponea onboard their customers and retain more continuous learners.

Before You Implement Anything, Know Your Goals

A common mistake many companies make is that they rush to implement or trim the timeline in an effort to expedite a product launch. This can result in issues down the road that can cause system friction or worse, a poor customer onboarding experience.

It’s essential to take the time at the beginning of the process to assess your goals so that the solution provider can build their offering to your specifications. For Exponea Academy and Skilljar, this conversation started with a simple question: What goals do you hope to achieve by using our onboarding solution?

Exponea Academy was looking to accomplish three things by incorporating Skilljar.

1. Accelerate Product Adoption. Exponea wanted to improve their product training in order to create a better customer onboarding process. This would lead to faster product adoption and greater onboarding success. “An educated client knows how to use all of the capabilities our software can offer to support their business, which leads to a better customer experience and faster product adoption,” said Yuliia Panasenko, Integration Lead for Exponea Academy.
2. Decrease Training Time. Exponea wanted to help users find the right courses and identify their preferred modes of delivery in order to expedite the learning process and decrease training time.
3. Drive Training Revenue. Another key goal for Exponea, according to Viktor Mach, Head of Exponea Academy, was to find a platform that included a subscription model, which would attract more students, allow for greater freedom for students in choosing their courses, and bring increased revenue from course enrollments.

What to Consider During the Implementation Process

Mach recommends customers look for the following to ensure a successful implementation process:

• Ensure you have a dedicated Implementation Manager to guide you in the right direction for your build, communicate with the technical/support team for quicker issue resolution, and propose various workarounds so you can meet targets.
• Set the main goals you’d like to achieve. This helped Exponea identify the right direction without wasting any time on false starts or missteps.
• Find an intuitive platform that has valuable information, resources and support tools. This helped Exponea make adjustments and solve problems on their own for a faster turnaround.

The Benefits of a Successful Implementation

Skilljar was able to help Exponea Academy unify the student experience by integrating some of their existing educational tools into a single, user-friendly platform.

Skiljar integrates with customers in a way that allows for continuous data flow between the two platforms. In the case of Exponea Academy, course enrollment and completion information for each student enrolled is sent to Skilljar, and the resulting data can be used to inform marketing campaigns to keep the learning momentum going.

For example, the enrollment information available from Skilljar’s tracking data helps Exponea make specific recommendations to students who participate in their Fundamentals course, such as future courses on advanced product features and new releases.

Here are some additional  business opportunities that were unlocked for Exponea after implementing Skilljar.

• Real-time Data: Skilljar enabled real-time access to training materials for all of Exponea Academy’s students.
• Learning Paths: All of Exponea Academy’s courses incorporate straightforward learning paths that help students navigate between course sections to find practical exercises, live events, and step-by-step tutorials that aid learning. Their students know exactly what their next task is and when live class sessions are scheduled.
• Training Analytics: Increased visibility into training analytics resulted in more targeted, efficient training opportunities and less time wasted on students trying to find the right material.
• Data-driven Decisions:: The tracking data on student preferences also helped Exponea Academy understand which students prefer to watch recorded classes and which prefer to attend live sessions. This type of information helps them make data-driven decisions on the creation of new courses, for example, abandoning live teaching segments in favor of high-quality, on-demand materials for categories in which this is the preferred medium.
• Subscriber-based System: The Promo Codes feature in Skilljar gives subscribers an opportunity to enroll in any course they wish, resulting in improved course navigation. Skilljar allows Exponea Academy’s subscribers to select their preferred courses and generate related course previews that align to their persona.

There is much to be gained by a collaborative and thorough implementation process. Start with clear alignment on what you’re looking to get from the partnership and make sure your solution provider can deliver. It’s worth putting the time in upfront so that you can unlock similar opportunities to expand your product offerings, offer more successful onboarding programs, and enhance your customer experience. At Skilljar, we take customer education seriously, starting with our own customers.

If you are a Skilljar customer and have a success story to share, email us at stories@skilljar.com. Not a customer yet? Request a demo.

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