Personalization has become one of the hottest prerequisites for most departments in companies of all sizes. 

And no wonder: Personalization improves customer loyalty, engagement, and satisfaction. It can reduce customer acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5 to 15%, and increase marketing ROI by 10 to 30%.

In the webinar Revolutionizing Customer Learning, KCF Technologies’ Director of Technical Learning, Dave Kraige, explored how they empowered their customers to self-select skills and foster a personalized learning journey that caters to their customers’ goals and needs.

KCF Technologies is a leading provider of cloud-based machine monitoring solutions. And when they needed to revamp their learning platform, they had roughly two choices: Relying on traditional content-based recommendations or adopting a skills-based approach.

How to Boost Engagement and Skills Development

KCF’s previous learning platform was large and complex, with over 300 courses organized into various catalogs. While this approach offered a wide range of options, it also posed several challenges:

• Lack of personalization: Learners often felt lost and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of content, making it difficult to identify courses relevant to their specific needs and interests.
• Overemphasis on predetermined recommendations: The platform’s recommendations were based on assumptions about learner needs, rather than allowing learners to express their own preferences.
• Limited engagement: The lack of personalization and engagement led to low completion rates and a disconnect between learners’ aspirations and the learning content.

Recognizing these limitations, KCF decided to redesign its learning platform with a focus on skills development. The core concept was to empower learners to define their skill development goals and receive tailored recommendations based on their self-identified interests.

Imagine picking the skills that matter to you, and… BOOM! Personalized course recommendations that actually make sense.

The new Skills Center seamlessly integrated with KCF’s existing learning platform, providing learners with a unified and convenient experience. Learners can now easily access their recommended courses, track their progress, and receive valuable feedback.

These were the wins:

• Increased engagement: Learners are more engaged when they have a choice in the content they learn;
• Improved learning outcomes: Learners are more likely to retain what they learn when it is relevant to their specific needs; 
• A simple and intuitive learning experience: Learners are not bombarded with unnecessary content, which can make it easier to stay focused.

How and why to implement a skills-based learning strategy

Moving to a skills-based learning model required KCF Technologies to make some significant changes, including:

• Developing a skills taxonomy, which helps ensure that learners have access to the right content.
• Implementing a learning platform that supports skills-based learning.
• Training customer support staff to promote skills-based learning. They trained customer support staff to help customers identify their skills gaps and find the relevant content.

The sense of belonging and the ability to collaborate in meaningful, productive and creative ways has become the standard in all successful organizations for many years.

Insights From KCF’s Journey

KCF’s transition to a skills-based learning platform has yielded a wealth of valuable insights. Here are some key takeaways:

• Personalization matters: Learners are more engaged and motivated when they have the power to choose the skills they want to develop.
• Simplicity wins: A clear and intuitive interface makes it easy for learners to navigate the learning platform and find the information they need.
• Continuous improvement: Continuously evaluate and refine the skills-based approach to ensure it meets the evolving needs of learners.

This is why we all should keep in mind that 9 in 10 organizations see a positive return on investment in customer education. How big? Over 6% more revenue and 7% improved customer retention. Just from customer ed!

It’s also been documented that Customer Education, an extension of your customer service strategy, has a tremendous impact on companies’ retention and revenue.

• 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

And of course, if you want to dig deeper into these insights and hear from KCF Technologies’ Director of Technical Learning, be sure to watch the full webinar here.