CELab: The Customer Education Lab: Recent Episodes
CELab
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
In business, the need for engaging learning experiences is staggeringly important. Yet the “how” is elusive. Conventional educational approaches don’t work well. You can be tempted to fall back on trusted methodologies only to find them to be too slow, unwieldy, or frustrating.
We’re joined by Michele Wiedemer, Customer Education consultant and expert who’s hard at work to learn more and to expand her already impactful approach to learning in B2B SaaS. Join us as we dive into the Learner-Centered Design approach that she and many of us leverage to build amazing content!
Summary for Part 2
- Michele Wiedemer discusses Michael Allen's framework for designing effective online learning experiences, which involves providing context, challenges, and activities to help learners solve problems and receive feedback.
- Wiedemer and Derington explore the idea of creating engaging, subscription-based learning content, similar to how people learn from video game tutorials and explanations.
- Wiedemer recommends several books and resources for customer education professionals, including "Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams and Michael Allen's work on effective learning components.
- Derington praises Wiedemer's research program and encourages the audience to follow her on LinkedIn, emphasizing the importance of putting oneself in the learner's shoes.
- Overall, the discussion focuses on strategies for creating learner-centered, engaging, and effective customer education programs in rapidly changing business environments.
In business, the need for engaging learning experiences is staggeringly important. Yet the “how” is elusive. Conventional educational approaches don’t work well. You can be tempted to fall back on trusted methodologies only to find them to be too slow, unwieldy, or frustrating.
We’re joined by Michele Wiedemer, Customer Education consultant and expert who’s hard at work to learn more and to expand her already impactful approach to learning in B2B SaaS. Join us as we dive into the Learner-Centered Design approach that she and many of us leverage to build amazing content!
Summary for Part 1
- Dave Derington and Michele Wiedemer discuss their backgrounds in computers, education, and learning technologies.
- The importance of focusing on learning rather than just teaching, citing Malcolm Knowles quote about the need for lifelong learning.
- Michele’s experience and research interests around adult learning in a rapidly changing world, including the diffusion of innovations theory.
- Challenges of creating effective customer education programs in fast-paced business environments,
- The importance of a learner-centered mindset, viewing learning experiences as valuable products, and gathering input from various stakeholders to inform the design.
- Strategies for creating structured content and onboarding programs, including topic-based authoring and repurposing existing materials.
- Tips on improving writing quality through editing, peer feedback, and testing with learners, as well as setting realistic expectations for program development.
- They discuss the use of visual design principles, templates, and AI tools to enhance the creation of engaging e-learning content.
Books Cited in this Episode:
Non-Designers Design - Robin Williams
Michael Allen’s Guide to E-Learning
Geoffrey Moore - crossing the chasm
Malcolm Knowles - Self-Directed Learning
Certification - it's a challenging and sometimes contentious topic for Customer Education professionals. At CELab, we hear this question come up quite a lot. Chances are good that you may be asked to create a certification, or decide that you want to offer one.
So how do you get started? Should you even be trying to build such a program? In this "mini" episode, Adam Avramescu answers that question down including:
- Setting up certification programs, legal basis, and terminology
- Certification programs for complex software jobs
- Validity and fairness in certification exams
- Creating certification programs without high stakes
- Certification program legal risks and best practices
We've covered this topic a number of times here at CELab, so make sure you check out the following episodes:
- Episode 22 – The Myths and Misconceptions of Certification – Part 1
- Episode 23 – The Myths and Misconceptions of Certification – Part 2
- Episode 62 – Debbie Smith – Certification for SaaS Businesses
In addition, we recommend bookmarking and reading Debbie Smith's article (found on LinkedIn) called "The 13 Principals for Certification". Essential reading for anyone working towards developing their own certification!
Disclaimer: We are not giving legal advice in this episode. Make sure you consult with your company's legal team to understand their risk posture - especially if you're going to develop a legally defensible high-stakes cert.
Customer Education is evolving rapidly. We've come a long way from the days of "smile sheets" and attendance metrics being our guide to success. Gainsight, is one such innovative business that's showing how education data and usage data connect so we can measure its impact on business outcomes.
Lila Meyer shares her journey at Gainsight, from early roles when the organization was new to her current position leading the Education Services team. We cover a lot of ground including the importance of developing transferable skills and collaboration within the customer education community.
Key points:
- Traditionally, customer education programs focused on vanity metrics like course completion rates.
- Gainsight is now connecting education data (LMS) with user data (telemetry) and customer data (CRM) to demonstrate the ROI of education programs.
- This allows them to see how training impacts product usage, retention, and customer health.
- This data is valuable for internal teams like sales and customer success, who can use it to demonstrate the value of education services to clients.
- This approach represents a significant shift in the way customer education is measured and valued within organizations.
As technology evolves at lightning speed, how can we keep up with educating our customers? We pose this question to the legendary Geoffrey A. Moore, author of the iconic book "Crossing the Chasm". Geoff argues that while technology outpaces traditional education methods, the core customer problems remain the same.
In this episode we'll discuss Geoff's perspective for understanding different customer segments and adapting education approaches. We'll also get his take on balancing product knowledge with true customer empathy.
"Education starts with the student, not with the teacher. You're trying to change the behavior of the student, not trying to execute your own agenda."
Geoffrey Moore - 8:45And what about AI? Will it be our savior or our downfall in education? Stick around for the whole discussion - you don't want to miss his sage advice on connecting educators with executives to maximize impact. Make sure check out Geoff's books including Crossing the Chasm and Zone to Win.
How do you get from 6th grade science to a role leading Customer Education at Notion? It's a great story that's behind the evolution of customer education at Notion, where our guest - Zoe Ludwig - focused on bridging the gap between product adoption and user success. From emphasizing the importance of understanding the audience's needs - to codifying knowledge to create a single source of truth for users check out this episode with so many topics including:
- Transitioning from teaching to customer education leader at Notion.
- Customer education strategies for a consumer-grade product.
- Product education and user adoption strategies for a digital note-taking tool.
- Using education content to drive marketing goals
- Infusing education with storytelling and brand elements to make Notion content engaging
- Creating high-quality content for Notion, including visuals, guidelines, and community partnership for new feature launches
- Leveraging user-generated content in Notion's education programs
- Using education to drive product usage and measuring ROI through experimentation
- Product education and experimentation with different content formats
- Using AI for content development, including generating bullet points, expanding on ideas, and rewriting in a specific tone.
- Using Notion for content development workflows.
In this episode we're joined by Special Guest - Shannon Howard - as we dive into the Intellum-sponsored study from Forrester: “Driving Business Success Through Customer Education”. This is a refresh of the 2019 report, which is crucial for those in our field to review and absorb. What's changed? Are there new trends?
Highlights? Here are just a few we cover:
- Around 86% of respondents said they had a positive ROI from customer education, with another 10% saying they at least broke even. This suggests that 96% are seeing a positive business impact from customer education.
- Customer education helps drive business outcomes like increased customer retention, spending, and decreased support costs. High success orgs saw a 372% ROI over 3 years, with a 7 month payback period.
- There has been a shift away from traditional workshops and certifications towards more asynchronous, mobile, and just-in-time learning approaches.
- Vendors are being used more strategically as partners, especially by high success orgs, to help raise maturity levels.
- Lack of tools, technical skills, and personnel were cited as top challenges. Budget constraints were also a factor in needing to do more with less resources.
- AI is being explored more for use cases like accelerating content creation, personalizing learning, data analysis, and assessment creation. But widespread adoption is still on the horizon.
- Key factors for success included data access, mobile accessibility, vendor partnerships, and having scalable platforms.
Grab your copy of the report and a beverage and listen in to this deep-dive that you won't want to miss.
Missed the 2019 report? You can find it here, and our coverage in Episode 41!
"If you just focus on educating your customers, you're missing a HUGE opportunity!" says Mark Kilens, Co-Founder of HubSpot Academy and Drift, and now CEO and Co-founder of TACK ⛵️ & ClubPF. In previous episodes, we've shared how leaders in the industry see education as the core of our programming. Here, Mark shares a human-first perspective on how education should be a fundamental pillar of your GTM Strategy. Why? The importance of integrating education into marketing strategies is crucial for businesses to build trust and loyalty with their customers.
Tune in to as we discuss:
- Customer education and its broader definition beyond just training current customers.
- Founding and expanding HubSpot Academy, a driver of category creation.
- Tying customer education to business outcomes through partnerships and authentic storytelling.
- Shifting go-to-market strategies to prioritize people over software, channels, and algorithms.
- Creating helpful content for customers through storytelling and relationship-building.
- Using education to fuel business growth, with a focus on customer experience.
- Creating people-led growth through content and education.
- Marketing and sales strategies, focusing on the "people first" approach.
In this episode we welcome Katie Felton - Director of Academies, Global Education Services at Anthology Inc. to continue our exploration into Pricing and Packaging for Customer Education.
This episode dives deep into the world of customer education programs for software companies, featuring an EdTech expert. Here are some key highlights:
- Launching a Unified Academy: Learn how a company with 40+ products overcame language and product alignment challenges to create a single training platform.
- Pricing & Packaging Strategies: Discover how to price software training subscriptions based on contract value and explore tiered pricing models with real-world examples.
- Balancing Revenue & Customer Success: We discuss the importance of creating valuable training content that supports customer success, even when it impacts revenue generation in the short term.
- Merging Product Training & Professional Learning: Explore the benefits and challenges of combining product training with broader professional development programs.
- Sales & Marketing Alignment: Get insights on how to handle customer discount requests and ensure marketing and sales teams are aligned.
If you're involved in the EdTech industry or building customer education programs for software products, this episode is packed with valuable insights!
How do we price our Customer Education programs? It's a hugely challenging task, even for the experienced - and one that CELab listeners have asked for!
We welcome Mindy Barenblat to the show - an Austin-based an education & enablement strategist and consultant, formerly GM/VP of Education Service at Blackbaud and Eloqua. Tune as we discuss:
- Subscription-based learning model with ala carte options
- Integrating training with product sales
- Pricing and packaging for software products
- Integrating training with product sales.
In this conversation we are joined by Emily Brogan, the Customer Education Manager at Dovetail. Emily's experience (and ours!) expresses and dives into the importance of putting the customer first, and the role of Dovetail in providing customer insights. Emily shares her experience in building the Dovetail Academy and the challenges of scaling customer success and education - particularly focusing on collaboration and listening to customers as the company grows. The need for simplicity, customer-centricity, and continuous learning is key in this journey. Join us for another great conversation with these takeaways:
Takeaways
- Put the customer first and prioritize their needs in customer education.
- Build a customer education program that scales and allows customers to self-serve.
- Collaborate with different teams in the organization to align on the customer journey.
- Listen to customers and use their feedback to improve and refine the education program.
Listen in as we explore the ever-evolving intersection of community management and customer education with Brian Oblinger. Brian is a seasoned veteran in community management, and shares invaluable insights drawn from his extensive career, underscoring the power of learning from past endeavors. Our discussion ventures beyond the surface, examining how industry giants have leveraged platforms like North Pass to foster innovation in digital customer education, ultimately enhancing product engagement and retention.
We tackle the strategic and technical challenges of creating a frictionless user experience across learning management systems and community forums, sharing practical steps for incorporating single sign-on and prioritizing user experience in program roadmaps. The transformative potential of integrating community into educational strategies is not just a dream—it's a reality we're passionate about, and we want to share that passion with you.
