In-person training brings instructors and participants together in physical locations such as customer offices, company headquarters, or conferences. This setting promotes high engagement through immersive experiences with fewer distractions, hands-on practice, and the opportunity for building strong relationships through face-to-face interactions with Customer Success Managers and experts. Participants also benefit from immediate feedback and real-time coaching based on body language and troubleshooting. However, it incurs higher costs due to travel and venue expenses, offers limited scalability for frequent sessions, and presents scheduling difficulties across various regions or teams, making it less practical for ongoing updates.
Ideal for enterprise implementations requiring complex configurations or multi-team rollouts. Perfect for strategic customers where deep adoption and relationship-building justify the investment. Great for kickoff bootcamps or admin “train-the-trainer” sessions that establish a long-term digital program.
Virtual instructor-led training replicates classroom instruction via video conferencing, incorporating chat, polls, and breakout rooms. This format allows for global scalability without travel, offering cost savings compared to in-person sessions. It provides real-time interaction, Q&A, and recordings that can be used as on-demand resources. However, it can lead to screen fatigue, distractions from multitasking, time zone challenges for international participants, and technical issues like connectivity or platform glitches that may affect the experience.
Ideal for feature deep-dives, new release overviews, and workflow clinics. Offers role-based training for admins, partners, or power users seeking live interaction. Includes regular office hours or Q&A sessions to complement self-paced content.
On-demand self-paced training offers flexible learning through asynchronous courses, videos, tutorials, and microlearning, accessible via LMS, academies, or help centers. This allows distributed teams to learn anytime and anywhere, promoting high scalability at low costs after initial creation. It supports just-in-time learning tailored to immediate needs. However, it relies on self-motivation, risking incompletion without prompts, lacks real-time feedback until support or community engagement, and requires continual content updates for product changes.
Ideal for core onboarding paths and product basics. Covers timeless “how-to” topics, feature walkthroughs, and certification learning paths. Perfect for scalable training of long-tail customers and partners unable to join live sessions.
Blended learning combines self-paced eLearning with VILT, in-person workshops, and in-app guidance, creating a seamless experience. It begins with self-paced learning, reinforced by live sessions for application, Q&A, and coaching. In-app resources offer immediate support, while scheduled touchpoints throughout the learning lifecycle balance scalable, on-demand content with live interactions. This approach caters to diverse learning styles, enhancing retention, adoption, and satisfaction by exposing learners to concepts multiple times.
Optimally combines on-demand scalability with in-depth, relationship-building experiences live or onsite. Caters to various learning styles and preferences, offering multiple opportunities for customers to revisit essential concepts, enhancing retention, feature adoption, and satisfaction over time.
Customer training is most effective when it’s intentionally aligned with each phase of the customer lifecycle, rather than being a one-time event during onboarding. From the initial contact in pre-sales to renewal and advocacy, education should steer customers toward greater value, deeper product use, and stronger partnerships.
During pre-sales and trials, customer training eases friction and speeds up evaluation by helping prospects quickly experience the product’s value.
Effective pre-sales enablement often involves: concise, outcome-driven tutorials that demonstrate key high-impact workflows during a trial; guided demos, interactive tours, or sandbox environments with detailed, step-by-step instructions; and role-specific overviews tailored for buyers, admins, and end users, highlighting the product’s benefits for each group.
The aim is clarity and confidence, not mastery. Prospects should grasp the product’s capabilities and how it fits into their world, making purchasing decisions feel low-risk and backed by evidence.
After a deal closes, onboarding shifts focus from evaluation to activation, maximizing time to value.
Effective onboarding programs typically offer structured learning paths tailored to various roles, such as admins, project owners, and end users. These paths address setup, configuration, and initial workflows. They blend quick-start guides, videos, and live or virtual sessions to guide customers through the initial implementation. Training milestones align with key onboarding objectives like launching the first project, inviting users, or integrating core systems.
The goal is to swiftly and reliably lead customers to their “first success,” building early momentum and boosting their confidence.
After onboarding, training should guide customers from basics to advanced features, enhancing their experience and value.
