While some businesses may have a product that is very self-explanatory, other businesses may be working within industries that are a bit more complicated. So if you have a product that the average person may not be able to figure out on their own, or if you’re creating something entirely new that’s never been used before, you may want to have some kind of plan to train your customers on how to use your product. However, figuring out the best way to do this can be very difficult. So to help make this easier on both your company and your customers, here are three tips for training customers to properly use your products.
Make Sure Your Sales Or Training Team Understands Your Customers
Before you can start transferring product knowledge to your customers, you have to ensure that you sales team or training team know exactly what they’re doing. Part of this initial training and education of your team should include a deep understanding of the customers they’ll be working with. According to TrainingIndustry.com, if your training professionals are able to understand your customers and their needs, they’ll be much more effective when it comes to training the customers on how to use and handle your products.
Teach Not Only Features, But Also Functions
While it’s good for your customers to have an overall knowledge of how your product works and what the features are, effective training needs to go beyond this step. According to Peter Schroeder, a contributor to eLearningIndustry.com, a good customer training program will also help customers learn about the functions of the product and train them on how to get their desired outcomes. While customers likely will be able to fumble their way through figuring some things out by merely understanding the features of a product, training for functionality will help take your training to the next level.
Find Out If Your Training Is Effective
Once you’ve gone through your customer training process a few times, you should find a way to know if that training you’ve done has been effective for your customers. To do this, Erynn Williams, a contributor to Skilljar.com, recommends looking at two indicators: if usage of your product has increased or if additional training has been sought after. Both of these indicators will show to you whether or not your training was effective the first time and if your customers were satisfied with what they got from you.
If your company requires customer training for effective use of your products, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you get this process perfected so your products can be used in the way you intended and your customers need.