Brian Oblinger is a revered community management expert with a wealth of experience dating back to the mid-90s. As the co-host of the In Before the Lock podcast, he shares his extensive knowledge to help others avoid past mistakes in community engagement. His expertise is rooted in building strategies that intertwine community and customer education, showcasing his proficiency in creating symbiotic relationships that enhance digital learning experiences.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* Guest intro Brian Oblinger * Brian’s favorite pasta * CE use in businesses * Fusion of community and customer education * Brian shares wisdom on digital training * Philosophy of customer-centric resource accessibility * Tackling technical challenges for a frictionless user experience * Unified experiences in customer platforms * Seamless navigation between learning and forums * Aligning community and learning within organizations * Importance of flexible, customer-focused organizational design * Weekly challenges and gamification in customer-led learning * Long-term benefits of a strategic community-building approach * Developing engaging community learning platforms * Integrating social learning and user involvement in content creation * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Brian Oblinger LinkedIn
Before the Lock Podcast
Northpass
Thought Industries
TechSmith
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
Two of the key activities in the life of a Customer Education professional are crucial skills to have: Collaboration with Product Teams and getting their buy-in.
In this episode we welcome Jesse Evans, Director of Customer Education at Honeybook - and Box and Meta alum. This is an action packed episode where we'll dive into all things Product and learn how to engage, collaborate, and develop your relationship with Product and Product Marketing to make a difference.
- Collaborating with product teams for customer education
- Product development and adoption challenges in SaaS organizations
- Overcoming objections and misconceptions in product development
- Customer education and product adoption
- Using marketing campaigns to boost product adoption
- Product education and in-app tours for enterprise software
- In-app education and collaboration between customer education and product teams.
- Product and education collaboration.
- Product release process and collaboration between education and product teams.
- Product education and its impact on customer success.
- Demonstrating value to product teams through customer insights.
- Customer education within product teams.
Ever wonder how the minds behind world-class customer education programs construct the experiences that not only stick but also spur action? That's exactly what we’re talking about in this episode with instructional design virtuoso Julie Dirksen. Julie, David, and Adam navigate the transformative power of digital customer training - with Julie's insights, gleaned from her years of experience, and books including "Design for How People Learn" and "Talk to the Elephant." The episode peels back the layers on why industry giants like Walmart and Freshworks are betting big on modern, engaging learning platforms to foster customer retention and engagement.
Julie provides a treasure trove of strategies for fostering behavior change within customer education. We delve into the COM-B model and how it dissects behavior into capability, opportunity, and motivation, shaping the design of customer education programs. We also highlight the significance of collaboration between UX and customer education in system efficiency, sharing firsthand experiences from financial applications to healthcare environments.
Gear up for an episode that promises to enrich your understanding of instructional design and arm you with techniques to enhance learning experiences across the board.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Intro and background - Julie Dirksen
- Julie's new book "Talk to the Elephant"
- Balancing compliance and autonomy in education
- Overcoming assumptions, understanding user barriers - long pants in the gym
- Long pants in the gym story
- COM-B model for customer education program design
- UX design's critical role in system efficiency
- Integrating UX and customer education for success
- Making behaviors easy within environments
- Defining behaviors, selecting appropriate granularity
- Kathy Sierra's influence, using examples, user testing
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Julie Dirksen LinkedIn
Books by Julie Dirksen
Usable Learning
Book: Badass: Making Users Awesome
Northpass
TechSmith
Videate
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
Have you ever considered how an overlooked design choice could shut out a swath of eager learners? Imagine excluding twenty-five percent of adults from your training programs. That's the staggering possibility we tackle in Episode 124, as we welcome our friend Sharon Castillo to the show! Sharon is a Customer Engagement and Education Leader currently working as Sr. Director of content Strategy and Enablement at Okta.
Making training accessible is more than a box-ticking exercise; it's a strategic imperative that opens the door to a diverse audience, ready to engage with your product. Our conversation not only sheds light on the barriers to learning but also equips content creators with the know-how to craft learning experiences that welcome everyone to the table. Accessibility is a topic we've perhaps only touched upon on the CELab podcast, so Sharon shares why accessibility - particularly good accessibility, is also good customer education. We discuss the kinds of platforms and tools you'll want to include in your planning, even as a very early-phase program.
So join us as we ‘access accessibility’ for Customer Education!
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Importance of accessibility in training programs
- Balancing content delivery speed with inclusive design
- Design choices affect learning experience, color, captions
- Accommodating diverse abilities and learning styles
- Utilizing tools, guidelines for accessible content creation
- Collaboration with disabled Subject Matter Experts essential
- Economic benefits of inclusive eLearning for businesses
- Pre-adjusting templates, style guides for accessibility
- Flexibility of eLearning platforms, Rise vs. Storyline
- Evaluating tools for WCAG conformance, accessibility levels
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Sharon Castillo LinkedIn
Okta
Docebo
Intellum
Thought Industries
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
What can Clown Core teach us about Customer Education? Every year, Adam and Dave take some time to clown around and have a little fun.
So have you ever stumbled into a musical rabbit hole so deep, it turned into a blueprint for revolutionizing customer education? That's exactly what we did in our latest auditory adventure, as we celebrate our annual fun episode by drawing parallels between the unorthodox methods of the enigmatic band, Clown Core, and the innovative strategies in customer training. The discussion pirouettes from the band's chaotic yet captivating performances to how digital education platforms keep audiences both educated and entertained. Prepare for an electrifying conversation that dances between genres and redefines engagement in learning.
While our business is serious, we take inspiration from many different fields - including music. The band "Clown Core" blends genres from jazz, funk, electro, r&b, soul, and pop - metal too. What kinds of insights will come of this episode? Listen in and make sure you listen to the end to hear a special music session from Alan Koda and Dave. Happy New Year to everyone in our audience! We look forward to another amazing year.
About the ShowCELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* Clown Core's chaos linked to customer education * Artistic authenticity vs. polished production * DIY ethos encourages personal, impactful content * Creative collaboration over perfection in education * Blending genres for engaging learning experiences * Game design principles applied to customer education * Audience participation and music by Alan Coda * Authenticity and immediacy in art/business * Innovative educational strategies from diverse inspirations * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Clown Core
Northpass
Videate
Strigo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
It's the end of 2023! This year we experienced the continuation of the economic trends we saw in 2022, watched complex and troubling geopolitics unfold, experienced more tech layoffs and a difficult fundraising environment, and witnessed the continued rise of AI. It’s been a hectic year so we want to take this quiet moment to reflect on it and consider what’s ahead.
We cover a lot in this end-of-year extravaganza including:
- Customer education and AI in the workplace
- Leadership growth and team development
- Leadership, customer education, and podcast milestones
- Customer education trends and predictions for 2023
- AI in customer education, ROI calculations, and live training
- Customer education, digital success, and consolidation in the industry
And much, much more!
Stay tuned for our annual music episode - coming soon!
Summary Customer education and AI in the workplace + Dave and Adam discuss national holidays and make predictions for 2024. + Adam and Dave reflect on 2022, with Adam noting it felt like a continuation of last year's trends and Dave sharing his experience working in a services company. + Dave Derington shares insights on customer education and the importance of conferences for consultants. * Leadership growth and team development + Adam reflects on his first year as a VP, sharing insights on his growth and new responsibilities. + Adam Avramescu: Leading a program as VP involves managing multiple aspects, from budget to culture. + Adam Avramescu emphasizes the importance of aligning teams towards common goals and reducing duplication of effort. * Leadership, customer education, and podcast milestones + Adam Avramescu emphasizes the importance of contextualizing titles within an organization and focusing on scope of work rather than just the title itself. + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu reflect on five years of CELab, a podcast they co-host, and highlight milestones achieved, such as reaching 100 episodes. + They discuss their approach to the podcast, including externalizing their thoughts and sharing valuable insights with their audience. + Adam and Dave reminisce about how they started their podcast, Customer Education Show, while working together at Selma and Cherry Street coffee in Belltown, Seattle. + They discuss how their podcast has evolved over time, still focusing on raising the profile of customer education and highlighting challenges faced by leaders in the field. * Customer education trends and predictions for 2023 + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu discuss their podcast, See Lab, and how it has evolved over time, from a DIY approach to a more professional and regular schedule with sponsors. + They emphasize the importance of finding and highlighting diverse voices in the customer education industry, and invite listeners to join their forum and share their experiences. + Adam and Dave discuss their 2022 predictions, including more economic tumult and the importance of efficient customer education. + They reflect on their predictions, noting that growth at all costs is over and sustainable growth is the new focus. + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu discuss the future of customer education, including the importance of proving ROI and the shift towards remote and async learning. + They also discuss the impact of macroeconomic factors, such as the pandemic and globalization, on the delivery of live training and the adoption of virtual and hybrid learning methods. * AI in customer education, ROI calculations, and live training + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu discuss the slow return of live training programs, citing cost-cutting measures and a lack of data to prove their effectiveness. + Vendors are not providing meaningful push to revolutionize ROI calculations, and there is a need for better alignment on low-hanging fruit to improve the platform. + Adam and Dave discuss the potential of AI in customer education, with Adam highlighting the limitations of LLMs and the importance of taking a balanced approach to adopting new technologies. * AI in customer education + Dave Derington: AI in customer education is being used to train on specific tasks, but there's a need for more structured content and better connection of dots. + Adam Avramescu: AI is being sprinkled into existing products, but there's a need for more native AI products that fully address core use cases. + Adam Avramescu predicts AI differentiation in customer education, with thought industries sponsoring a robust tech platform. * Trends in customer education and related fields + Consolidation of customer education functions within organizations, with a focus on digital success and community alignment. + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu discussed the future of education technology, predicting that some trends, such as blockchain and Metaverse, will not take off as expected. + They also identified areas where education technology is likely to see growth, including the use of AR and VR in industries like healthcare and manufacturing. + Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu discuss the future of AI in customer education, predicting more extensions and evolution of existing solutions, but not a full AI LMS in 2024. + They expect to see more native AI products solving problems in the learning space, with a potential initial cohort of startups focusing on customer education specifically. * Customer education, digital success, and consolidation in the industry + Automation and efficiency will be key themes in customer education programs next year, with a focus on using AI and workflow tools to drive outcomes and improve productivity. + Gainsight's acquisition of a customer ad platform will enhance customer education and proactivity. + Gainsight's acquisition of Northpass signals more consolidation between customer success and digital customer success, with CSMs shifting to digital training. + A customer success leader reflects on past approaches, acknowledging a lack of investment in scalable programs like customer education and community. * Customer education and its importance in business* + Adam and Dave discuss the importance of collaboration between departments in a SaaS company. + Candid conversations on customer education, leadership, and resilience. + Adam Avramescu and Dave Derington invite listeners to share their thoughts and feedback on the podcast through LinkedIn, with the goal of making the program more relevant and valuable to the audience. + The hosts thank listeners for their support over the past 5 years and encourage them to subscribe, leave reviews, and share the podcast with their networks to help expand its reach.
What's the "State of Customer Education"? Each year Adam and Dave take time to review reports focused on education in B2B SaaS and pull forward the key themes and trends as reported by institutions and vendors that serve the market. Join us as we unpack customer education reports including the TSIA State of Education Services 2023 report and explore the current state of customer education. We underscore the need for companies to shift their focus from growth at all costs to improving free cash flow and profitability, making the monetization of education services more crucial than ever. In this ever-evolving business climate, we touch on the concept of change and the importance of adaptability. You'll gain valuable insights into the trends shaping the education services industry and the vital role of staying agile in the face of change.
Lastly, we'll explore the transformative power of video in customer education and success. We'll examine various reports and studies that underscore the role of video in engaging and educating customers. You'll also get to hear us debate on the potential of video in replacing other modalities in education and how it can be utilized strategically to meet customer learning needs. This episode promises an exciting journey through the evolving landscape of customer education and the role of video in shaping customer success.
What do we need to pay attention to? What can we safely ignore? This is a great time to think through your 2024 playbook and ensure you're keeping pace with market changes.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- World Mental Health Day
- Overview of the TSIA State of Education Services 2023 report
- The role of mobile and customer engagement in education
- Thinkific Digital Learning Trends 2023 report
- Various reports and studies that highlight the role of video in engaging and educating customers
- Potential of video in replacing other modalities in education and how it can be strategically used to meet customer learning needs
- Delivering learning content on mobile devices and social media platforms
- Using video as a tool for customer success, customer experience, and customer education
- Video can increase engagement, reduce costs, and improve self-service options
- Understanding how people prefer to learn and using video strategically to meet their needs.