Ongoing adoption and feature education typically include: regular updates and micro-learning on new releases, enhancements, and best practices; thematic webinars, workshops, or campaigns (like “automation month”) focused on specific capabilities; in-app guidance and contextual help that introduce relevant features at the right moment in the workflow; and self-serve libraries with how-to content and intermediate courses that customers can access anytime.
The aim is to enhance both depth and breadth of usage, ensuring customers consistently explore and adopt features for better outcomes, rather than stalling after the initial setup.
As customers grow, some evolve into power users, admins, or internal champions. They require advanced training to lead effectively and maximize the value they extract.
Advanced training programs usually: Offer in-depth courses, hands-on labs, and scenario-based workshops centered on complex configurations, integrations, and optimization. Provide certifications or badges to validate expertise, which can be shared within or outside the organization. Include “train-the-trainer” resources to empower champions to educate their own teams.
These users often integrate seamlessly with your team—promoting adoption, championing your roadmap, and swaying renewal and expansion choices—making their development a highly rewarding investment.
As accounts expand and renewals near, training boosts commercial success and fosters long-term loyalty.
At this stage, impactful training can: Showcase underutilized features and new capabilities that align with evolving business goals, fostering natural upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Deliver strategic enablement sessions, such as quarterly training briefings, to help leaders view the platform as a long-term partner rather than just a tool. Provide advanced certifications, community events, and user groups to enhance advocacy and peer-to-peer learning. Supply champions with internal presentations, quick-start guides, and onboarding kits to facilitate product rollout to new teams or regions.
The goal is to make the product—and its learning ecosystem—so vital to the customer’s success that renewing is a given, expanding is effortless, and advocating is genuine.
A top-notch customer training program goes beyond mere courses—it’s a structured, outcome-focused system that aids customers throughout their journey. This 6-step guide outlines how to design, launch, and continuously enhance a program that boosts adoption, retention, and revenue.
Begin by identifying the business and customer challenges your training program tackles, such as shortening time-to-value, enhancing product adoption, decreasing support tickets, improving NPS, or driving upsells through certifications. Next, establish clear success metrics like onboarding completion rates, user path completion percentages, ticket volume per account, NPS changes before and after training, and expansion revenue from trained users. This alignment helps stakeholders across customer success, support, product, and marketing teams to unify their efforts effectively.
Map the complete customer journey from pre-sales to onboarding, adoption, and renewal. Identify obstacles, confusion, or underuse by reviewing support tickets for recurring issues, consulting CSMs about roadblocks, analyzing product usage data for stalled workflows, and collecting customer feedback through surveys. Transform these insights into targeted learning solutions, such as admin configuration bootcamps or end-user automation modules, to address specific pain points.
Create content around structured pathways for various stages and roles, featuring 5-15 minute self-paced modules with quizzes and simulations. Include live sessions for complex topics, video tutorials, job aids, and assessments. Embed practice opportunities, considering global accessibility, language differences, and time zones. Develop a core content spine with optional advanced electives for deeper learning.
Select a platform that supports SCORM/xAPI formats, videos, quizzes, and flexible learning paths with prerequisites and certifications. It should offer robust reporting on completions and scores, integrate seamlessly with CRM, support, and analytics for auto-enrollment and health insights, and provide branded portals for easy access. Prioritize customer-focused LMS over internal HR tools for scalability with customers and partners.
Integrate training into onboarding by including CSM assignments and checklists in playbooks, highlighting the academy in welcome emails, and adding in-app prompts for relevant courses. Use support/sales links in responses, run campaigns like “Getting Started Week,” and offer incentives like certificates or leaderboards to make training a standard, not an option.
Monitor engagement metrics such as enrollments, completions, and drop-offs, along with behavioral impacts like usage growth and reduced support tickets. Assess business outcomes, including renewals, NRR, and NPS improvements. Refine underperforming content, adjust strategies based on data, and explore opportunities like new certifications to adapt to evolving products and customer needs.
Customer training programs are most effective when they focus on the learner, aim for measurable outcomes, and are continuously refined rather than being a single event. The following practices will guide you in creating training that truly transforms behavior.
