Think of your company as a giant bucket of water, and each customer is a single drop. Every drop that leaks out is a lost customer and lost revenue!
Sure, you can add more water to replace what’s lost. But while acquisition is critical for your company’s growth, consider that just a 5% uptick in retention can increase profits by between 25% to 95%. Yeah, sounds like it’s a good use of your time and resources to patch those leaks!
You don’t want your customer retention to wind up like this
Fortunately, you have an incredible tool at your disposal: Customer Education. With the right strategies, your company can provide that sustained value that keeps your customers happy (and in your bucket).
This was the topic in Docebo’s latest webinar, Increase Revenue and Retention with Customer Education, presented in partnership with finance innovation experts FintechOS. Together, we explored strategies that businesses are employing to successfully supercharge their customer education and maximize retention and revenue.
A full recording of this webinar is available to watch now. Read on to get the highlights and best practices!
Two (BIG) reasons to pay attention to Customer Education
“Training is a strategic function of customer servicing—and a lever for growth.”
– Roxana Talef, Product Enablement Director at FintechOS
At its core, Customer Education is an extension of your customer service strategy. With it, you improve onboarding, retention, and loyalty. Not to mention, it can help make your company brand stand out from competitors!
Any company that isn’t already focusing on Customer Education has some catching up to do, as these two stats show:
Stat #1: More than 70% of companies deliver training to learners outside of the organization.
We know from our discussion on AI earlier this month that the tech learning landscape has changed a lot in the last decade, with much of learning extended beyond the four walls of the organization to external audiences. (That includes customers, of course!) This rise in external training means that Customer Education is more important than ever.
What it really comes down to is enablement: Making sure that your customers are efficiently and effectively using your company’s product or service. This shift in focus makes sense when it rewards both company and customer alike, as we see in this next key stat.
Stat #2: 90% of companies see a positive return on their Customer Education investment.
That’s because educated customers are enabled customers. And enabled customers are more likely to reach their goals. The logic goes something like this:
- Educated customers are able to get more out of your products and services.
- That success means they are much more likely to have a positive experience with the company.
- Satisfied customers talk positively about the products and services they use (and even recommend them to their peers).
To sum it up, while your customers reach their goals, your products are used more and even advocated for. That certainly sounds like a win-win!
And what’s especially neat about Customer Education is how proactive your company can be, just by following three simple strategies.
Map out the main stages in your customers’ success journeys
But first, you need to have a solid foundation that comes from a deep understanding of your customers. After all, you may know who your stakeholders are and who your partners are—but how well do you know your customers?
That’s why we recommend mapping out the main stages in your customers’ success journeys—from acquisition to activation to retention. This will help you pinpoint where in your customers’ success journeys your Customer Education efforts can make the most impact.
Like we mentioned at the beginning, acquisition is important, but it’s more useful to focus on activation and retention! Consider the following:
- It costs up to 25 times more to acquire new customers than to retain old ones
- Meanwhile, it only takes a 25% increase in customer activation to bring about a 34% increase in monthly recurring revenue over a year
- Finally, the probability of upselling existing customers ranges between 60% to 70%, compared to 5% to 20% for new prospects
Strategy #1: Educate your customers (before they become your customers)
Once you have your customers’ success journeys mapped out, it’s time to focus on where your Customer Education efforts will first make an impact
Consider the lifetime value of your customers holistically. Most companies will wait for a customer to onboard before they educate them. But is that really necessary? Learning should start before or during the actual acquisition—yes, during the lead generation stage!
Think about how prospects come to your company. Most customers these days don’t like to jump right into sales conversations. Instead, they research thoroughly first, and then make a decision to have that conversation with sales. But you can make it easier for your sales team and ensure that more people show up at the door!
Your sales team will do their best, but ultimately your prospects want to come to you on their own terms
Meet the prospect where they do their research. Where your company appears in search results, for example, make sure your learning content shows up too, and is accessible! Free trials and demos, introductory videos, public documentation—anything that can allow prospects to try out firsthand what you’re all about.
