When I first joined Rustici (almost 15 years ago!) I came on board as the first Account Manager- a role they weren’t looking to fill. My pitch to Mike and Tim? “How often do you talk to your customers? If it’s just when they file a support ticket, you’re missing out.” Proactively talking to customers to understand their use cases and the problems they’re really trying to solve opens up a whole new world that helps inform product roadmap decisions, improve customer experience and foster long term relationships. It also helps identify the things we might overlook when it comes to what customers really need when it comes to product training and adoption. Even the best UI/UX and documentation needs a little help now and then to make sure that your customers actually know how to use your product and are making the most of their investment. Incorporating a customer education plan can go a long way to helping make this happen, to grow those new customers into long term champions.
From onboarding customer to ongoing client education
Over the past few years, we’ve dialed up how we approach training our customers on how to make the most of our software and have discovered that customer training can take on many shapes and sizes. We’ve evolved from simply onboarding customers with kickoff calls, documentation and user guides to building out tools to help support our customers beyond just the implementation stage.
We take the approach across our business of matching pace and style with our customers- whether it’s during a software evaluation period, contracting or onboarding, we find ways to meet our customers where they are and provide them with the resources they need. When it comes to training and getting up to speed on our products, we’ve created a wealth of resources from knowledge base articles and on demand videos to offering monthly webinars and 1:1 training sessions. As our contacts shift and move around, making these resources available to onboard the next Content Controller admin or developer that inherits Rustici Engine in their product line has gone a long way.
One of my favorite additions to our customer education efforts is our annual user conference, Rustici: The Gathering. We recently wrapped the 4th edition, which featured 20+ sessions that covered a wide range of topics. From the Standards (of course) to product deep dives and case studies, we had industry experts, in house product owners and our customers share their knowledge and best practices with over 250 customers joining us over the 3 day event. The highlight for me? Hearing our customers tell us how they use our software and offering up insights into their use cases.
Customers educating customers
We’ve been fortunate to have many of our clients share their stories and show others how they make the most of our products in their business. And while you might think case studies are marketing efforts, they can go a long way toward helping you educate your customers. Our case study library has grown a lot and is a great resource for inspiration.
Our customers educating their customers
We’re not alone when it comes to ramping up customer training efforts. Over the past 2 years, we’ve seen a new trend with more people coming to us to find ways to provide training and education to their customers and partners. For many, they are looking for ways to build out an extended enterprise training program to reach these external customers, which also take on many shapes and sizes. Depending on the goals, this may look like making training resources accessible through a customer or partner’s own LMS to spinning up a training portal specifically designed for their external audiences.
The win-win
Gaining a new customer is hard. It takes time for them to evaluate your product, and it takes time for your team to nurture them along the way. But that’s just the beginning. Ensuring that your customers make the most of their investment means investing in them by providing the right support and training to help them grow from just knowing how to use your product to using it successfully. And that is the key to not only keeping your customers, but keeping them happy.
