Train Your Customers for Long-Term Success and Retention
The more they know, the more your customers will love the services you provide
Knowledge acquisition and growth have long been recognized as essential ingredients for businesses success. These have traditionally been viewed as solely supply-side assets, though—a view that ignores the tremendous benefits of customer education and training.
Customer “Onboarding” Increases Sales and Retention
When customers know more about your services and what they can do, they buy more and the stick around longer. Not only does this make intuitive sense, but it’s been backed up by research time and time again. Really show them how you can help them create value for themselves—not just through sales pitches, but by giving them the information they need to make the most of what you offer—and they’ll appreciate that value and the time you took to point it out.
When you make a conscious, concerted investment in customer training, you’re not only demonstrating how much you truly care about them, their business, and their success, you’re giving them the tools they need to make that success a reality. And, of course, you’re letting them know how convenient and affordable those tools are—all they have to do is stick with you.
Developing and Implementing Effective Customer Training
Before you can start offering value-enhancing customer training—before you can take any effective steps towards boosting sales and improving retention, in fact—you have to know your customers. What problems are they trying to solve, and what goals are they trying to reach? What are the obstacles in their way, and how can your services help them leap those hurdles?
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What information can you provide that will help them exceed their own expectations?
Answer these questions, and you’ll have the foundation you need for a targeted and effective customer training program. Chop those answers up into deliverable chunks, make sure they’re presented in an engaging and even entertaining way, and your numbers will soar.
Feedback is also important in every area of customer engagement, and customer training is no different. Try testing your first training attempts with a select group of customers or even your employees, and make adjustments based on the questions they raise and suggestions they make.
When you’re ready for a full roll-out, make sure you establish strong two-way communication early on so your customers know they can approach you with questions, and so you can continue tailoring your educational efforts to meet their needs.
Incentivize Training to Keep Customers Coming Back
As with all marketing and retention efforts, make sure you put your customers first. When the value of your training is clearly demonstrated, your customers will be eager to sign up, and they’ll return the value to you tenfold. Give them rewards and you’ll reap exactly what you sow.
If your company offers opportunities to test new products or services with no risk make sure you promote it heavily and consistently just like we do with our free answering service test run that successfully motivates buying decisions by removing risks before having experienced value.
