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Optimizing Customer Training: Essential Benefits, Step-by-Step Guide, & Best Practices for AI Knowledge Bases

Do you think your job is done after you sell your product? Many SaaS companies face churn due to insufficient customer training. In order to retain customers, companies need to invest in customer training programs.

Onboarding can spark customers’ curiosity about new software, but lack of it prevents them from understanding the product’s potential. As product leaders, we often make the mistake of thinking that products are self-sufficient and neglect customer training, emphasizing features without explaining how they will help customers.

The core of customer training is to help customers understand the value of the product through videos, knowledge base and educational materials. It provides customers with everything they need to use the product effectively, just like a small tool with instructions, which not only improves the user experience but also makes work easier.

The benefits of customer training go far beyond this. Next, we’ll dive deeper into how it can help your business grow.

What is Customer Training?

Customer training is an important part of customer onboarding. When you provide a getting started guide for new customers, the goal is to make the best possible use of your product for them. This means putting in the extra effort to ensure your customers or partners can understand and get the most out of your product, improving their overall knowledge and experience.

If your product has a high learning curve, customer training is particularly important. Due to the complexity of the product, customers may find it difficult and eventually give up using it, resulting in high churn rates and difficult customer retention. Data shows that 44% of SaaS companies have achieved 10% additional revenue through upselling and cross-selling. Missing these profit opportunities will make the company face greater challenges.

Customer training is an effective way to build long-term relationships with your customers so that they will become loyal customers of your brand. Good customer training is a prerequisite for an excellent customer experience. Typically, customer training is the responsibility of the customer service team, using resources such as customer service knowledge bases, frequently asked questions (FAQs), customer service policies, etc., which we will discuss in detail below.

Types of Customer Training

There are four types of customer training that can help improve the customer experience. They are:

1. Face-to-face customer training

This form of training involves face-to-face meetings where the trainer interacts directly with the client. These meetings can take place at the client's location or at the company's facilities. The interactive nature of face-to-face training allows for immediate feedback and hands-on practice.

2. Online customer training

Online training provides flexibility and accessibility. Customers can participate in webinars, watch video tutorials, and access online courses anytime and anywhere, which is suitable for customers with busy schedules or in remote areas.

3. Hybrid Customer Training

Blended training combines elements of face-to-face and online training. Customers attend live classes while also having access to online resources. This approach allows for direct interaction with the flexibility of online learning.

4. Comprehensive customer training

Comprehensive training combines multiple training methods, including face-to-face seminars, online courses, self-study modules and virtual instructor-led classes. This comprehensive approach caters to customers with different learning styles and preferences, ensuring a great training experience.

You can choose any training format that is convenient for you and your customers. If your customers want to receive training multiple times, it is important to always be welcoming and willing to answer their questions. The training program is not the end. If the customer still has doubts about certain issues that hinder their purchase decision, continue to communicate with them.

Benefits of Customer Training Programs

Customer training is an ongoing process, and training programs are never enough. As product features are updated, you need to constantly update the training content.

Creating a training program isn’t easy; you have to work hard to meet your customers’ needs. If existing customers don’t have enough product knowledge, they may not understand the benefits of new features or higher service levels.

Here are the reasons why you need to have a pre-built customer training program.

1. Hassle-free customer onboarding

Companies that don’t provide complete information to their customers miss out on valuable opportunities to build customer engagement and loyalty. If you acquire a customer but fail to provide them with a user onboarding guide, you’ve wasted all your sales and marketing efforts.

Guiding your customers through the first phase of your product is essential to activate them, retain them, and build loyalty. When you provide detailed training materials to your customers, your customer support team will receive fewer requests, reducing overhead and easing the support burden.

2. Reduce customer churn and support costs

We all know that customer churn is bad for business health. Customer churn occurs primarily when customers no longer find a product useful or when there is a lack of training support and self-help guides when using complex tools. In both cases, customer training programs can help reduce churn.

Customer training programs can be costly for your business. But with new technology, you can reduce costs by implementing self-service platforms like knowledge bases and encourage self-training. Customers can solve problems by themselves through the provided knowledge base and how-to guides, which directly reduces the burden on customer service agents and helps you reduce customer operating costs.

