Customer Training LMS

Driving customer loyalty, at risk client engagement and user adoption. Who knew an LMS could do all this?

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Why is Acorn the preferred LMS for customer training?

1

See client lifetime value instantly head skyward.

2

Get to at-risk clients early and proactively defend.

3

Confidently grow user adoption to new levels.

Capterra: LMS Best Ease of Use 2021

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Software Advice: LMS Front Runners 2022

Talented Learning: Top 40 Learning Systems 2021

Online Degree: Best LMS Software 2022 – Ease of Use Ranking

Software World: Top Rated LMS Software

Training Industry: LMS Watchlist 2021

Craig Weiss: Top 75 Learning Systems In The World 2022

Customer education common questions:

A guide to the customer training LMS: What is it and why is it important? 

The success of your organisation usually relies on its employees—but not always. Your customers holds immense power over your business outcomes. 

Creating avenues to enhance customer success is only beneficial to your organisation. One such avenue is the customer training LMS, and it's easily implemented, personalised and scaled.  

We'll walk you through everything you need to know about the customer training learning management system, including what to look for in one, how it can hone the perfectly educated customer and why you need it if you want brand loyalists. 

What is customer training? 

Customer training is the process of educating customers on how to optimally and efficiently use your product or service, a key part of ongoing sales success. It is part of extended enterprise enablement in eLearning. 

It has three main goals: 

1. Engage an extended network of customers and stakeholders 

2. Leverage learning to enhance these relationships 

3. Scale a personalised training experience with little duplication of effort. 

Customer training programs generally come in a few different forms. 

• Onboarding 
• Self-guided learning 
• Knowledge bases or hubs 
• On demand training courses.  

Why is customer training important? 

Think about when you’ve purchased a new enterprise software before. Most providers will offer some kind of training (DIY guides, onsite, support officers, etc.). But what if they hadn’t? You have to search for those resources yourself.  

For each new step you take to understand the device beyond what training the provider offers, your customer satisfaction drops—even if you're not aware of it. The product loses latent value every time you come up against a hurdle to using it. You start to form negative connotations with the brand and positive connections with those that helped you. At scale, that's a lot of turned off customers. 

This isn't just about enterprise software, though. Customer training can touch all industries and services. It's important for customer engagement, retention and loyalty and lowering your operational costs while increasing profit.  

Boost engagement with your product 

You set expectations for your product or service. Customers will form their own based on your marketing. Customer training ensures that the gap between expectation and reality isn't a big jump or a complete disconnect—ensuring you're delivering on your value proposition.  

Strengthen retention and loyalty 

The simpler and more impactful customer training is, the more likely you are to turn customers into long-term users. Effective training can help customers glean added value from your product or service. Some may go into it with a narrow use case in mind. Showing them more efficient workflows or features empowers them and is more likely to create brand advocates. 

Increase revenue 

Loyal customers can bring in potential customers through word of mouth. But if you lose them, you lose out on that ongoing revenue and the new customers they might direct to you. More renewals + more new clients = more revenue.  

Plus, research shows that customer training programs can cost as little as 10% of the L&D budget. But it also gives you more opportunities to upsell other products or services also improves your bottom line.  

What is a learning management system (LMS)? 

A learning management system is a software application for creating, housing, delivering and tracking training and development programs. An LMS can also be used to: 

• Identify and plug skills gaps 
• Monitor learning progress against KPIs 
• Recommend online courses through AI 

• Host webinars and instructor-led training. 

What is a customer training LMS? 

A customer training LMS is a learning management system that enables you to deliver training programs to customers and other external stakeholders. This is usually in the form of online training that allows you to create learning paths for customer education and track learner progress.  

How an LMS can transform customer training 

As your organisation or customer base grows, providing an equally positive customer experience to all stakeholders can't be done with one general training program. 

The right customer training software gives you all the tools needed to increase customer engagement through astute customer training courses.  

Convenient and accessible 

Many LMSs are bring-your-own-device compatible, meaning customers can access training on their tablet, laptop, desktop and mobile devices.  

