Why Education is the Scale Engine for your Customer Success

Customer Success teams are responsible for driving increased adoption of SaaS services. Unfortunately, even the most beautifully designed, highly functional services will go unused if customers are not shown how to utilise the product effectively in their everyday lives.

For SaaS companies selling to large enterprises, role-based, personalised learning can accelerate on-boarding and help maximise a service's value over time. For that reason, education is emerging as a key driver of customer success.

After all the hard work (and budget!) that goes into software development, too many SaaS companies are falling at the last hurdle. Generic training, if training exists at all, is often inefficient and ineffective.

Transforming the kind of training you provide and deliver is arguably the most important consideration for any SaaS development project.

Here are three ways your customer education can lead to break-through adoption and customer success:

1.      Get on the fast track: Accelerating onboarding 

The right training at the right time can drive high levels of adoption in a shorter time and at scale. The larger the number of end users you need to on-board, the more important it is to have a self-service learning solution that scales as your business grows. Analysing training completion rates and user learning behaviour can help optimise your onboarding process over time.

2.      Beyond onboarding: Adopting advanced features

Top quality training goes far beyond a successful onboarding programme – if clients are to get the most out of their SaaS subscription, they need to know employees are adopting advanced features. When customers feel comfortable going beyond basic functionality, they are empowered to boost productivity and achieve their full potential, all while getting the most out of their investments.

3.      Customer success: Accompanying users on their application journey

Education becomes the guide that accompanies users on their application journey, facilitating smooth transitions of behaviours as new features are launched. This allows SaaS companies to nurture the relationship they have with their customers over time and deliver additional value as they release new products and features.

Customized learning: A 21st century approach to education

Competency-based learning

Competency-based learning turns the traditional model of workplace education on its head. Instead of checking the boxes to demonstrate how much time employees spend learning (i.e. Instructor Led Training compliance etc.), learners progress when they can prove they have mastered competencies—the skills, abilities, and knowledge required in a specific area or subject.

Competency based learning is now being applied to user education and SaaS adoption. CBL can provide users with clearly defined learning paths from onboarding through to mastery. The learner receives personalized recommendations based on demonstrated competency within an application. In a world where time is at a premium and engagement in workplace learning can be frustratingly low, CBL helps users hone the skills they need to get the most from their application. When users adopt, engage, and apply their training, their organizations realize the promised benefits of their SaaS investments.

Modular, agile assets to suit all learning styles

Today’s learner prefers short videos, modular content, simulations and interactive learning experiences that are role-specific and play a part in a competency-based approach to education. Assets should be agile, managed independently, and easily reconfigured into different learning modules so that users have access to what they need when they need it. This approach to education drastically improves engagement and adoption because learners can easily identify skills gaps and feel empowered to control their own learning.

Education Lifecycle Management

The creation and curation of education content too often an after-thought to the development process. Integrating learning delivery into the DevOps process allows SaaS companies to develop and deploy relevant, point-in-time enablement programs. Education Lifecycle Management ensures that education content is always up-to-date and available at the release of every new iteration of the service.

We have worked with some of the world's largest service providers to help them deliver cost-effective learning for their end users and partners at scale.

If you are interested in delivering best-in-class training and education to drive increased adoption of your SaaS service, get in touch to find out how we can help.