3. Help expand loyal customer base

Did you know that building loyal relationships with customers leads to cost savings? Because it costs less to serve a long-term customer than to attract a new one. Long-term customers bring in more profit each year. For example, in the financial services industry, a 5% improvement in customer retention can result in more than 25% increase in profits. This is because repeat customers typically buy more over time, reducing your operational costs to serve them.

They will also refer new customers and be willing to pay more to stay with a company they trust, rather than switching to a competitor. When you focus on training materials, customers will be well-informed, feel welcomed, and loyal. In this way, customers will retain themselves.

4. Reduce the pressure on support teams

Turnover rates for customer service agents fluctuate between 30% and 100% due to exceeding daily call limits and dealing with emotional and frustrated customers.

When customers are well-trained, they are less likely to seek customer service help. They can use troubleshooting documents, FAQs, and chatbots to resolve simple issues. This, in turn, reduces the burden on customer service teams.

In general, customer training is a key part of the customer experience. It not only benefits internally by reducing the burden on the team, but also benefits externally by providing a good reputation.

Steps to Creating a Customer Training Program

Now that we understand the benefits, let’s help you understand how to structure a customer training program.

The first is to invest in a knowledge management system (KMS) like HelpLook AI Knowledge Base . If you already have such a system or are looking for an alternative, it will make your customer training much easier.

Step 1: Know your customers

Designing learning materials is not only time-consuming but also a tedious process. You need to know what topics to cover in your training program. Staying in close touch with your customer support team can help you identify frequently asked questions, information your customers need, and updates to your knowledge base – these are things your customers might ask about, which will help you design your tutorial catalog.

If you want to go a step further, conducting customer surveys is also a good way. Your potential audience is customers who have already used your product, and they can help promote the brand and build a good reputation.

Step 2: Plan customer training content

Break down your training content into key topics or modules that cover different aspects of your product or service. For example, you could have modules for “Getting Started,” “Advanced Features,” “Troubleshooting,” and “Best Practices.”

Create a detailed outline for each module, including subtopics, key points, and the order in which information will be presented. Use multiple formats to cater to different learning styles and keep the training interesting.

Design assessment tools, such as quizzes or hands-on tasks, to evaluate customer understanding of the material. Develop a process for regularly reviewing and updating training content to keep pace with product updates, new features, and customer feedback.

Step 3: Identify the tools needed for your training program

After the design phase is complete, you will need to select the tools you will need for your training program. The tools you will need when creating a customer training program include:

① Knowledge base software (such as HelpLook AI Knowledge Base )

Publishing content requires knowledge base software. A timely and updated knowledge base provides customers with the information they need to smoothly move from the consideration stage to the action stage, which improves customer satisfaction. When customers can get solutions quickly without having to wait in long lines, it has a positive impact on their perception.

With HelpLook AI Knowledge Base , you can unlock more self-service opportunities. It acts as a central repository for your training resources, troubleshooting guides, and user manuals. Its AI-driven search functionality enables users to find information quickly and automatically recommends related articles to help them continue their learning.

② Survey and feedback tools (such as SurveyMonkey, Google Forms)

These tools are essential for gathering client feedback on training content and delivery. Feedback helps you understand the effectiveness of your training programs and identify areas for improvement to ensure continuous improvement.

③ Customer interaction platform (such as Zendesk)

Platforms like Zendesk facilitate customer interaction with the training team. They enable customers to ask questions, get timely responses, and participate in discussions, thus enhancing the training experience.

Step 4: Continuous Improvement through Feedback and Metrics

As mentioned earlier, customer training is an ongoing process. You should provide support until customer goals are achieved, and once your training program is effective, it will reduce churn. So proactively contact customers to get their feedback on the training materials. If you find any shortcomings, try to improve them through feedback.

How can the HelpLook AI knowledge base help you train your customers?

HelpLook AI knowledge base allows you to create, edit and publish knowledge articles in a more structured way, while centrally storing product information and sharing limited access with customers. It provides intelligent search capabilities to help users quickly find the information they need, ensuring that they can easily obtain relevant content.

With the help of AI assistant, HelpLook can automatically recommend articles according to user needs to enhance the user's learning experience. The content in the knowledge base has been optimized, and users can quickly understand key information through concise and clear summaries, saving learning time.

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Last modified: 2024-10-23Powered by