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
TSIA's 2023 State of Education Services
Thought Industries' State of External Enterprise Learning 2023
Thinkific's Digital Learning Trends 2023 Report
Videate's 2023 State of SaaS Customer Success and Product Training Videos
Intellum - 2023 Report - The State of Education Initiative Ownership
NorthPass
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
Are you prepared to transform the way you perceive learning and interaction with technology? We're thrilled to share fascinating insights from Barry Kelly, CEO of Thought Industries, on the future of customer education. Barry, with his remarkable understanding and vast experience, guides us through a diverse array of topics, including the astonishing potential of AI and natural language processing in the learning industry, as well as the concept of ‘headless technology.’
Barry is the co-founder and CEO of Thought Industries, a company dedicated to revolutionizing learning experiences through technology. He brings over a decade of experience in the field, starting his journey at Berkeley College of Music where he was part of building an online music school with a focus on external learning, Thought Industries empowers businesses to enhance their learning programs, offering capabilities such as content delivery, monetization, integration, and more. Barry's passion for innovative learning solutions and his insights into AI, NLP (natural language processing), and headless technology positions him as a leader in the education technology sector.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* International Stout Day * Barry’s intro and background * AI and Natural Language Processing (NLP) in education * Headless technology and its benefits - security, scalability, and customization * Embedding learning directly into software platforms * Learning at the moment of need * Role of community in learning - peer-based communication and collaboration * How AI is revolutionizing the way we learn, create content, and understand proficiency * Natural language processing * Transformative potential of Helium’s headless technology * How AI and NLP can help in embedding learning experiences into software platforms * Importance of community in education
Resources:Barry Kelly
Thought Industries
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
We're always excited to talk with leaders about their platforms and roadmap - and this episode is no exception. You'll want to join us to learn how Docebo is leading the way with AI-powered Customer Education and Enablement.
Meet Alessio Artuffo, a man with a fascinating journey from Italy to Athens, Georgia, who's been instrumental in transforming Docebo, an open-source tech entity, into a full-fledged SaaS company. As the President and COO of Docebo, Alessio has unique insights to share about the challenges of building an international business and the specific strategies needed to make that trans-Atlantic leap. We explore the intersection of technology and education, focusing on the role of AI. We dive into the acquisition of Adugo, a ChatGPT-based platform that’s shaking up interaction models for customers and employees alike. If you’re interested in how AI is changing the face of learning, customer advocacy and partner training, strap in for a fascinating discussion.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* Alessio's journey from Italy to Athens, Georgia and transforming Docebo * International Pirate Day and Butterscotch Pudding Day * Building a mature and stable product and transitioning to remote work * Challenges of building an international company and the growth of Docebo * Importance of customer education and learning in the technology space * Docebo acquisition of Adugo, a chatGPT-based platform * The role of AI in partner training and customer advocacy * Visiting the studio and the importance of collaboration * Importance of educational content sharing between different teams * The role of Docebo in customer education and partner training * Alessio's view on being a generalist in the learning technology space * The future direction of Docebo in the field of customer education * Importance of community support in solving customer problems and inquiries * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Alessio Artuffo LinkedIn
Docebo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode, Sourabh Bajaj, an expert in AI, explores the role of artificial intelligence in customer education. He discusses his background in AI, its early use in the postal service for handwriting detection, and its emergence in computational chemistry. Sourabh highlights how AI is revolutionizing jobs, enhancing creative tasks, and automating mundane tasks. He also discusses the complexity of AI from a customer education perspective, its implications on privacy, data security, and bias, and the need for guardrails in its usage. Practical uses of AI in customer education, its role in capturing and storing knowledge, and the evolution of customer education through AI are also discussed.
Sourabh Bajaj is the co-founder of Uplimit and a former AI researcher at Google. He has extensive experience in computational chemistry and molecular modeling, and has played a significant role in the evolution of AI, particularly in the field of customer education. His work has centered around the transformative powers of AI, exploring its capabilities in automating mundane tasks, enhancing creativity, and improving user journeys. Saurabh is particularly knowledgeable about 'orchestrators', a technology that simplifies tasks and aids in creative direction. His insights shed light on the complexities of AI and the need for proper guidelines in its application. His experiences and expertise have enabled him to offer valuable perspectives on the future of customer education, driven by the power of AI.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* Saurabh Ajaj's background in AI and its role in customer education * Early use of AI in postal service for handwriting detection * Exploring the emergence of AI and computational chemistry * How AI is revolutionizing jobs and enhancing creative tasks * 'Orchestrators' in AI helping automate mundane tasks for creativity * Impact of AI on customer education and user journeys * Complexity of AI from a customer education perspective * Discussing AI's implications on privacy, data security and bias * The necessity for guardrails in AI usage for customer education * Practical uses of AI in customer education like task automation * Role of AI in capturing and storing knowledge efficiently * Evolution of customer education as a living organism through AI * Challenges in creating an engaging customer education experience * Exploring implications of AI in customer education and data security. * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Sourabh Bajaj
Techsmith
Videate
Docebo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
Instructor-led training has always been a core part of the customer education program. With COVID hitting in 2020 there was a strong shift to VILT (Virtual Instructor-Led Training), companies started using whatever tools were at hand to deliver remote training, accepting lower engagement and effectiveness as a given. But it shouldn’t be like this. In a world where every problem has software built to solve it, remote customer training is no different. In this episode, we want to introduce a new approach to the challenge of VILT customer education. A solution built solely for the purpose of live product training.
Nevo Peretz from Strigo and Dan Braithwaite from Mediaocean join the conversation to discuss the future of remote training, specifically exploring Strigo's revolutionary Virtual Classroom platform. They delve into the resurgence of instructor-led training, the transition to virtual classrooms, the financial and customer perception challenges of remote training, and the limitations of previous platforms. The discussion also focuses on the importance of seamless customer education and how Strigo's platform is changing the game for software companies, IT training companies, consulting firms, and LND teams involved in digital transformation processes. Nevo and Dan also share personal experiences, including how Mediaocean leveraged Strigo to address their training needs.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* National Corned Beef Day * Intro and background - Nevo Peretz from Strigo and Dan Braithwaite from Mediaocean * The resurgence of instructor-led training and its advantages * The transition from traditional training to virtual classrooms * Financial and customer perception challenges of this shift * Importance of seamless customer education for customer life cycle * Strigo's platform - used by leading software and IT companies * Strigo - active, engaging, and hands-on learning experience * How Mediocean used Strigo for training needs * The secure, private environment and instructor control offered by Strigo * Strigo's impact on business through customer comfort and trust explored * Virtual classroom - the potential of remote training * Chat features and closed captions to reach more learners * Exciting upcoming news and a call to action * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Dan Braithwaite LinkedIn
Nevo Peretz LinkedIn
Mediaocean
Strigo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
What is a Mutant Learner? In this episode of the CELab podcast, we welcome #1 International Best Selling Author Treion Muller to the show to talk about his recent book, "The Rise of the Mutant Learner". At the core of his book may be some deeply valuable approaches to the challenge posed to all of us as Customer Education leaders. Specifically, how to learn and lead effectively in the digital age.
You’ll hear about the evolution of education, the rise of mutant learning, and the role of AI in this evolution. Muller shares his experience of breaking free from corporate learning silos and leading digital transformation in education. The discussion includes insights on the importance of agile thinking, customer education, and embracing diverse learning styles. Muller also introduces his new venture, Spark, designed to empower individuals to share their unique stories and ideas.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* National Hot Dog Day and Cellphone Courtesy Month * Treion’s journey from corporate learning to education * The siloing phenomenon and its limitations on business growth * Gainsight acquisition of an LMS platform * The importance of customer education in breaking free from silos * Stephen Covey's Franklin Covey work * A shift towards digital training and AI * Agile thinking, iterative processes, and 'mutant learning' * Treion’s new venture, Spark, aimed at empowering individuals * The necessity of having experts in the field * Comparing products and tools in the tech stack * Automaticity and its impact on learning * TV, media, AI, machine learning * Treion introduces his book, The Rise of the Mutant Learner * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Treion Muller LinkedIn
Book: Rise of the Mutant Learner
The Modern Learning Architect
Northpass
Intellum
Thought Industries
Mobile Coach
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode, Dave Derington chats with Shellie Grieve, the Director of Collaborative Learning at ServiceNow. You’ll hear about the landscape of cohort learning and its role in customer education, the impact of the pandemic on traditional training programs, and the importance of overhauling them to be more targeted and scalable. Grieve shares her journey from her STEM background to her current role and the need for innovation in virtual program design. The discussion also covers the role of gamification in learner engagement, the potential of video assessments in job readiness, and the broader skill development needed for success in the digital world.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* National Best Friends Day * Cohort learning and its applications in customer education * Learning modalities in a cohort setting * Impact of the pandemic on traditional training programs * Shellie’s journey to corporate training * Virtual program design * The power of gamification in learner engagement * Video assessments - producing job-ready individuals * Adapting training programs during the pandemic * Overhauling the Master Architect Program at ServiceNow * The use of social media-like features to drive engagement * The role of AI and machine learning * How cohort learning can equip people with necessary skills * Important moments that matter in the learning journey * Setting goals and objectives for cohort learning * Reach out to Shellie * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Shellie Grieve LinkedIn
Thinkific
Videate
Docebo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode, Adam Avramescu takes a deep dive into Change Management with Alessandra Marinetti - Global Head of Education and Enablement at Asana. Change Management is, as Alessandra shares - "the ability to enable people to see things differently, and to do things differently". If you're in #customereducation and #customersuccess, take an hour out of your day and join Adam and Alessandra as they answer questions such as:
- What is change management and how does it work?
- The difference between change management and marketing.
- Building the mindset and creating a buzz around change management.
- The importance of having a formal center of excellence.
- Understanding the three phases of change.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:* National Garfield the Cat Day * Guest intro and background * The power of change management in organizations * Mourning the lost way vs. embracing the new * Change management in customer education * How change management impacts productivity with new platforms * Technical vs. end-user education * Clear value propositions in change management * Change management practices in SaaS for effective tool rollout * Creating an atmosphere of excitement around change * Continuous communication and engagement during tool rollout * Successful product roll-outs and a formal ‘Center of Excellence' * The role of customer success manager in understanding customer needs * “Sustainable enablement” and monitoring outcomes after rollout * Certification systems to keep customers knowledgeable * Book recommendations * Change management and productivity * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:Alessandra Marinetti LinkedIn
Asana
Book: Managing Transitions
Book: Switch
Book: Hooked
Book: The Heart of Change
Book: ADKAR
Northpass
Thought Industries
TechSmith
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode, Caitlin Wood, Senior Director of Customer Success and Enablement at Ironclad, dives into the intricate world of customer education and success. She elucidates the unique structure of Ironclad's education program, the role of their Learning Experience Design and Training Delivery teams, and their revolutionary approach to digital success. The conversation also delves into the potential pitfalls of siloed customer education teams, the impact of pricing on customer experience, and the emerging concept of customer education as digital success. The episode explores the importance of collaboration and alignment between customer education, digital success, and product teams, providing invaluable insights for business leaders.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss: * National Croissant Day * Ironclad's customer education program and customer success structure * Innovative use of Learning Experience Design team * Ironclad's Training Delivery team and training methods * Customer enablement vs. customer success * The structure of Ironclad's digital success team * Transformative solutions delivered by Ironclad's digital success team * Pitfalls of siloed customer education teams * Pricing and customer success * Aligning customer education and digital success * Customer education as digital success * Balancing understanding with management skills * Collaboration and alignment - customer education, digital success, and product teams * Ironclad's customer enablement team * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources: Caitlin Wood LinkedIn
Ironclad
Docebo
Thinkific
Strigo
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
This is an episode you won't want to miss - the future is now! Customer Education has a seat at the table and a critical impact on business. In this episode, we talk with Nick Mehta - CEO of Gainsight, and Steve Cornwell, CEO of Northpass about the recent acquisition of the Northpass platform into the Gainsight family. We talk about Digital Customer Education as well as Digital Customer Success and build upon last year's CELab podcast with Nick Mehta called “Customer Education and Enablement is the Core of Customer Success” Join us for this incredible discussion!