Customer groups vary in roles, use cases, skills, and motivations, so successful programs start with well-defined audience segments and personas. Conduct interviews with admins, end users, and decision-makers, and analyze support conversations to uncover pain points, workflows, and constraints. Transform these insights into specific learner profiles, such as “time-pressed frontline user,” “technical admin,” or “executive sponsor,” and create paths tailored to their context, detail level, and preferred formats. This approach avoids generic training and ensures that customers instantly identify with the content and see their challenges reflected.
Relevance is essential: every lesson must link to a real task or outcome that matters to your customers, rather than just offering a feature tour. Center modules around scenarios like “set up your first integration” or “launch your first campaign,” and demonstrate end-to-end workflows so learners understand how everything connects. Keep content concise with 5–15 minute lessons focusing on a single topic, allowing busy customers to progress in brief time slots. Incorporate storytelling, real data examples, and product walkthroughs, and enhance engagement with quick checks, polls, or challenges to reinforce retention.
People learn in diverse ways, and even an individual may require multiple exposures to a concept. Mix short videos for “show me,” interactive modules for “let me try,” and well-structured text or job aids for “quick reference” to enhance learning and retention.
A balanced approach could feature short how-to videos and GIFs embedded in the product or help center, interactive eLearning with click-through simulations, branching scenarios, or labs, and downloadable playbooks, templates, and checklists for customers to customize and use.
This multimodal approach enhances accessibility, adapts to different bandwidth and device limitations, and allows customers to select the most suitable format instantly.
Each course, module, or asset should address two key questions: “What skills will I gain?” and “Why are these skills important for my job or business?” Transform these into clear, action-oriented objectives using verbs like configure, automate, troubleshoot, or analyze. Connect these objectives to measurable product and business outcomes—such as quicker setups, reduced errors, increased campaign launches, or enhanced use of a flagship feature. Clearly communicate these expectations in course descriptions and at the beginning of each module, enabling learners to assess the content’s value and monitor their own progress.
Effective training thrives on two-way communication. Incorporate quick surveys or rating prompts after each module to gauge learner sentiment and collect open-ended feedback on confusing areas or gaps. Track completion rates, quiz results, and drop-off points to identify where learners struggle or lose interest. Complement self-service content with accessible support options like community forums, office hours, or “Ask an Expert” forms connected to your customer success or support team. This setup enables learners to address complex questions and helps your team gather insights to enhance future content.
Create training content that enables full participation for all customers. Use straightforward language, high-contrast visuals, and legible fonts. Include captions and transcripts for audio and video content, and ensure seamless navigation with screen readers and keyboard controls. For global reach, focus on localizing UI screenshots, examples, and key modules into your most valuable languages, beyond mere text translation. Choose inclusive imagery, scenarios, and names so diverse customers can identify with your content and feel the product is tailored for them.
Customer training content can quickly become outdated as products, pricing, and best practices evolve. Think of your academy as a dynamic product with dedicated owners, service level agreements (SLAs), and a strategic roadmap, rather than just a static library. Clearly assign responsibility for content creation, review, and approval to a cross-functional team from areas like product, customer service, support, and marketing.
Set a regular review schedule, either quarterly or in line with major releases, and monitor dependencies so that any changes in features or user interface prompt updates to relevant courses, screenshots, and videos. Version your content, retire outdated modules, and communicate updates clearly to customers, ensuring your academy remains a trusted, current source of truth.
Using a learning management system (LMS) to train customers transforms disorganized resources into a structured, trackable academy that boosts adoption, retention, and growth. An LMS centralizes courses, certifications, analytics, and automation, enabling customer education to scale beyond one-on-one sessions or ad hoc content. However, not all LMS platforms are created equal. Effective customer training requires a customizable LMS—one that adjusts learning paths, branding, access, and automation to suit different customer segments, roles, and lifecycle stages, rather than imposing a single internal-training model on everyone. Unlike one-size-fits-all systems, a customer-focused LMS allows you to tailor experiences based on organization, region, and stage of the customer lifecycle, avoiding a uniform learning path for all users.
A learning management system (LMS) is software designed to create, deliver, and track training for employees, customers, or partners. It hosts courses, assessments, and resources in a branded portal, managing enrollment, completion, and certifications. For customer education, it acts as your academy’s hub, structuring onboarding paths, role-based journeys, and self-service training. It also offers internal insights into training progress, topics, and connections to product usage and account health.
