Best Practices to Measure Impact of Customer Training Program

1. BestPracticestoMeasureImpactof Customer Training Program (Intuitive Method + Templates + Tools) Learning & Development (L&D) isn’t about what you can remember, it is fundamentally how you applywhatyoulearnedtoimproveyourlife. Onceyouunderstandthatwhatyouarelearningaresimpletoolstooperateyourcomplextask withoutputtingextraeffort-yourinterestgrows &exercisesyourwilltolearn evenmore. That’s how your customer should feel about your training program. But how would you know, if they are already in that phase of curiosity? Or maybe they’re excited but clueless to narrow it down. It is better to know best practices to measure impact of customer training program before implementingcustomertraining. Again,howwouldyouknowwhichpartofyourtrainingismakingachange?ThroughKPIs,or feedbackstarters? Knowmoreabout thebestpracticestomeasureimpactofcustomertrainingprogram. Fundamental Questions YouNeedtoFocus to EvaluateWhich PartofYourCustomerTraining isMakinga Change. • Didtheylikeit? • Didtheylearn? • Aretheyabletoapplywhatthey learned? • Istrainingimprovingtheirgoalsintheirorganization?

2. Yes,therearecountlessmeasuringmetricstoanalyzeyourcustomerresponse&satisfactionrate duringtraining,but,justthinkaboutitfor once! Yourself-pacedlearningprogram-capableofdeliveringdiversecontentaccordingtodiverse needs-establishes apersonalizedbenchmarkforyour diverseaudience. Suchadiverseparadigmoftrainingandyoudecidetolimityourevaluation tojusttools? Yourtrainingevaluationmayfindcustomerpainpoints&improvementinsightsthroughanalytical meters. But,youneedanintuitivemethodtoevaluateyourtrainingandtoestablishyoursuccessmeters. Yes,weknow,it’snot thatexcitingpartthough,butby intuitiveevaluation,youcaneasilyfigure outifyourtrainingworks andhowtoimproveit. Kirkpatrick’s model of learning is meant to be the most widely used method to evaluate the results of training and learning programs. Although, this model has been an effective benchmark toevaluateemployeetrainingprograms,buthasshownevenmoresuccessfulresultswhenit comes tocustomertraining. Donald Kirkpatrick (1924-1950) was a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin. He developed the fourlevelsofevaluationmodelinthemid-1950saspartofhisPh.D. dissertation.And,hisvisionofL&Dtrainingevaluationhasnowbeenusedforover30yrsbymany differentcompaniesas amajorsystemfortrainingevaluation.

3. KirkpatrickModel-FourLevelsofLearning Evaluation • Reaction. • LearningEvaluation. • Knowledgegain. • Results. Level #1:HowAreTheyReacting? There are good chances that you already taking a survey after customers’ firstlearning session. The fundamental idea to evaluate right after the first session is to gain insight into the training experiencefromthelearner’s perspective. Ideally, most B2B companies limit their first survey to just collect basic responses from customers because of many reasons like “They might churn off customers soon”, “They are overpopulating afterthefirstsignuponboardingemails. The problem here is, they are focussing on just a customer response. They need the right questions topinpointtheaccuracyofthefirstsurvey:

4. SmileSheets • Asmilesheetissimplyaformconsistingofaseriesofquestionscombined,askingyourcustomers abouttheirsatisfaction. • In a recent survey, many B2B organizations were asked about the smile sheet effectiveness, and most responded that “they don’t understand how to bring improvement in training through just goodorbadcustomerresponses”. • Weunderstanditcangethardtofindprecisepainpoints toimprovewhenscalabilityisofawide range.And,weaccumulatesuchcommonlimitationsthatsmilesheetsmay have: • Limitations • Datais basic. • Itdoesn’tnecessarilycorrelatewithactuallearningorcustomerbehavior. • Itishardtoscale. • Nowyoumightbeconfusedthatwhethertousesmilesheets?Arethereanyevaluatingbenefits? Whethertoinfuseasmilesheetin evaluatingyourtraining ornot? • Well! There’s always a good and a bad side to any tool. All you have to do is to find the right way ofusingit. BenefitsofSmileSheets • Itdemonstratesrespectforcustomersthoughts&concerns. • Itprovidesearlysatisfactionresults. • Itgivesyouinsightsaboutyourtraining’svaluableside&notso valuable. • SmileSheetsdoesn’tlimittothe“Justaskingforyourfeedback”tool,youcanemployitasa performance-focusedevaluationforyourcustomersduringtrainingsessions. • Performance-FocusedEvaluation • E.g.Writing aTPSReport. • Instead ofaskingyourcustomer,“Howareyoulikingthecourse/training?”

5. Focus on their progression towards set goals, “How well are you able to imply the reporting skills inthepracticeofyour job?” Onalearnerscaleyourfeedbacktoget customerreactionmust beofsomeaccuracy,tounderstand specifically about the customer experience,here’s an exampleof howyou can touch down customer’sunderstanding: Areyouable toapply whatyoulearnedinthetraining? • Iamnotabletoapplytheseconcepts. • I havesomeunderstandingbutrequireadditional training. • Icanapplytheconceptsbutrequiresupport. • IbelieveIhavecompetency. • I knowIcanperformtoan expertlevel. • Level#2:AreTheyLearning? • This phase of evaluating your training programs focuses on measuring the customers’ knowledge, skills,andmindsetdevelopedasaresult ofyourtrainingprogram. • Here we want to ensure that your customers are learning what they are supposed to have learned. Take an example of how Hubspot evaluates their customer knowledge & skills acquired during theirdeliveredtraining. • 1. QuickQuiz:Fewquestionstoensurecustomerretention level.

6. HubspotAcademy’s-Know Yourself Quiz • Hubspot ensures that its customers are understanding the concept and also, they provide further assistance by providing helpful resources to make it easy for customers to catch up on what they learned,later on. • Resources (toProvide&UnderstandWhat AudienceNeeds) • Slides. • Transcripts. • Goalcalculator. • KnowledgeBase. • Templates. • Ebooks. • BlogPost. • Reports. • Website.

7. 2.FreeCertification:PresentingaLearningWintoGrowforCustomers.2.FreeCertification:PresentingaLearningWintoGrowforCustomers.

8. 3.Hand-onSurveys&Assignments:ToAssessCustomerRetentionRatebyProviding AssignmentsRightAfterEachTrainingSession.

9. Hubspot Academy’s-SurveyAssessment They assess their customer’s demographics andimprovementscale after they are donewith the course. PerfectCTA! TwoMajorBenefitsforPost-TrainingSessionAssessment • Thecustomerisstill inthelearningmode,highresponserate. • Customerswantto exercisetheirchoiceafterlearning,futureimprovementin training required wouldbeansweredprecisely.

10. Theyappreciatecustomerlearningefforts&acknowledgetheirtime,sotoimprovesignificantlyTheyappreciatecustomerlearningefforts&acknowledgetheirtime,sotoimprovesignificantly • Theychooseaccuracytodelivervalue.Itsimply means,“Knowingyourcustomer”. • Level#3: AreTheyApplyingWhatThey Learned? • "One of the reasons why most SaaS companies are failing in customer success program is because their programis driven by cost, not value"- Glide Consulting (Customer Success Expert) • Customerswhocanachievesuccesswithyourproductontheirowndoresultinreducedsupport costbutsuchconsequencebecomesyourvaluewhenyouseeyourcustomersvalueinittoo. • So,level3isallaboutevaluationbasedon,“Areyoucustomersapplyingwhattheylearnedor not?” • Youcan furthersegmentthisevaluationinto3steps: • Monitorcustomer’sperformance. • Offersupport. • Measuretheresults.