This matters more than just reaching globally dispersed customers. Mobile learning: 

• Allows customers to self-pace training around their schedules (which increases satisfaction and down the line, customer loyalty) 
• Is more accessible for those with disabilities 
• Uses some of the more engaging elements of LMS platforms, such as gamification features. 

Secure 

You can segment and control how much access external users have in a customer training LMS. Customer training also benefits from multi-tenancy functionality, which ensures that if you have different customer bases for multiple products or services, you can personalise the training experience for those customers while retaining security and privacy for those cohorts. 

Efficient management 

Along the same lines, managing multiple groups of online learners is much easier with a customer training platform.  

Everything—from the course builder you use to create courses and training content to the support you need for technical expertise—is centralised in an LMS for customer training. In this way, the LMS acts also as a content management system where you can easily update learning materials at scale every time you update services or products.  

Track customer training KPIs 

If you don't know how to keep customers engaged, you won't be able to determine or experience ROI from customer training. Robust analytics are crucial for: 

1. Creating an engaging learning experience. This depends on data only an LMS can provide, like learner engagement, learner progress and most popular eLearning courses. 

2. Being able to see in real time what customers are doing in the system. This gives you complete control and oversight of each touch point—which has a big impact on the overall customer experience.  

Save time and costs 

A DIY option like a knowledge hub within the LMS eases the burden on your support team by reducing support tickets, calls and emails. This cuts back the amount of time time your support team have to spend rectifying issues.  

You can also roll out online training courses at scale for every new service or product release. A customer training LMS also helps paying customers establish value for your services on their end—which can boost customer retention (and ongoing revenue) by way of ease and satisfaction.  

What to look for in a customer training LMS 

Remember that customers are often paying for or relying on your services, which adds a layer of complexity to their needs in a learning platform.  

This means there are certain features and functionality you should be looking for in an LMS for customer training.  

User experience 

Think back to the laptop example. People don't want to use something that requires a lot of effort, especially if it's already an added effort in their workflow. A good customer training LMS should mimic the layout and functionality of many websites we are already familiar with. 

User experience matters for customer training—and the customer training platform you choose—for two reasons: 

1. Customers don't have to undertake your training like employees do. If it's not engaging, they won't use it. 

2. A user-friendly interface plants subconscious seeds in customers minds that your platform is solving a problem for them, encouraging repeat visits.  

Customisation 

On that note, customisation is incredibly important for creating a familiar experience at this point of the customer journey. Not all LMS platforms (if any) will be completely customisable.  

They're more blank canvas than moulding clay—which is why you want to enquire to what extent the platform can be shaped to reflect the brand your customers are familiar with. You'll also want to consider if you can customise the look of the site yourself or if the vendor retains that control. 

Content accessibility 

If you go the whole hog and get all the features you could in a complete platform, make sure you consider how learners will access course content. That includes: 

• Search functionality and filters 
• Restrictions on learning paths (e.g. locking one piece of content until another is completed) 
• Curated catalogues for different customer groups 
• Findability. This means if customers type in the name of your learning management system into Google, it will show up.  

Integrations 

You'll want a customer training LMS that integrates with any systems you use internally because integrations are what make an LMS secure, commercial and easy to use. Some user-friendly integrations include: 

• Single Sign On. Allows learners to securely use the same login credentials across multiple platforms.  

• LTI compliance. This allows you to integrate external learning tools and plugins.  
• APIs. Enable HR, payroll and CRM systems to link to the learning management system and automates the transfer of people data. 
• Webinars. If you do want to host some kind of face-to-screen training, connections with Zoom, Adobe Connect or Microsoft Teams will be crucial. 
• eCommerce. You can't commercialise your training without it. 

Key takeaways 

It doesn't matter if you call it a customer LMS, a customer education LMS, client training LMS or even an extended enterprise LMS for customers—the best way to retain and engage loyal customers is the customer training LMS.  

Client training for diverse customers or services is made all the more easier with an integrated and user-friendly LMS. Want to enhance positive associations with your brand and create loyal customers? Get a centralised customer learning management system. Customer training isn't secure or private in its current form? Try a cloud-based learning management system. Client training running up your support costs? You guessed it, a customer training LMS is your best bet. 

It'll take a little effort from you to set up, but it's worth it to show your customers you care about them.