Training Industry Quarterly - Fall 2008 - (Page 31) THE IMPORTANCE AND GROWTH OF CUSTOMER TRAINING BY TRACY HOLLISTER FOCAL POINT I n tough economic times, corporate training leaders seldom hear good news. However, the ascent of customer training can provide a glimmer of hope. If you have any doubt about the importance of customer training, allow corporate training leaders from a recent study to change your mind. Given a voice through an August 2008 survey by Training Industry, Inc. and Expertus, these leaders gave three reasons why customer training is important. First, they realized strong benefits from customer training. Second, their customer training budgets were often significantly larger than their employee training budgets. Finally, they predicted strong growth for customer training in 2009. Anything that makes a strong impact on critical customer, revenue and cost reduction metrics of interest to the C-suite is by definition important. To varying degrees, customer training makes a difference for all of the seven listed benefits from customer training on the survey. These benefits can be categorized into three main areas: ■ Value creation through improved customer satisfaction and retention ■ Revenue creation from new and existing customers (from training and product sales) ■ Reduced costs through less support calls and litigation Table 1 reflects the overall priorities of survey respondents in what they expect to get from their customer training. Table 1 Percent of respondents reporting their primary expectations of customer training 18% 32% 7% 11% 18% 18% Improve customer satisfaction Increase customer retention Increase training revenue Increase existing customer revenue Generate new customers Reduce support calls Reduce litigation risks/costs (0%) Training Industry Quarterly, Fall 2008 / A Training Industry, Inc. ezine / www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ 31 http://www.trainingindustry.com/TIQ
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