What Is a Customer-Centric LMS?

According to the Brandon Hall Group, only about one-third of companies are absolutely sure they will renew with their current learning management system (LMS) provider, and 38% are actively looking to replace their solution. 

If you’re surprised by this fact, consider that the LMS was originally designed for internal use cases. They were built to align with the needs of Human Resources (HR), not customer training teams.

So, what makes an LMS truly customer-centric? Continue reading to learn more:

Integrations

Today’s customer training teams collaborate with everyone from Sales to Marketing, Support, Finance, and senior leadership. They don’t want to waste time pulling individual reports, or even switching between disparate technologies. For this reason, integrations are crucial.

With an LMS-CRM integration, these teams can access training data with ease. At a glance, they can see exactly how training impacts renewals, expansions, and product adoption. On a similar note, there’s a huge advantage to integrating your LMS with a customer service platform like Zendesk. Support teams can then tell who has taken training, and provide targeted recommendations when they ask for help.

Other relevant integrations include live training software like GoToWebinar, and marketing automation software, like Marketo.

Accessibility

Customer training teams often ask about how they can make courses accessible to select groups. This could be done through:

• Single sign on (SSO): Provide a seamless experience for students who already have a login to the product itself. This way, they aren’t required to create a new username and password for product training.

• Self-registration: With this method, students first visits the course detail page. Once they click the register button, a registration page will display, where they can sign up with their own login credentials. This allows for customers and partners to find your training and register for it without intervention from you or your training team.

• Access codes: Limit access to your course catalog. Content will only be visible after users sign up using the code you give them.

These features provide teams with the flexibility to offer multiple ways for end users to login. For instance, a company using training for lead generation may want to open registration up to anyone who demonstrates interest. Other companies may prefer to restrict content to certain users, customers, or parts of the customer lifecycle.

E-Commerce Functionalities

Another feature worth calling out is e-commerce capabilities. Your LMS should provide flexible pricing and packaging, as well as promo codes to accommodate for a variety of pricing structures.

Some teams may offer free courses, as is common with internal training. Others may opt to monetize coursework through:

• Subscription sales: Customers pay a flat fee for a year of full access to training resources
• A la carte sales: In this model, you charge per course, and customers purchase training as needed.
• Blended training: Some training is for a fee and other training is free (i.e. basic vs. advanced training). Cost may be based on the customer tier or support package.

Want to learn more about the benefits of a customer training platform? Don’t miss our upcoming webinar with Training Industry and Donna Weber on Thursday, July 19th!