You’ll hear Nick, Steve, and Dave delve into the intersections of customer education, success, and communities, the role of digital customer success for scaling businesses, and the potential of blended online communities for enhancing customer relationships. The discussion also highlights the importance of integrating customer education and success, the impact of customer education on retention rates, and the challenges and opportunities in implementing customer education.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss: * National Book Lover’s Day! * Customer education and industry leaders * Creative ways to solve customer problems and enhance experiences * Digital customer success and its benefits * Customer success teams and their collaboration * The role of blended online communities in enhancing customer relationships * The new book 'Customer Communities' * How customer education can increase NPS scores and retention rates * Challenges and opportunities in implementing customer education * Building effective customer education programs * How customer education, success, and communities interconnect to help customers * Success metrics of time to first value and the orchestration of customer education, success, and communities. * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources: Nick Mehta LinkedIn
Steve Cornwell LinkedIn
Gainsight
Book: Customer Communities
Previous Episode with Nick (#76)
Northpass
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode, Adam reviews Dr. Richard E. Mayer’s 12 Principles for Multimedia Learning in our Instructional Design 101 series. Dr. Mayer's research focus is determining how people learn (i.e., the science of learning) and how to help people learn (i.e., the science of instruction). His research concerns the intersection of cognition, instruction, and technology. Here we will apply Mayer’s 12 research-based principles - around the cognitive theory of multimedia learning - as they relate to the design of online instruction.
You’ll hear a little bit about each of Mayer’s 12 Principles, from not overwhelming the learner’s
‘Cognitive load’, to the best combinations of text, audio, and images, to personalizing voices and imagery for the learner.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss: * Richard E Mayer's background - research in multimedia learning * Reviewing Mayer’s 12 principles for learning * Cognitive load- less is more * Highlighting relevant or important information * Images and audio - best for learning, without text * Contiguity - space and time * Pre-training - multimedia is more effective if learners know the basic tenets * Modality - controversial methodology * Multimedia - learning is easier with a certain amount of multiple modalities * Personalization - text should be informal * Voice & Images - natural, conversational human voices and * And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources: Richard Mayer @ UCSB
Book: Multimedia Learning 3rd Ed.
Skilljar
TechSmith
Northpass
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
In this episode Dave interviews Brian Childs, the founder and CEO of Learning Outcomes to talk about their recent regional retreat called LoCon.
LoCon is the "unconference" for learning professionals. These small group retreats are designed to encourage thoughtful conversations through structured activities and fun social interactions. This year LoCon was hosted in Vancouver BC and consisted of 40 enablement program leaders coming together to talk about the Future of Learning. Unlike regular conferences which are structured around thought leaders on a big stage and vendors relegated to a trade show floor, LoCon brings everyone together in small group interactions that foster open, honest sharing of ideas.
If you want to get notified about the next LoCon, click this link to sign up for alerts today.
Dave Derington 00:01
Hello CELab fans, this is Dave and we're going to have a quick what I call a mini today, some mini episode and we are going to talk about low con. Brian. Welcome to the show. Brian Charles.
Brian Childs 00:20
Yeah. Great to be here.
Dave Derington 00:22
Want you to talk about what low con is? We just had this over the weekend, Friday through Sunday. Give me Give me an overview. This was the most exciting event I think I've ever been in a long time.
Brian Childs 00:32
Yeah, it was fantastic. So my name Hey, everybody. My name is Brian Childs. I'm the founder of learning outcomes and learning outcomes helps companies connect their program leaders with best practices and subject matter experts. And in that vein, we put together something called Low con for the customer education community. And low con is really a I call it a conversation, right? It's a unconference. So what low con is, is it tries to restructure the way that conferences work. And for many of us, we go to conferences all throughout the year. And honestly, I think I mean, Dave and I probably agree with this, but it's like, I think conferences are just kind of kind of broken, like, oh, yeah, there's there's good aspects of it is good social aspects. But it's, they just feel like they're so impersonal, right? You go to a conference, you watch people on stage talk, you really want you learn some stuff, you really want to interact with those people. Maybe you go out and get drunk with some salespeople after that. It kind of like glance off of one another. But the best parts about a conference are where you get to have these deep connections and conversations with people. There's just never enough time. So
Dave Derington 01:44
anyway, I want to reframe that again. I love I love how you put this right, yeah, let's just let's just have a honest conversation about this. You're right, you go to a conference, and it's, I go see this person, I sit in a workshop in an auditorium, I go do this thing. But there aren't the kinds of things that we set out to do. Like you were just saying it's the human the connection, the networking, like this shifted everything upside down.
Brian Childs 02:13
Well, the thing, the thing, that is the thing that's missing, right, and calm when you Yeah, when you go to a conference, the thing that's missing is there's there tends to be a practicality that's missing from the experience, right? Well, you mean by that? Well, you might, you might see some things on a slide somewhere, you might interact with some people, but it's often there's often this missing piece of like, how do I apply this to my work? Right? I might have an image that I took when someone's presenting that's like, that's
In this podcast episode, host Dave Derington speaks with John Leh, CEO/Lead Analyst at learning tech research/consulting firm, Talented Learning. Talented Learning provides independent research and analysis on learning management systems (LMS), focusing on extended enterprise or learning systems as a business. John shares his experiences in the evolution and specialization of the learning systems marketplace.
The conversation explores the difference between customer education platforms and employee learning solutions, emphasizing the importance of aligning learning systems with the specific needs and objectives of the learners. John also touches on the necessity for rapid product changes, the role of metrics, reporting, and analytics, and the reasons behind switching LMS.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Intro and background - John Leh
- Exploring the complexities of customer education platforms and learning management systems
- The evolution of the learning systems marketplace
- Understanding learners' needs before choosing a system
- Independent verification of LMS
- Differentiating between customer education platforms and other learning systems
- Employee vs. customer education systems
- The role of metrics, reporting, and analytics in customer education
- Reasons for switching learning management systems
- The need for rapid product changes in learning systems
- Strategies for developing high-end content for superior learning experiences
- Finding the right product-market fit
- Multiple learning systems and transitioning between them
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
John Leh LinkedIn
Talented Learning
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Adam Avramescu LinkedIn
Strigo
Docebo
Intellum
We are big fans of TechSmith and its products – and TechSmith is a fantastic supporter of the Customer Education community! Today we welcome Matt Pierce and Troy Stein from TechSmith to the show to...
Welcome to Part II of an important discussion between host Adam Avramescu, VP of Customer Education at Personio, and Stephanie Pellegrino, who leads Customer Education at Gong. Adam and Stephanie give an unfiltered view into...
Welcome to Part I of a candid discussion between host Adam Avramescu, VP of Customer Education at Personio, and Stephanie Pellegrino, who leads Customer Education at Gong. You’ll hear about the macroeconomic changes in the...
Welcome to Part I of a candid discussion between host Adam Avramescu, VP of Customer Education at Personio, and Stephanie Pellegrino, who leads Customer Education at Gong. You’ll hear about the macroeconomic changes in the market and how they affect us in Customer Education, insights on acing customer education job interviews,
Adam and Stephanie give an unfiltered view into the industry as hiring managers. They talk about the importance of ‘selfless listening’, meaningful conversations for successfully pivoting into the customer education field, connecting with industry professionals, and engaging in informational chats before the interview. The episode also highlights the value of hiring candidates with non-traditional backgrounds and finding the right fit for a team, as well as effective interview techniques and research strategies. Stay tuned for Part II of this important conversation coming soon.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Celebrating National Pistachio Day and effortful learning in instructional design
- Discussing customer education job interviews and hiring manager perspectives
- Importance of selfless listening and meaningful conversations for job seekers
- Connecting with industry professionals before interviews for valuable insights
- Acknowledging the value of hiring non-traditional backgrounds in customer education
- Finding the right fit for your team based on background and experience
- Importance of self-awareness and authenticity in interview conversations
- Connecting the dots between experience and the desired role
- Demonstrating understanding of the business and its needs
- Researching the company and asking meaningful questions during interviews
- Avoiding faking knowledge and focusing on being coachable and agile
- Comments on effective interview techniques and research strategies
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Stephanie Pellegrino LinkedIn
Gong.io
In Episode 102, we first spoke with the Thinkific Team about the Power of Education as a Growth Tool for business. Today we’re going deeper into the history and growth of the Thinkific platform itself.
In this episode, we are speaking with Aaron Morin, Senior Manager of Community at Thinkific. Thinkific is a software platform that enables entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver their own online courses. Thinkific offers a course builder designed for Creator Educators. It’s simple and gives creators the ability to build their entire course without a big learning curve. Thinkific and Thinkific Plus offer a design and build experience that is approachable for everyone.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Aaron Morin intro and time with Thinkific
- We’re recording this on National Pizza Party Day, NASCAR day, and more
- Aaron’s career journey before joining Thinkific
- Thinkific’s culture
- Thinkific Plus
- Customer success focus, revenue generation, and the market
- Offering paid products filters your audience
- Estimating and tracking ROI
- Coaching – how it works at Thinkific
- Thinkific Community, a private Facebook experience
- Vancouver Customer Education Conference – first time ever
- Thinkific’s networking event
- Video with Castos
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Aaron Morin LinkedIn
Thinkific.com/plus
Link to Episode 102 – Thinkific Pt I
Customer Education
Talented Learning
Dave Derington Twitter
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Gamification and Gamified Learning are resurfacing as big trends in helping grow engagement in SaaS platforms. In this episode, we are going to talk about Learning Science and dive deep into Gamification. How do you get started? What are the common mistakes? Join us for a Disney-esque ride through #customereducation with Shannon Howard and Michelle Ellis from Intellum!
Intellum’s team of award-winning learning practitioners, consultants, content experts, engagement professionals, developers, and engineers help the largest and fastest-moving brands in the world successfully educate their customers, partners, and employees.
Docebo is one of the industry’s fastest-growing and most innovative learning technologies and employs over 700 global innovators who serve over 2800 customers around the world. Docebo is currently used by some of the best brands in the world, including L’Oreal, Zoom, Kiehl’s, ZipRecruiter, Samsung, and more. Docebo believes that learning is for everyone, and always put the customer first. In October of 2019, Docebo successfully launched their first IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: DCBO), followed by the launch of NASDAQ (NASDAQ: DCBO) in December of 2020.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Exploring customer education with Intelum
- Combining tech, content, and marketing elements
- Neuroscience behind gamified learning effectiveness
- Engaging learners through games and psychology
- Avoiding trivialization of game-based learning
- Designing for different learner personas
- Creating a "gamer DNA" for behavior change
- Importance of social learning and diversity
- Goals and rules of game design
- Gamifying reputation building and learning
- Using challenges, rewards, and badges
- Designing engaging and purposeful learning experiences
- Balancing complexity and time for learner engagement
- Organizational education and scalability with Intellum
- Leveraging existing resources for content creation
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Shannon Howard LinkedIn
Michelle Ellis LinkedIn
Intellum
Docebo
Customer Education
Talented Learning
Dave Derington Twitter
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Like peanut butter and jelly, customer advocacy and education - together - synergize their powers. Join host Dave Derrington as he speaks with Adam Ballhausen, Senior Director of Customer Education and Advocacy for Docebo (“Doh-CHAY-boh”) as he shares his, and Docebo’s, mission to align education and advocacy and consolidate education programs to achieve that next level of customer success.
