Sell more and save money – The Holy Grail of Training Explained

It’s often seen to be the holy grail of corporate enterprise. Being able to sell more while saving money can often be scoffed as being akin to the pursuit of alchemy. However, there are ways of doing both at once, and we’ll be sharing one such secret in this post.

One of the struggles in a lot of industries is to get the client to understand how to use the product to its fullest potential. This can include technical products (engineering firms, equipment manufacturers) to software based solutions (like cloud storage and social media). Every business wants a client to feel like they’re getting value out of their product, and this can encourage positive recommendations and drive future sales. Alternatively, a lack of understanding can lead to dissatisfaction and disgruntled customers.

These days, one of the best ways to drive learning is through an LMS system. Most internal HR departments have one for training staff in compliance and basic training. One use that is still novel to many organisations is to deploy an external facing LMS to train up their customers. This means that instead of dry help manuals that will almost certainly be ignored, they can interact with engaging content that helps teach them about products and get the most out of them.

In addition to helping existing customers, this can be of great benefit to those doing product research before making a purchase allowing them to understand how the product works and to measure it up to see if it’s a good fit. This can often make a potential customer confident enough to purchase.

Training customers can clearly have a benefit, both in generating sales and increasing retention. However, this is only half of the challenge that we set ourselves at the beginning of this article. The second part of our holy grail is to save the company money while, at the same time, driving up sales.

One of the key ways we can achieve this, is by reducing the number of support calls needed. Let’s be honest, most customers would rather not sit waiting on hold on the phone, or waiting for a reply by e-mail. These days, a lot of customers first response is to Google the problem. Having a content rich support site can dramatically reduce the amount of incidents that your support team have to deal with, reducing the need for spend in this area.

Another area that companies can spend a lot on is training up sales teams. You have to ensure your sales teams know the products inside out, so that they’re ready to answer any questions the customers may have. However, if you have already commissioned in-depth training for your customer base, you don’t need to repeat the spend for your sales teams, they can undertake the same training that your customers will. This also acts as a great way of quality checking the training content; your sales teams can test everything before it’s released publicly.

Hopefully this article has given you some food for thought, about achieving both of the aims of a modern business in one project. Every business is different, and some of the lessons here may not apply to you, but the key thing to take away, is that these days, learning is no longer an “internal only” compliance issue. Threading learning throughout your entire organisation and customer base will benefit both you and your customers. If you’re interested in finding out more, fill in our contact form and we’ll get in touch about how we can help.