Customer-ready LMS platforms typically offer essential features that extend beyond basic course hosting, enabling scalable and customizable customer education:
These features enable scalable, repeatable customer training without relying on manual invites or scattered assets.
Not all LMS platforms designed for internal HR and compliance training are effective for external customer education. Internal HR LMSs tend to be rigid, focusing on compliance rather than growth. In contrast, customer education requires a flexible LMS that supports multi-tenant portals, caters to external audiences, offers segmented experiences, and allows for quick content updates as your product and customer base change. When assessing your current platform, consider:
If your current LMS focuses primarily on internal compliance (mandatory courses, annual policies), it may lack the flexibility, user experience, and integration needed for external academies.
Other delivery methods remain important, but are most effective when integrated into an LMS rather than used alone.
Selecting customer training software involves more than just course hosting—it’s about choosing a platform that scales with your product, integrates seamlessly into your tech stack, and demonstrates tangible impact on adoption and revenue. Today’s customer education platforms merge LMS features, analytics, automation, and integrations to build a cohesive learning ecosystem.
First, evaluate if the platform can accommodate a comprehensive customer academy rather than just individual courses. Effective training tools should provide: Branded external portals and sub-portals tailored for various audiences, including customers, partners, and internal teams. Flexible course management that supports multimedia, SCORM/xAPI, quizzes, and certifications. Learning paths, prerequisites, and role-based catalogs to guide customers through onboarding, adoption, and advanced tracks. Automation for enrollments, reminders, and certification expirations to minimize administrative burdens.
Your platform should accommodate growth in users, content, and use cases without necessitating disruptive re-platforming. Consider the following: Flexible user and portal limits to support thousands of customers, partners, or learners seamlessly. Multi-audience/tenant capabilities, offering distinct portals or spaces for each client, region, or segment, with centralized management. Pricing tiers that scale logically with active users and features, ensuring expansion doesn’t trigger an unexpected cost increase.
If creating content feels challenging, your academy may stall. Robust platforms offer: Drag-and-drop course builders supporting text, video, documents, SCORM imports, and interactive elements. Built-in authoring or AI-assisted tools enable quick content generation and localization. Reusable modules, templates, and cloning allow you to effortlessly develop new courses and tailor them to specific customers or industries with ease.
Effective analytics are crucial for demonstrating ROI and enhancing programs. Focus on platforms that can: Monitor course completions, quiz scores, engagement, and dropout rates at both learner and account levels. Offer customizable dashboards and scheduled reports for CX leaders, CSMs, and executives. Connect training data with business metrics like product adoption, retention, and reduced support needs by integrating with other systems.
Customer education should be an integral part of your overall revenue and success strategy. Ensure you have: Native CRM integrations (like Salesforce, HubSpot) for syncing accounts, contacts, and health scores. Connectors for support tools, communities, and knowledge bases, enabling training to be incorporated into tickets and help centers. APIs and webhooks to initiate enrollments and campaigns based on product events such as sign‑ups, feature usage, or renewal periods.
Learners will evaluate your brand based on the training experience. Strong platforms focus on: clean, mobile-responsive portals with intuitive navigation and robust search features; engagement tools including gamification, badges, social learning, and discussion spaces to keep users engaged; and personalization through tailored recommendations, role- or tier-based catalogs, and adaptive learning paths.
Even the best software can falter without a proper rollout. Assess vendors based on: availability of implementation support, covering solution design, integrations, migration, and launch planning; responsiveness of ongoing customer success and technical support, including SLAs and options for a dedicated CSM at higher tiers; and access to best-practice resources such as playbooks, templates, and strategic guidance for creating customer academies.
When comparing tools, look beyond the sticker price to assess overall value and scalability. Consider factors like pricing models—whether based on active users, registered users, portals, or flat tiers—and how they fit with your growth strategy. Evaluate what’s included versus extras; some providers may charge for integrations, advanced analytics, or additional portals, while others offer bundles. Be wary of hidden costs such as implementation fees, mandatory services, or the need for separate authoring tools if built-in options are limited.
Choosing customer training software with these criteria guarantees a platform that genuinely supports your academy strategy, rather than serving as just another content repository.
