Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2017 - 46

have difficulty finding it, especially at
the beginning of their customer journey.
They may not be aware that they don't
know, which presents a challenge
when they face a search bar and lack
knowledge on terminology and features
of a particular piece of software.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

DESIGN TRAINING
EXPERIENCES THAT
HELP CUSTOMERS

While development is underway in
growing software companies, customers
are demanding clear paths to success in
new ways. As the subscription economy
continues to take hold, software
purchases are no longer one-time
buys. Recurring revenue models rely
on renewals, and the lifetime value of a
customer is realized over time rather than
through a complete up-front purchase.
The threat of competition and lost
revenue is real. Customers want to get
the value they expect quickly, and they
will leave if that value isn't realized.
While customer success managers may
serve as the quarterback, making plays
and deciding what comes next for
their clients, they often depend on the
support of their training counterparts to
onboard customers and create the path
to value. Here are some tips for building
a training and onboarding program
that's scalable, while maintaining a
cohesive experience for customers.

MAKE ONBOARDING EASY
When
planning
an
onboarding
process, it's best to break down the
skills that customers need for success
by identifying essential knowledge.
Customers do not need to know
everything about a product on day one.
Write down easy wins for achieving value
and any critical setup processes that
need to occur now for customers to see
success later. Simplify these first steps as
much as possible without diluting the
subject matter.
It's tempting to plan to walk customers
through the software based on the
location of features alone. Product
tours that hop from feature to feature,
however, are hard to reinforce and don't

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address users' goals and use cases as skillbased training does. Documenting this
essential knowledge allows for proper
organization and prioritization. The topics
can be organized across the onboarding
phase of the customer lifecycle.
At this phase in the planning process,
it's helpful to partner with customer
success or account management. These
teams have a strong understanding
of common customer goals, and they
can serve as subject matter experts
in the training development process.
Additionally, alignment with these
departments can go a long way, as they
are usually the teams that are directing
customers to appropriate resources on
their path to value.

CREATE ROLE-BASED
AND GOAL-BASED TRAINING
Onboarding can be defined in several
different ways. In the section above,
I recommend identifying essential
knowledge, but it's also important
to recognize that this may be different
for various users of a product. If a
product has different user types or
profiles, it's helpful to define the
purpose of each profile.
One way to get a well-rounded
understanding of the different buyer

personas that use the product is to
work with product marketing, sales or
product management. Depending on
the company, this expertise will reside in
different departments. Persona profiles
include detailed information about
a typical buyer, such as background,
characteristics, goals and challenges.
They can also include common use cases
and needs, and descriptions of daily
responsibilities.
Understanding these personas is helpful
for planning role-based and goalbased onboarding content. This type of
pathway can often contain a large degree
of duplicate content across personas, but
provides a more custom and targeted
experience. This is also helpful because
it provides training professionals with
a more concrete understanding of a
well-rounded user; knowledge that can
help drive a prescriptive approach to
onboarding, with real recommendations
and best practices. They can then design
training experiences that help customers
with different needs - integrating
the software into their daily workflows
and processes.

CROSS-LINK RELEVANT RESOURCES
A key part of avoiding user fatigue
is helping customers easily find the
resources they need. Sometimes, this
http://www.gainsight.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/WP-Gainsight_Forrester_Executive_Primer_CSM_Whitepaper.pdf http://www.gainsight.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/WP-Gainsight_Forrester_Executive_Primer_CSM_Whitepaper.pdf
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2017