11. HowtoMonitorYourCustomers’Performance? Firstly, find a natural data point to monitor your customers’ before and after training performance. Are they improving in any areas of their applied work? Is there any issue they are facing while applyingit? Youcandevelopademographicsurvey(onelikegivenabove)tounderstandthebasicneedsof yourcustomerbeforeyoudevelopaworkingenvironmentforthem. Secondly, you may have noticed your customers feedback filled up this survey form real quick. You can use a start and stop time to measure the accuracy and pace of answered value. This way youwillseeifthereareanyerrorscustomerswhileansweringduetolimitedtime. After your trainers assessing those errors closely, combine this data with the above data points to understand where the customers are getting that error and offer performance-focused support to customers toimprove. How to Measure Your Customers’ Results From the Training Provided? Okay, Let’scontinuewiththeaboveTPS reportingexample.Letsupposeyourmanagertellsyour customertocomplete10TPSreport. Before training when you delivered this task, customers were able to complete 5 per hour with only 60% accuracy. But after baseline training sessions, your customers can complete 11 TPS reports perhourwith80%accuracy. Knowingyourcustomers’improvementgivesyoudirectiontoassessyourlevel1andlevel2 trainingevaluationaccordinglytoletyourcustomerkeepexceedingthebenchmark. Level #4: Is There Any Training Impact on Their OrganizationalGoals? Inlevel4,youassesswhetherthetrainingprogramwasaccomplished?Havetheyachievedtheir effectivegoal? Now,toevaluatelevel4,youneedresult-orienteddatathatprovidesacomparativemeasure. Let’stakeanexampleofacompanythatspends20%oftheir workweektimeinteammeetingsto structure&planoutthingsaccordingly.

12. They plan to infuse training with their work environment to reduce team meeting time as a result. And, they found that after employing training for each employee, they successfully reduced their timespentformeeting&whiteboardsessions. Similarly,youcanmapdatapointsconsideringyourbeforeandaftertrainingresultsforcustomer’s intheirworkingareas. Well, as every L&D experiences this most in their life that no training program ensures perfect results,as thereisconsiderationforusingwithKirkpatrickmodelaswell: ConsideringUsingKirkpatrickModel • Itworksbestiftraining resultsarerelatively isolated(Itmeansthereare nodepending factorsthat relyontrainingresultsapartfromcustomers’growthitself.) • Degreeofaccuracy(Therearechancesthatyourcustomeralreadyknowsbesttobeassessedfora basictrainingtest.So, todelivertraining,inthatcase,won’tbenecessary.) 4SaaSCustomerSuccessMetrics(Toolsto Evaluate)

13. Product/ServicesUsageRate:The morecustomersuseyourproduct,themorevaluableisthe productforthem.Yourcustomersupportteamcaneasilytracktheproductusefrequencyby customersandcreateascalefortheidealgrowthrate. • ActiveCustomers:AsaSaaScompany,yourgoalisto landuprecurring customers.Measuring daily,weekly,andmonthly activeuserswill provideyouaccesstoshort-termactivity time& long-termcustomeractivetime. • FreeTrial ConversionRate:Free-trail conversionmetricisamust-haveinSaaS recurring businessmodel toidentifyhowwellyourcustomersareswitchingfromfreemium-to-premium serviceswhilemonitoringchurnratetoo. • AverageTimeSpenton Platform:Evaluatingtheaveragetimewill provideyouwithadetailed storyastohowmuchtimeyourcustomers areintegratedwithyoursoftware. • Wehopethatyouunderstandaboutbestpracticestomeasure impactofcustomertrainingprogram. • Conclusion: • As a SaaS company,you may come across a lot of measuring metrics and perfecttraining evaluation tools to infuse for results. But, eventually, your customers are changing goals on daily basis - So, it becomes an adaptive practice to employ intuitive methods to evaluate your training program. Also, ensure you are using effective L&D strategies to evaluate your training up to the currentmarketbenchmark.