Docebo is one of the industry’s fastest-growing and most innovative learning technologies, and employs over 700 global innovators who serve over 2800 customers around the world. Docebo is currently used by some of the best brands in the world, including L’Oreal, Zoom, Kiehl’s, ZipRecruiter, Samsung, and more. Docebo believes that learning is for everyone, and always put the customer first. In October of 2019, Docebo successfully launched their first IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: DCBO), followed by the launch of NASDAQ (NASDAQ: DCBO) in December of 2020.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- National Chocolate Mousse Day + more
- Adam’s background and path to Docebo
- Empowering users to best utilize products and services
- Academy vs. University
- Educational ‘interventions’ and how they work together
- Building a community of advocates
- Customer-led growth is top of mind
- Retention and expansion of customer base
- Consolidated or hybrid work for disparate audiences
- Docebo employees taking the same training as customers
- Collaborating with customers and how they train their audiences
- Governance, and a ‘hub and spoke’ model
- Docebo University, Docebo Advocacy, and Docebo Community
- Creating awards and why your customers should apply for them
- And - please - if you’ve found value in this podcast, share with your friends, your peers, and your network to help us “Find the Others”!
Resources:
Adam Ballhaussen LinkedIn
Docebo
Customer Education
Talented Learning
Dave Derington Twitter
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Machine Learning and AI are really impacting our world, but how can Customer Education teams take advantage of this trend? Enter Videate! If I can have a tool “magically” do my video for me? Add...
Machine Learning and AI are really impacting our world, but how can Customer Education teams take advantage of this trend? Enter Videate! If I can have a tool “magically” do my video for me? Add audio? And then translate it into different languages? How much would that be worth?
Join us as we talk with Mark Hellinger about this amazing product. Mark is the Co-Founder and COO of Videate - Videate enables SaaS companies to scale video production by making more how-to videos with fewer resources. Videate keeps your videos up-to-date with every software release and uses machine translation to globalize your content across all the languages you support.
About the Show
CELab is the Customer Education Lab for Innovative Customer Success, Enablement, and Marketing Teams. Our mission is to explore how to build Customer Education programs, experiment with new approaches, and exterminate the myths and bad advice that stop growth dead in its tracks.
Listen in as we discuss:
- Video content is hard, but AI is here to help
- Screen recording and its software limits
- Frequent software changes, a shortage of expert video resources, and the move from long-form to short-form video
- Getting more content without adding more staff
- Globalizing, updating, and maintaining your content for customers
- Videate.io - how it works
- Screen recording, voiceovers, avatars, and machine translation
- Share with your peers, help us find “the others”
Resources:
Mark Hellinger LinkedIn
Videate
Camtasia
Customer Education
Talented Learning
Dave Derington Twitter
Dave Derington LinkedIn
Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses are often plagued by the same challenge: Churn! Thanks to the emergence of Customer Success, we’ve learned a lot about this word and what can be done to combat...
In CELab’s 100th episode, we’ve kicked off the celebration of 100 episodes by discussing the hardest-won lessons for Customer Education Leaders. Dave and Adam have both held several roles on their journeys as customer education...
For CELab’s 100th episode, we’ve decided to celebrate by discussing the hardest-won lessons for Customer Education Leaders. Dave and Adam have both held several roles on their journeys as customer education leaders, and now they...
Customer Education teams must remain adaptable in times of change. After all, we support ever-changing products for diverse audiences, and we drive ever-changing business strategies. In this episode, Lisa Rothrauff, Director of Customer Education at...
With this episode, we’re joined by Tiffany Taylor to talk about the overlap between Customer Success and Customer Education. Tiffany leads both the Customer Success and Customer Education practices at Handshake, and what better way...
And finally … our “book club” discussion on Peter Honebein‘s book, “Strategies for Effective Customer Education“. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 and Part 2, check those episodes out now. We finish up this series with...
We’re back for Part 2 (of 3!) of our discussion on Peter Honebein‘s book, “Strategies for Effective Customer Education“. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, check it out now. We pick up the thread...
The clock is winding back, once again! On a previous episode, we covered Claudia Gaillard Meer’s book on Customer Education from 1984. And now, we’re jumping forward in time 13 years to the year 1997....
This episode is a continuation of our discussion of Claudia Gaillard Meer’s 1984 work on Customer Education. Customer Education has been around for at least 40 years by now, so we continue our conversation –...
It’s 2023! Dave and Adam share predictions for the coming year – what are the big trends to watch, and what are the ones that might not pan out? We’ll share our predictions and trends....
It’s the end of 2022 and we’re recapping the year with reflections on what we, and our peers in the Customer Education world, have learned. We start by hearing reflections from Customer Educators around the...
Customer Education is, as Dave Derington says, “Both new and not new”. We review the book, “Customer Education” by Claudia Gaillard Meer and take time at the end of 2022 to reflect upon what has...
In Late 2022, businesses in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market have felt the impact of an economic slowdown. Many of us – both leadership and teams – feel that in different ways. For leaders … fewer...
Video. It is often the go-to for many of our customers, and for good reason. Some stats from TechSmith, “83% of people prefer watching videos to accessing instructional or informational content via text or audio”....
Customer Education is an increasingly important tool in a Software Exec’s toolkit. As programs grow and mature, we sometimes have a “seat at the table”. Wise B2B SaaS Execs will ask you questions such as,...
Many people ask exactly how Customer Education can drive Revenue, reduce Churn, decrease Support tickets, and much more. Is it magic? Is it secret technology? Nope. It’s actually not. It’s Calculus. Seriously. In this episode...
(This episode is sponsored by WorkRamp) As WorkRamp says on their website, “Learning is a Growth Engine” for your business. At CELab, we talk about scale and growth tirelessly and how crucial it is for...
Continuing our journey through the “State of Customer Education” reports that have come out in 2022, we explore TSIA’s report – The State of Education Services: 2022! This year’s report focus on Education as a...
“Now is the right time for Customer Education.” as Cushing Anderson and Lisa Rowan say in the their Thought Industries’ sponsored report. As the discipline of Customer Education has grown, this report dives deep into...
In the lead-up to Fall 2022 Conference Season, we will be releasing a three-part mini-series covering a number of reports. Here, we cover Skilljar’s 2022 Customer Education Benchmarks and Trends Report. Each and every year...
In the lead-up to Fall 2022 Conference Season, we will be releasing a three-part mini-series covering a number of reports. Here, we cover Skilljar’s 2022 Customer Education Benchmarks and Trends Report. Each and every year...
In this episode, we speak with Phil Byrne, Manager of Product Education at Intercom. Through the lens of choosing the right metrics, Phil takes us on a journey through one of our favorite topics: breaking...
In this episode, we speak with Phil Byrne, Manager of Product Education at Intercom. Through the lens of choosing the right metrics, Phil takes us on a journey through one of our favorite topics: breaking...
Customer Education programs grow and mature alongside products and platforms as a software business grows. And, at some point, Localization becomes a hot topic. What is Localization in Customer Education? In this episode we welcom...
How do we think about leadership in Customer Education? In previous episodes of the CELab Podcast, we have talked about next generation of leaders and what they need to do up to set the stage...
Customer Education is not a “walk in the park”. But in this episode, Adam and I take a stroll (literally) through the Hirim M. Chittenden Ballard Locks in Seattle, Washington and talk about our learning...
For Leaders and Practitioners, there are few books out there on the market which appeal specifically to the Customer Education Market which is why we always put the spotlight on any new seminal work on...
Over the years, many Customer Education practitioners have come to us at CELab asking, “How do I move up in my Customer Education career?” What are some of the big mistakes we’ve made or even...
While Customer Education has been around for many years, we at CELab attribute it’s re-emergence to the Customer Success movement. And with that, we invite special guest Nick Mehta – CEO of Gainsight – to...
For this episode, we welcome Melissa VanPelt who leads Seismic’s Global Education and Advocacy program at Seismic. We’ve hoped to have Melissa on the show for some time, and this is an episode you’ll truly...
It’s Valentine’s Day and our gift to the CELab Community was intended to be a “Mini”. Turned out, both Adam and Dave got on a roll and at about the 31 minute mark, Adam can...
Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash Are you wondering how to move from K-12 to Customer Education? Or academia to corporate learning? In this episode, we’re diving into how Customer Education professionals get into the business. Many professionals make a move into Customer Education from teaching, K12 or academia. Others move from Customer Success to Customer Education. Today’s guest has actually worked in each of those worlds! So tune in for a discussion with Monica Sindwani from AgentSync.
Monica made the move from teaching to Customer Success and Customer Education. In this episode, she shares tips for teachers and academics making the move into instructional design or corporate learning. We discuss the paradox of transferable skills and how intellectual humility plays a big part in reskilling. And we talk about how programs like Salesforce Trailhead and other credential programs can be a huge asset for anyone looking to move into the technology field.
Episode Links:
Pivoting out of Edu Podcast
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash Join us for Part 2 of our crossover with another great podcast: He Said, Dee Said with Dee Kapila from Miro and Ryan Roch from Cisco. We continue our Pop Culture thread on how Video Games, Music, and Video does or doesn’t apply to Customer Education. We range far and wide with this final episode of 2021!
Happy New Year from CELab and all of us in the Customer Education community!
And as always, check below for a full transcript of the show!
Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash In previous years, our year-end episode is where we like to kick back and have some fun! We’ve done episodes on what Radiohead and David Bowie can teach us about Customer Education.
But this year we thought we’d mix it up and do a crossover with another great podcast: He Said, Dee Said. Where the Dee in question is our friend Dee Kapila, who leads Customer Education at Miro! And the He in question, is her husband Ryan Roch who a Customer Success Executive at Cisco.
Join us for Part 1 where we share a Pop Culture topic – something we’ve enjoyed in the last year (or in the pandemic) and debate how it does/doesn’t apply to Customer Education!
We range wide over a ton of subjects and there are true gems! Make sure you catch He Said, Dee Said too. How are Roguelikes like Enterprise SaaS software? Well … you’ll just have to listen to find out!
Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash It’s one thing to say that you “Lead with Data” (emphasize air quotes). It’s another thing entirely to build the kind of dashboards and reports that will allow you to do it.
In this episode Christy Hollingshead, Senior Director of Customer Education at Heap, guides us into safely into that territory. While many of us lean on metrics like Completion Rates or attempt to use the Kirkpatrick Model to assess the performance (and value) of their content which doesn’t take into account how one’s educational material impacts the business.
In B2B Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses we gauge performance through a different kind of vocabulary, using terms such as Adoption, Churn, Retention, which are often new and perhaps alien concepts to those new to the discipline of Customer Education. Focus on these kinds of metrics can and do earn Customer Education and Enablement leaders a seat at the executive table.
We think that anybody can easily work with data they have about their program to build helpful Reports and Dashboards or simply gain insights into how customers’ are using educational material to help their businesses
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash We’ve covered Instructional Design 101 topics on CELab before, but what about more advanced techniques? Once you’ve covered the basic frameworks, what are other evidence-based concepts that you can incorporate into your learning programs?
In this episode, Mike Di Gregorio, PhD, Director of Client Onboarding at Top Hat, walks us through how he incorporates advanced instructional design techniques to educate an audience of higher education professionals. We discuss the differences and similarities between traditional Instructional Design and the more modern face of Learning Experience Design, and how each of them play into the Customer Education world. We also discuss one of the key skills for any instructional designer: managing cognitive load for your learners, and making sure that they are not overwhelmed with too much information to process. We cover techniques that enhance learning transfer – in other words, getting learners to actually do what you taught them to do – and how you can incorporate them into your learning design. And finally, we talk about everyone’s favorite topic: Assessments! Specifically, how to go beyond “smile sheets” and how assessments can inform the way you iterate on content and drive your KPIs.
Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash One of the most common questions that those new to the field of Customer Education ask about when beginning to develop a program is, “What kind of equipment and/or software do I need?” What’s a good microphone? What do I use to edit and record audio? Should I buy a high-end video camera?