Strategy #2: Meet customers (potential and current) where they are
This is where user segmentation and personalization are absolutely crucial. With each customer, figure out which profile they resemble the most, and empower them with what they need at that stage.
For the curious prospect who wants to know a bit more about your company:
Give them a clear path to start. That means offering without overwhelming; demonstrate what learning you have available, but don’t make it all available.
A prospect, for example, should be able to easily register with your company. Then, they can access microlearning, technical documentation, and maybe some introductory course that gives them a great introduction to your content and entices them to ask for more.
For the qualified lead who tried a demo and is getting more interested:
Your sales team might request that cherry-on-top to drive it home for a qualified lead. So, what does that look like? How about extended training access, or advertising your opportunities for certification?
Access to training can make the difference between a lead that becomes a customer and a lead that doesn’t. Giving your qualified leads access to training helps them make a qualified decision about your company—this especially helps if you’re offering early access while your competitors don’t! After all, people tend to stick with what they know.
For the loyal customer who’s looking for reasons to stay:
Once that prospect or lead has become a customer, they should be getting the highest level of personalization possible with your LMS platform.
This means providing only what’s relevant to them, and nothing more. It can be an industry-specific landing page, full catalog access, certification programs, master classes, expert-led webinars—as long as the content is tailored specifically to their learning goals.
A customer whose field is banking, for example, should see a different dashboard when they log in versus a customer whose interests relate to insurance. (Fortunately, Docebo makes this easy with customizable dashboards for personalized learner experiences).
Strategy #3: Enable your customers at every stage of their journey
“Customer support is everyone’s responsibility.”
– Andreea Dragu, LMS Product Owner at FintechOS
Finally, remember that everything your company does in Customer Education has to be part of an overall end-to-end strategy that supports your customers.
Giving your customers the tools to be self-reliant also means empowering your internal teams; consider that an empowered, educated customer is going to engage with your support team less frequently, giving them more time for other important tasks.
Instead, the educated customer may choose to engage more with your account managers and customer success teams. This could open up new opportunities for upselling and more!
At the same time, provide opportunities for certification and continuous training to your employees. This ensures that service and support at your company are top-notch across the board.
(This is made all the easier when both your internal and external training programs follow a unified framework of extended enterprise learning. Check out our previous blog for more on that topic.)
Be sure to keep close tabs on your customers. For instance, when a new webinar or tutorial is coming, reach out to whoever may be interested in the topic. (If you’ve applied the previous strategy and have personalized their Customer Education, then this will be easy.) Not only is this a great way to get your customers excited and engaged with your content, it can also encourage them to reach out to your team afterward, deepening the relationship and solidifying retention. After such an incredible customer experience, how could they ever leave?
Give your customers a first-class experience with empowered Customer Education
Remember these 3 Customer Education strategies to supercharge business impact
- Combine lead generation efforts with customer education initiatives. Connect with other teams at your company, like sales and marketing, to see what they need help with. Giving prospects educational content may not make an immediate, apparent impact, but it will make a difference down the line. The prospect who has already read or watched something about your company will be more likely to onboard with you!
- Segment and personalize the training offer. Your customers don’t have time to learn what’s not relevant to their goals, so why waste your time in providing that unneeded content? The customer education experience should feel tailored to their needs instead of overly broad and generic.
- Guide and support the customer through every activation milestone. Be there for your customers. Always! Your relationship with them doesn’t end after onboarding and initial training. Keep in touch with them, and let them know when new content is available.
Apply these strategies and watch your customer retention (and your revenue) grow!
Get the full picture
If you’re wondering what this looks like in action, you can see how FintechOS applied these strategies, with the support of the Docebo learning platform, to supercharge their Customer Education; watch the full recording of this webinar, Increase Revenue And Retention With Customer Education.