Training Automation: Your Ticket to B2B SaaS Growth in 2022

A look at your customer base will most likely show a variance in the profitability of your customers. 

In one category, you’ll find the cream of the crop. These are your top performers who are optimizing their use of your B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product to grow their businesses while requiring minimal assistance. 

The other category consists of customers who are not accessing your platform’s full potential and are generating a higher number of support tickets. Obviously, this is a less-than-ideal situation. 

What if there was a way to boost the latter and make that group as profitable as your cream of the crop?

Training automation should be a critical part of every company’s strategy for increasing customer performance and profitability.

How are you currently training customers? Are you reactively waiting for support requests and dealing with each on an individual basis?

Or are you being proactive? Doing things like educating customers on how to deal with common issues on their own and guiding them into a more efficient and effective use of your product?

Customer training isn’t a new concept; however, the old ways of doing things (e.g., instructor-led training (ILT)) have evolved. Today’s businesses need an approach that’s scalable and effective — and doesn’t require your constant involvement.

Meet Training Automation

Customer education is often designed as a standardized, structured way of teaching all-new customers about your product or service. Using onboarding courses and certifications, customers are led through specific pieces of content designed to both increase their mastery of the product and to decrease support-related costs.

Traditionally, it’s been hard to tailor that content to the needs of an individual customer — but this can be solved with training automation.

Training automation is the triggering of highly contextual content to be provided to customers at the appropriate time. The triggers are based on each user’s behavior. The content, for example, could display a pop-up tutorial when a learner accesses a new tool on a platform. Or, guidance can be sent via text or email based on the stage they’re at in the learning journey.

What does this do?

• • Helps your customer at the moment they need it — rather than leaving them to flounder or overwhelming them with the wrong information at the wrong time.
  • Streamlines your company’s operations and reduces support calls.
  • Reduces onboarding time and customer churn.
  • Accelerates adoption and deepens product usage.

Three Ways Training Automation Maximizes Customer Profitability

Smart, automated customer training can be used to turn less profitable customers into more profitable ones in several key ways.

First, training automation can result in higher profits as it helps customers gain deeper knowledge.

Take, for example, a customer who has been using a product for several months and is unaware of a particular feature. If they receive an automated email that showcases that functionality, you may capture their attention.

By offering them value and moving them through a quick course, they may find even more value related to the product in their day-to-day. This increases the likelihood a user remains active and, eventually when provided even more value, they’re ripe to sign up for a higher tier.

Second, customers who are well versed in using a product become brand ambassadors.

Their increased competence, understanding and enthusiasm will make them articulate and well-informed spokespeople. If you’re seeking to cultivate a community of evangelists, you’ll want to start here.

Third, and perhaps most significantly, training automation can result in lowered customer support costs. 

A McKinsey & Company report showed that maximizing customer satisfaction (CSAT) within their journeys can not only lift revenues by up to 15 percent, but it can also bring down the cost of serving customers by as much as 20 percent.

When customers receive training in the moment, instances of contacting customer service decrease as they find help exactly when and where they need it.

Training Automation Streamlines the Customer Lifecycle

For most companies, injecting automation is a relatively easy step in maturing their learning programs. It can be as simple as a series of automated emails that fire as learners work their way through their respective journey, or, it can be as sophisticated as training content that’s embedded seamlessly within your product.

Remember, each stage of the customer lifecycle will require a different set of resources. Start simple, from the moment they begin using the product, then build on that training throughout the entire lifecycle of the customer — to the point where they become a certifiable expert.

By taking a layered approach, training automation can present information in an ever-deepening way so customers can dig down according to their own level of expertise with your product.

By letting a customer make their own way through training with information delivered just-in-time (JIT), and is perfectly tailored to their skill level, you’ll inevitably streamline the customer lifecycle to achieve maximum operational efficiency. Customers will be able to immerse themselves in your product in a way that feels natural and strengthens your relationship.

Seamless Automated Training Builds Partnership With Customers

Savvy businesses understand that the customer’s experience must be exceptional or customers won’t continue to use a product. This is why we’re big advocates for training that’s seamlessly woven into a user experience. 

Now’s the time to invest in your customers’ success with JIT resources that builds trust, knowledge and loyalty.

When companies view their customers as partners, they understand that growth happens only when their customers are successful. By automating your training and integrating it seamlessly with your user experience, you’ll make it simple for you both to succeed.

That said, are you ready to kickstart your customer education program? If so, check out our corresponding eBook to get started.