In this episode we have a candid discussion on what kinds of products we have used in various environments, chat about pros and cons, and give you a place to start in confidence. Remember – in Customer Education, getting started is the most important thing! Listen in as we rap about the products that make a difference and get you started off on the right foot!
Photo by Gabriel Crismariu on Unsplash In Episode 66 of the CELab Podcast we discussed Best Practices for keeping your Customer Education content up-to-date despite the rapid-pace of change that we experience in Software-as-a-Service businesses.
But what happens when you also have a highly-configurable product?
Charlie writes:
I have been tasked with creating a customer education program at our software company. I am devouring your book and podcast episodes. I am trying to create a strategy for implementation based on your guidelines, but the sticking point I keep getting stuck on is that our software is configured for each customer. We have many functions that are fairly standard, but every implementation looks and acts a bit different. I know that I can create education material for more advanced topics that our customers would consume without any customization, but our basic user training is the main thing we are trying to standardize, and I am struggling to determine the best way forward. Thanks for your brains!
The hypothesis we’ll challenge today is: We are able to create content at scale that meets the needs of most customers without any customization.
Thank you Charlie for your submission and if you have a question, use this form to send one in for us to consider and answer on the show!
Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash We are back from Summer Break and are entering Season 3 of the CELab Podcast!
In this episode. we start to get beyond the Fundamentals into more Advanced material by empathizing with your first “aha!” (and potentially, “ouch”) moment as a Customer Education team or leader.
Building content is easy. Keeping your content up to date? Well, that requires some different strategies. In Software as a Service Companies where products change quickly, it’s one of the key processes you have to get sorted out fast! With limited resources and time, finding ways to make your process scale is the lifeblood of an efficient Customer Education program.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Who should I hire for my customer education team?
This isn’t a new question. In fact, we first covered this topic on the show – if you can believe it – nearly three years ago! But there’s been new research in this area, and the market has changed quite a bit in that time. We’re seeing more new customer education teams form than ever before, and the people hiring for those roles are all asking who they should hire.
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Photo by Eduardo Buscariolli on Unsplash In Adam Avramescu’s book, “Customer Education – Why Smart Companies Profit by Making Customers Smarter”, he first introduces that, “Customer Education is your scale engine for Customer Success” (p 11). This concept – the Scale Engine – is novel in that it channels the fundamental challenge of many rapidly growing Software-as-a-Service businesses: All your processes need to scale as the business grows. That includes how you educate your customers!
Dave speaks here on some of his early experiences in the field of Customer Education where he was embedded at Gainsight, building foundational programs. We as a community realize that all growing businesses reach an inflection point where it’s time to build efficiencies into your Customer Success function.
Many Customer Success leaders may know, but may not quite know what to do when all that 1:1 customer training your CSMs do begins to really drain your team’s time and energy. This is where a Customer Education program is your best approach to support your customer success growth — not hold it back. In this episode we’ll talk about what successful, scaleable Customer Success looks like from the perspective an education program, the role Customer Education plays in customer success, and how Customer Education can scale CS by “building a flywheel of information and getting that to the customer when they need it”.
Many thanks to Cutler Bleeker and Amy Davidson (and the great folks at Skilljar) for the invitation to this great webinar! For the full video version, please visit Skilljar’s website here.
Photo by Frank Busch on Unsplash A key part of CELab’s role in the Customer Education Community is to keep you updated on the research and reports coming out of the Customer Education world, especially when they address the state of our industry. This episode covers two great reports: TSIA’s 2021 State of Education Services and Thought Industries’ 2021 State of Customer Education.
We like these reports because they come at the research from different angles, whether it’s a third party like TSIA, the Technology Services Industry Association, coming at things from a more independent perspective, or a Customer Education company like Thought Industries who can combine third-party reporting with their own customers’ trends.
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In this episode we return to the subject of Certification, this time focusing on how to adapt development of programs to meet the breakneck pace of change with growing Software-as-a-Service businesses.
Dave interviews Debbie Smith, who is Sr. Manager of Smartsheet University and an expert in credentialing and certification programs.
Pencils down, it’s time to write your certification! Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels For many Customer Education professionals, we first begin working on certification programs when a senior leader asks us to, but the definition of certification can vary wildly from person to person. It’s crucial to know what you intend to build, what outcomes it will generate, and how much maintenance it requires.
The hypothesis that Dave and Debbie explore this episode is: “Certification programs for SaaS can be delivered in much shorter timelines, but with caveats.”
When some people say they want to develop a certification, what they actually mean is “some learning modules with a quiz at the end.” But to create a legally defensible certification that can be used for hiring, firing, and other high-stakes situations, you need something far more rigorous, fair, and accurate. This means it’s going to take time and money.
In this episode, Debbie walks us through the project management required to build and maintain a certification. She takes us through how to build a JTA (Job Task Analysis) which defines what the job being certified actually is, and what the skills involved are. This means you need to meet with SMEs to understand what is being certified and what skills are involved to do the job.
Then it’s on to item writing – and by “items” here, we mean questions. Writing valid and fair questions is extremely difficult, and there’s an art to it! Debbie suggests some techniques for item writing workshops and writing better multiple-choice questions. And getting the right SMEs in, especially if they are billable and their time comes at a premium, is difficult. But you can also reward them for their efforts by giving them a certification, a badge, or other perks for participating in the program as an expert.
Debbie also shares tips for beta testing, and how many people you need to participate in a beta process.
Keep in mind that for SaaS businesses, whose products constant
Continuing in our Customer Success series, we dive deep into the thoughts of Sam Cummings, Author, Data Scientist, and Customer Success professional, currently working as an Enterprise CSM at LinkedIn.
Education takes many forms in the world of B2B SaaS Software and Sam takes us on a journey: How to Inspire, Cultivate, and Distribute Success. Beginning by telling human stories, anchored in data we can inspire – or connect – with our customers. Then, we Cultivate the seeds of success, and Distribute that through champions to other networks of people.
We also delve into what Sam calls “b2c-ification”. This maps to discussions that many of us in both Customer Success and Customer Education are seeing. While we talk about Social Selling or Digital Selling, at the core of this is the human factor. We connect and share our experiences on LinkedIn, YouTube, and many other platforms
Enjoy this great discussion!
Photo by Adrian Curiel on Unsplash In this episode, we return to our Instructional Design 101 series, where we informally cover key concepts from the instructional design world and apply them to customer education.
In previous episodes, we’ve covered frameworks like the Kirkpatrick Model of Evaluation, which helps you measure the effectiveness of your course, and Bloom’s Taxonomy, which helps you define what types of knowledge or skills you’re actually teaching and how you’d expect the learner to put them into practice.
But neither of these models answer a key question we hear from Customer Education professionals every day: how should I think about structuring my course?
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Photo by Eugene Zhyvchik on Unsplash Steve Cornwell is CEO and Founder of Northpass, the LMS that powers learning experiences for some of the top SaaS, sharing-economy, and subscription-economy companies. He joins us for the return of our CEO series, where we get CEO-level perspectives on the Customer Education market.
In our discussion, Steve talks about the Evolution of Customer Education, pointing to the ways that it is maturing as a category. As the subscription economy matures, building healthy recurring business is more important than ever, which places a premium on companies’ user experience. One effect of this has been the rise of Customer Success as a more defined function. The onboarding and learning experience for users can also make a huge difference.
Just as Customer Success as changed and matured over time, Customer Education is growing and changing as well. It’s not just something you do when you’re one of the huge industry players; you can increasingly invest in Customer Education from earlier stages with fewer resources to begin with. In fact, for many companies, effective Customer Education programs can help them accelerate their growth from earlier stages. With improvements in technology to produce and host learning, it’s easier than ever to get started.
But your Customer Education program isn’t just about producing content. It needs a strategy too. Steve talks about the evolution of Customer Education strategy, and how it has moved from a competitive edge to table stakes for many businesses. You simply need to be educating your customers if you want them to stay. This has also spurred the rise of Customer Education within Marketing departments, where efforts to educate customers aren’t solely tied to feature usage or retention; Customer Education is also used to drive pre-sales efforts, including industry or category education. As Steve points out, Customer Education is really about a company’s products, services, and best practices – not just features. It’s a way to supercharge the customer journey with directed pathways, interactivity, and even achievements.
Steve also talks about Customer Education breaking through boundaries. For one, Customer Education is outgrowing the classic “Acade
Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash Does Onboarding Matter? That’s what Donna Weber, veteran Customer Education professional and President of Springboard Solutions firmly asserts in her new book, Onboarding Matters! She says: “Onboarding is the most important part of the customer journey, yet many B2B companies fail to act proactively at the start of the relationship.”
In her book, she outlines the reasons why onboarding is a crucial motion for B2B companies, especially those who experience churn or attrition later in their customer lifecycles. Improper onboarding contributes to low adoption, low satisfaction, and ultimately unhealthy business.
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Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash Brian Childs, a customer education leader with experience at Moz, TapClicks, and more, has developed a Maturity Model that emerging Customer Education teams can use. In this interview, he describes how you can use the Training Maturity Model to scale your customer education team faster. Brian Childs has been building customer and adult education programs for over 20 years. In 2020, he developed the Training Maturity Model to understand the common challenges faced by training team leaders and what drives scale. The secret is something many training practitioners know inherently but don’t have articulated into a repeatable framework. The secret is: Scaling a training program relies on capabilities across the whole organization.
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Photo by Lance Grandahl – Two become one. (or one becomes two?) On this episode of CELab we continue both our CEO Series and Customer Success Series as Michael Harnum, CEO of ESG Success, walks us through his journey to Customer Success as a Service. Typically, Education Services used to be standalone activities where customers would consume training credits, but that approach often left customers without access to proper training and providers with revenue recognition issues. In a world of SaaS software where training is a constant activity, that doesn’t cut it for most businesses anymore.
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Photo by the blowup on Unsplash Product-focused afterthought! – that’s what most Customer Success clients get wrong about Customer Education according Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures.
But what does this mean, exactly?
In recent episodes, SaaS executives and investors perceive Customer Education as a growing and integral part of scaling their organizations. This begins our “Customer Success Series” where we’ll talk with prominent leaders in the Customer Success space, starting with Lincoln Murphy – Customer Success Growth Expert, Consultant, and Thought Leader.
Customer Education, as we know it today, is undergoing the same kind of Category Creation that Lincoln experienced in the early days of the Customer Success industry. And it’s even more critical as COVID-19’s “been like five years of change and evolution” to the Customer Success market.
In Episode 55 we explore:
- how we have in common with Customer Success leaders the role of playing detective to uncover our customers’ core needs
- how customer education fits into a customer success strategy
- whether CSMs do training, or do we centralize that function into a Customer Education team?
And, of course, we get back to the question of what is product-focused afterthought!
Listen in for another great episode, or enjoy the full transcript below!
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Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash What are venture capitalists thinking about the potential for Customer Education and Customer Success? As the industry becomes more profitable, we’ve seen more investment activity in the space. Eugene Lee from OMERS Ventures joins us to talk about his view on investing in this market, and what he wants to see from Customer Education and Customer Success companies as the market develops.
Eugene Lee, a Principal at OMERS Ventures, a venture capital fund with $1B under management and 50+ investments in B2B and B2C tech companies including Contentful, Crunchbase, Hootsuite, Klue, Rover, Shopify, Vidyard, and Wattpad.
Prior to joining OMERS Ventures, Eugene was a VP of Business Operations at Copper, Google’s #1 recommended CRM. Prior to that, he founded and led the business operations team at Pinterest. Before that Yahoo and Pixate.
Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash One theme that’s on the minds of many Customer Education professionals is learning how to “bridge the divide” between our teams and other education-focused teams. In Episode 19 (Sharing with Others) we kicked off this discussion. Growing organizations in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketplace follow standard patterns, and begin to introduce Learning and Development (L&D), Sales Enablement, and Customer Education.
Ted Blosser, CEO of WorkRamp, continues our “CEO Series” into 2021, sharing his experiences as a relatively recent entrant into the Customer Education category. If you’re like us, you soon become (sometimes painfully) aware that you are not alone on the journey to help your customers. Unfortunately, many of us may be a bit “siloed” or so focused upon our own universe that we miss a golden opportunity in exploring consolidated learning strategies. In other words, the democratization of our education process.
Cross-department collaboration provides distinct advantages to all of us, leading to measurable savings of time, hassle, and money. Listen in as we discuss “Centers of Learning Excellence”, tying education to business outcomes, and the role that Customer Education will play in the coming years!
Photo by Gabriel Bassino on Unsplash In 2019 we did our first “pause and reflect” style episode over the holidays, which was one of our top five episodes of all time. With this episode we, once again, let loose and do a “fun” episode to close out the year and start off the new one. And after this year, we definitely need to let loose a bit!
To bridge the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, we’re going to continue our tradition of asking what music and art can teach us about Customer Education. What can David Bowie teach us about Customer Education? And to honor our subject just a bit more, we’ve waited just a bit to celebrate his birthday (January 8th, 1947)!
Listen in as we relate the journey of David Bowie as he practiced his art over a lifetime. We all can relate to the changes he went through, forging through different styles before developing something unique and characteristic. Then continuing to experiment and grow to meet the changing demands of the market. Enjoy!
NOTE: We discuss the legendary interview Bowie gave to Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight about the future of technology, which you can see for yourself here.
On October 6th, we presented – live – at Thought Industries’ COGNITION 2020. This was a great event with many leaders from our Customer Education category.
In this recording we unveil our Customer Education Manifesto. This is composed of six guiding principles that we believe can help Customer Success organizations strategically accelerate account and user growth.
Most Customer Success organizations know, or soon discover, that acquiring customers is hard. But retaining those hard-won customers is even harder. Did you effectively onboard?If not, that translates to churn. Do you help your customers realize value? Again … that causes churn. Are you retaining and expanding your accounts? That churn can be slow and even more painful.
Just how many thousands, if not millions of dollars has your company spent to acquire customers and drive adoption? Surely, you’re focused on customer marketing and drip campaigns. You may have thrown a flotilla of CSMs at the problem, requiring them to perform ad-hoc trainings.
The simple, uncomfortable truth is this: Your customers don’t succeed if they don’t learn.
Listen in as we share the new face of Customer Education. We help growing XaaS businesses to change customer behaviors, reduce barriers to value, and improve the way people work.
Haven’t yet seen the Customer Education Manifesto? Check it out here!
Missed COGNITION 2020? The event is still online in on-demand form. For a quick recap, check out Episode 49 where we cover -in detail – the top events from 2020! If you’re a veteran or new Customer Education Professional, you’ll want to mark your calendars for 2021! We hope next year brings a return to in-person conferences and hope to see you there.
COGNITION 2020 – 6 Principles to Building a Customer Education Program (Presentation)Download
Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash In this episode, we’re celebrating some milestones from CELab! First, we are celebrating two amazing years of working out loud. We kicked off our very first episode, “Getting Started with Customer Education” on November 11th, 2018. Like many of you who have found yourselves here – in this field and listening to this podcast – we dove in head first and in – understanding isn’t necessarily where you have to begin
Bill Cushard, the host of Helping Sells Radio, has said – most podcasts don’t make it past episode 11. Thanks to an amazing community – we’ve hit our 50th episode!
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Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash This is the time of year where we see conferences like DevLearn (which we spoke at last year), The Guild’s Learning Conference, and this year, for the first time ever, we had a three-week run of Customer Education conferences!
Now, these were all online conferences since we’re in the midst of Covid-related travel and gathering restrictions, but in a way this may have enabled us to see what we saw this year - three customer education conferences in a row!
So what were the conferences?
The fun started with CEdMA’s annual conference, continued with Skilljar Connect next week. We’ve spoken at both of these conferences before, and they were joined by a new, third conference - Thought Industries COGNITION.
Instead of recapping each conference individually, this episode is a rollup of all three featuring some of the themes and trends we saw along the way!
The Shift to Online Conferences In this episode we begin by exploring the Pros and Cons of our Shift to Online Conferences.
Online or Virtual conferences are hard to pull off. The main uptick for most attendees is that we have a lot more flexibility. Recordings are typically available for all sessions, so this really helped many of us with busy schedules pick and choose and catch up if we missed anything.
Of course, there are cons. New technologies and the complexity of working with many integrated technologies, and even our own Internet (or lack thereof) caused some issues. We personally experienced some of this, but as Customer Education folks we rolled with the punches.
CEdMA Connect 2020 CEdMA’s Connect 2020 event was the first stop on our tour where we presented our Customer Education Manifesto for the first time (and do a to a live audience!).
We enjoyed the keynote from Bill Cushard - “The Next Big Thing in Customer Education”. The “7 Habits of Inclusive Leaders” from Melissa Majors was a great addition that injected much-needed DE&I content. Alessandra Marinetty delivered a great case study on the development of Box’s event-based Certification Program, and much more.
Skilljar Connect 2020 Of all the events we attended, Skilljar Connect 2020 takes the prize for being the most social - leveraging Hopin to satisfy the missing puzzle piece of networking.
Skilljar executed well on this event - deploying a content track in addition to more traditionally table steaks of material focused on leadership, strategy, monetization, and more. For example, Debbie Smith from Braze was a huge hit (worth watching if you couldn’t make it). Randon and Kyle from JAMF dropped sage advice on creating content at scale.
Beyond this we experienced some great material from OSISoft on Training a Global Audience, the LinkedIn education teams (and yes, there are many) talked about aligning across several product lines, and the Slack team shared how they assembled their Study Guide for their new Certification.
We did our first ever Live Mailbag episode based on the popular
In October we attended Skilljar Connect 2020 and hosted a Live Mailbag episode at the event! Attendees submitted really amazing questions. We couldn’t tackle them all – so stay tuned for yet another Mailbag episode soon!
In this episode we’ll answer some questions that may be on your mind too including:
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash * What advice do you have for those that are working with one other employee, or manage a very small team, on how to take the next step and grow their impact, have more employees, and ultimately get their own CE department? * What’s the ideal “mixture” of video lessons and text lessons in an online course? Mostly video? Both to keep students engaged? * How can we tie training attendance to product usage and product adoption? Any best practices on how to measure this so we know training is working and can continue to invest in the right methods of training? * How do you approach the strategy and plan for mass documentation and training updates when the product visually changes, especially for small teams? What are common pitfalls or things to watch out for?
Listen in as we’ll share the insight we’ve gleaned from direct experience and from others in our network! Remember – Customer Education is both new and not new. CELab is committed to learning and sharing the best practices for Customer Education and your questions are invaluable.
Thanks to Randon, Norma, Corinne, and Laura for the amazing questions. And a big thanks to Skilljar for inviting us to this amazing conference. A recap episode is coming soon!
If you have a question or things you want to share please feel free to contact us with your ideas. Also, if you want to hear more from us – sign our mailing list and our brand new
Let’s put Microlearning in focus for Customer Education (Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash) In this “mini” episode, we focus on microlearning and share some things we learned from one of the industry experts on the subject. At DevLearn 2019, we had the great opportunity to talk with Carla Torgerson, the Director of Instructional Design at Bull City Learning immediately following her “Create Effective Microlearning” course. We covered our experiences at DevLearn in Episode 28.
What does microlearning entail? How can a Customer Education team benefit from using it in their Education Strategy?
A hint? A micro format “with particular, targeted focus on something a customer wants to do“, maps well with our mission in Customer Education to help get customers up-to-speed quickly, and helps to increase adoption / avoid churn of our products.
Customers get to choose if or when they’re going to consume your content. This “micropodcast” will give you some other tools to think about adding to your toolkit.
Welcome back to Instructional Design 101, where we’ll ask whether Customer Educators need to care about Bloom’s Taxonomy. What’s that, you ask? Bloom’s Taxonomy, created in 1956 by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom, is used by many K-12 educators and instructional designers to categorize learning objectives by what the learner is expected to know or do.The taxonomy has been revised since its original creation, but today it categorizes whether learners will be expected to do things like:
- Remember a piece of information
- Understand a concept
- Apply a skill
- Analyze information or data
- Evaluate information or scenarios
- Create something new
These skills often build upon one another, and require different levels of evaluation and assessment. As Customer Education instructional designers, we can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to take a learner-centric approach to our materials, instead of a content-centric approach. Too often, we jam-pack our courses and articles with “nice-to-know” instead of “need-to-know” information, or ramble on about features instead of focusing on how the customer will actually use them — and give them opportunities to practice.In this episode, Adam argues that Bloom’s Taxonomy still has a place in Customer Education, and it helps us focus our materials on driving relevant outcomes for learners. Listen to the full episode to find out more about how it can be used, as well as potential challenges!
Missed our first Instructional Design 101 episode on the Kirkpatrick Model? Check out Episode 21!
In this episode of the CELab Podcast, we’re joined by Maria Manning-Chapman, the VP, Education Services Research at TSIA where we expand upon the TSIA’s “State of Education Services 2020” report – which we covered in Episode 38 of this podcast.
Photo by Arlington Research on Unsplash Here, we’re diving deeper into monetization strategies which our listeners and the network that we’re in as Customer Education Professionals are interested in getting more help with. Customer Education tends to “niche down” from where we end up in much larger, mature organizations where we often have true Educational Services teams.
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In this episode we talk with Chip Ramsey – Founder and CEO of Intellum and one of the early pioneers in our field with the first ever platform for Customer Education. We talk about the transition to creating a great platform and how Chip says to “start with science” to make amazing material that helps both your customers and your business.
Many Customer Education Professionals may know Intellum as the platform that powers incredible customer and partner education and customer experience programs such as Facebook Blueprint, Google Academy for Ads, Google Retail Training, Twitter Flight School and most recently have acquired Appitierre, who make the Evolve rapid-dev content tool.
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Part 2 of our Customer Education Mailbag episode continues the conversation with our listeners. How do Content Developers become more self-sufficient with their LMS? How many people can we expect to join a new program? Where does Customer Education Belong? Listen in to find out!
This podcast and website are not about our opinions and perspectives. We focus on our community of Customer Education professionals. All of us are learning and growing from the experiences we have helping learners understand our products, particularly for Software-as-a-Services companies where that product is – quite literally – changing under our feet.
If you have a question, email us at learn@customer.education!
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Early listeners will remember that we used to do a segment on the show called “Customer Education Mailbag” where we would answer a quick question at the end of the episode, usually unrelated to the main topic.
We’re finally brushing the dust off all those envelopes and open some of the letters that have been coming in. We actually asked our listeners to record their questions, so listen into this episode to hear it in their own voices!
We hope to do this periodically, so if you want to send in your questions you can contact us in our Slack Community or send us an email at learn@customer.education!
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Our next “State of the Industry” report review comes from Forrester and Intellum with their 2019 paper: “Increase Revenue and Improve Customer Retention Through Customer Education Programs”. This report differs from previous ones in that it focuses on how Customer Education programs can contribute to revenue and customer retention. Customer Education is growing, driving a measurable impact in bottom-line revenue, customer retention, and support costs.
In this episode we look at Skilljar’s 2020 Customer Education Benchmarks and Trends report. This report is one of the most comprehensive to-date featuring insights from over 250 customer and partner education teams. Come listen to our response to this report’s insights related to COVID-19 impacts, budgets, target audiences, training formats and engagement, completion rates, monetization strategies, and more!
In this episode we react as we discover that “only 14% of respondents believed that their customers were adequately trained.” Join us as we break down a report from Thought Industries and Claire Schooley (formerly of Forrester Research) that gives us an eye into what training professionals really think about the State of Customer Training in 2020.
In this episode we kick off a new series that focuses on “The State of Customer Education” in 2020. We take a deep dive into Maria Manning-Chapman’s report for the Technology Services Industry Association, or TSIA.
In this episode we feature a fireside chat with Daniel Quick, Head of Customer Education at Asana. How can you really leverage what we’ve learned about game design and apply it to Education and Learning? Tune in to learn more!
In this episode of our CEO Series, Adam speaks with Jonathan Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of Candu on the Power of the User Interface in your Product Adoption journey.
In March 2020, we are experiencing the world’s largest work from home “experiment”. In dark days of a global pandemic, how can Customer Education Professionals shine a little light? Join us as we share how the same strategies we use to reach a wide audience through online technologies can help you, your business, and maybe even your friends connect when in-person options aren’t an option!
Thought Industries also published a blog we wrote on this topic as a companion for this episode. Please check it out on the Thought Industries blog and read on for a summary.
Take the first step to online learning It took a pandemic to significantly disrupt a common practice of many businesses: In-person training. Trainers find that virtual training isn’t quite the same and demands new skills and somewhat different approaches. Many instructional designers are perfectionists, and the idea of rapidly transitioning to online content goes against conventional wisdom to build methodically using ADDIE and similar frameworks.
But timing is critical. Instead of getting it perfect, you’ll now be saying, “Okay, I’m going to run a class. Do I have my talking points? Yes. Do I know what I’m going to talk about? Yes.”
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In this episode, we talk with Wendy Hamilton of TechSmith. TechSmith creates products that you probably already know and love, because their easy-to-use tools help anyone create great video without needing strong video production skills at first. Listen in and hear how we as Customer Education Professionals can and should embrace video and build content that truly helps our customers – particularly in times where reaching out with On-Demand content is more important than ever!
In this episode we’re joined by Barry Kelly where he takes us on a journey from Default to Dynamic Measurement. Barry is the CEO and Co-founder of Thought Industries, the world’s leading B2B customer training platform provider. He is an external training champion, marketer, and digital learning innovator. His career has focused on supporting businesses to deliver impactful training experiences that increase customer lifetime value.
In this episode we discuss the “Rise of the Customer” with Sandi Lin, CEO and Founder at Skilljar. Educating your customers, while not a new concept, is a muscle that many Software-as-a-Service companies haven’t flexed. Listen in as Sandi shares her insight into the latest trends in Customer Education.
We’re getting into the holiday season, which means it’s a chance for us to take some time with our families and reflect on the year. In fact, we may be reflecting on the entire decade. It also means it’s a chance for us to let our hair down over at the CELab and have a little fun. So for this episode, our last for 2019, we’re going to talk about something that is close and personal to both Adam and Dave.
In this episode we talk shop about In-Product Education. There are many tools out there on the market like AppCues, Pendo, WalkMe, and more. Is this the new LMS? Listen in and we’ll break it down …
In this episode we share our experiences with one of the first “true” Customer Education events in our industry – Skilljar Connect 2019. Tune in to hear why this should be on your radar for 2020!
In this episode, Adam and Dave recap their experiences with DevLearn 2019! For Customer Education Professionals, this is an interesting event to check out, so join us as we explain what you can expect and how it can help you learn and expand your skills!
In this episode, Adam and Dave re-present the talk they gave at DevLearn 2019 in glorious Las Vegas, Nevada. Want to learn how to get a seat at the leadership table? Return-on-Investment for Customer Education will help get you there!
In this episode, we talk with Mason Levy – CEO of Swivl about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Sound scary? Is this the start of Skynet? Absolutely not. Listen in to learn how Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – paired with Human Intelligence can help your Customer Education program. Learn more at tryswivl.com!
This episode is a rebroadcast of an interview hosted by Nikki Engel of Northpass with Adam Avramescu where Adam shares the tale of why you need a Customer Education program. If your company is on the fence about the value of a Customer Education program, make sure you share this episode with them!
When companies start their first customer academies and education programs, they’re often filled with boring and irrelevant material that doesn’t resonate with customers, and doesn’t really help them get on board. Why is this? Matt Mulholland from Miro has a theory and shares his hypotheses based on his work as a CSM and customer educator responsible for building Miro’s academy programs.
In our last episode, we talked about Certifications can become a huge pillar of your Customer Education program, so they can be daunting to think about. How do you think about building the right certification program for your business? That’s what we’ll talk about in this episode.
Certifications can become a huge pillar of your Customer Education program, so they can be daunting to think about. How do you think about building the right certification program for your business? That’s what we’ll talk about in this episode.
In this episode, Adam covers fundamental instructional theories that Customer Education professionals use, starting with the Kirpatrick Model, named for Dr. Donald Kirpatrick (1924 – 2014), used to evaluate the outcomes and effectiveness of training.
We like to say that Customer Education is the Scale Engine of Customer Success, but the reality is that many CS teams put little attention on Education. In this episode of CELab, Donna Weber shares her thoughts on how Customer Education can make an incredible impact on your customers. Listen in to learn how you can take the next steps to building scalable education programs – and why it matters to your bottom line!
In this episode we talk about how you, as a Customer Education professional, can and should collaborate with others. It could be your L&D team, Sales or Customer Success Enablement, or even training professionals like you at other companies!
In this episode we take a question from the Customer Education Slack Channel. What is the best way to deliver different modules and content for a program? Do you focus on video lectures with “talking heads”? Do we use slides, screencasts, or something else entirely? Join us as we share some experiences
What does it take to start over as a Customer Education leader? Not necessarily for those in their first role in Customer Education like we often focus on in this podcast, but what should you be thinking about if you leave your successful Customer Education team to start or lead another? It takes a balance of leaning on your previous accomplishments and expertise with listening to your business and innovating.
“Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy”, the audio clip for which we mention, is an amazing game and you should play it! You can find out how through the author’s website.
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Steam – App Store – Play Store) We recorded this episode after both Dave and Adam moved into new roles as Customer Education leaders. Between the previous episodes and this one, both co-hosts began building and leading new Customer Education teams.
We’ve started new stages of our journeys, which makes this a good time to reflect and to think about something that most Customer Education leaders will have to think about in their lives: starting over.
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With this episode, we again take a break from our normal format to bring you the second of a two-part presentation that was given at the Bay Area Customer Education Meetup on January 31st, 2019.
Here, join Isabel Swartz as she talks about Data Driven Decision Making for Customer Education Leaders … like her!
Today we step aside from our normal format to bring you the first of a two-part presentation that was given at the Bay Area Customer Education Meetup on January 31st, 2019.
A special thanks to Adam for organizing this event and to Christy Hollingshead of Heap for making this event possible.
If you’d like to see the visuals being talked about in this presentation, check them out on our CELab YouTube Channel here.
What trends are we seeing in the field of Customer Education? Join us as we chat with Linda Schwaber-Cohen from Skilljar. We talk starting with scale, federated search, free vs paid training, and measuring the value of training (with data!).
Linda Schwaber-Cohen Linda leads Product Marketing and Customer Education at Skilljar, so she knows quite a bit about the Customer Education space! In this episode, she walks us through the trends she’s been seeing in the market as well as in Skilljar’s customer base.
Starting with Scale One trend Linda highlights is that Customer Education teams are increasingly “starting with scale,” or in other words, building Customer Education programs that address broad audiences from the onset. This includes formats like online academies, help centers, and video, which can all scale to thousands or millions of end users.
Previously, Customer Education programs would start with low-scale activities like instructor-led trainings, one-to-one sessions with trainers or product experts, or classroom sessions. This has been true either because the technology to develop more scalable trainings wasn’t accessible, or because it was the easiest way to start training customers out of habit.
But that’s not cost effective, and it leaves many customers in the dark. So now companies are starting with more scalable, on-demands approaches. This is especially helpful as our customers onboard new users, who all need training at different times and paces.
Federated search The second trend Linda discusses is the move toward federated search. Increasingly, Customer Education programs implement a search tool that will search across multiple Customer Education properties – online academy content, help center articles, community-generated posts, blogs, and more. Gone are the days of each property having its own, isolated search. This improves discoverability of content wherever the customer is searching for it. This way, customers won’t need to know where to search for what they’re looking for, get frustrated, and give up (or angrily contact your customer support team).
She also discusses the advantages and challenges around adding federated search and help content directly into your software product. Often this requires getting buy-in from Product teams who see help content or training as a failure of the product to be intuitive.
Paid vs. free training The “in-product search” conversation ties into the idea of offering freemium models, or paid offerings, for training. Often when you’re bringing in revenue, that makes it easier for you to get the prioritization from cross-functional teams like Product and Marketing, or to get Product Management resources on your own team.
Linda talks about how she sees more sophisticated training teams offering paid education programs. Because they bring in revenue, they often get treated more as a product in and of themselves, instead of as a support tool for the software. While it’s still not common for many new Customer Education teams in SaaS to charge, it’s very common in the Education Services world, and Linda sees a hybrid model work in practice.
One thing she’s seeing is more interesting ways to attach training to premium support models and product subscriptions. For example, some companies create certification programs or premium education programs that aren’t completely customized to an individual account, but are available to a certain
This episode is part three of our informal trilogy about instructional design in customer education. (See parts one and two.) What does it take to become a great instructional designer or content developer in Customer Education. How can you succeed in the role if you’re transitioning from another career? We’ll tackle these questions and more, so listen in!
For those making the leap into Customer Education as Instructional Designers, they typically come from three places:
- Customer Success and Support: The rock-star customer-facing folks who love educating their customers, and want to do it full-time
- Internal L&D: Education experts who have been working in corporate L&D or enablement, and want to transition to external education
- Master’s programs: People who have committed to get a degree in instructional design or instructional systems design
Which is best? Are any of them best? The big question most people ask is whether they need a degree to be most successful in the field. What’s more important, field experience or a degree?
https://www.pexels.com/@startup-stock-photos We’ll look at these three common paths and give some perspective on them.
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In this episode we talk with Bill Cushard – Host of “Helping Sells Radio” and Director of Marketing at ServiceRocket – for our first ever CELab interview!
How do you help your customer buy from you? A lot of times we don’t help our customers … we just try to sell to them.
In this episode, Bill explains how helping your customers, particularly through education, really sells. We talk about Agile approaches to Marketing – and that includes using Agile Sprints to develop Educational content, building your 5-year roadmap for education, and much, much more!
Bill Cushard
In this episode, part 2 of our informal trilogy on Customer Education instructional design, we discuss a few failed hypotheses around content development. These are things we’ve been asked to do, and we’ve all certainly tried in our careers, but they just don’t lead to effective learning. Tune in to hear more!
New Customer Education leaders, especially those who are “accidental” customer educators who get thrown into the role, don’t have strong backgrounds in content development. That leads to content that can please stakeholders but will fail customers.
Our goal as content creators should be to:
- Make content memorable, so learners won’t forget it after they take our courses or read our articles
- Drive actual behavior change, so learners will do something differently after they engage with our content
How do we often get this wrong? Read on.
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In this episode we explore how we, as Customer Educators tackle the source of the river of knowledge. How does one approach discovery and work with Subject Matter Experts to get the best material? Have a listen and we’ll explain our strategies.
Discovery depends on SMEs There’s nothing worse than finding out that content is the blocker to building a Customer Education program. After all, instructional design relies on access to subject matter experts (SMEs).
https://www.pexels.com/@fotografierende If you’re in a small organization or working on a brand-new product, chances are that you have nothing – Zip, Zero, Diddly Squat – to work with. There’s no documentation, sparse notes, and very likely, an overworked Product Manager who’s way too busy to deal with you.
Using the traditional ADDIE content development process, the first thing you do before you design or develop content is an analysis phase. You collect existing knowledge and documentation, analyze performance gaps, and use all of it to inform your design. But that process won’t work for people working at startups or other organizations that move too fast for ADDIE.
In small organizations, knowledge usually isn’t documented thoroughly. It’s locked in the heads of busy people who are trying to do their day jobs. These are your product managers, your technical architects, your customer success managers. Getting them to document their knowledge or create training is like squeezing blood from a stone.
Become an investigative journalist (more…)
In this episode we explore the assertion, “The best way to start developing your Customer Education program is to leverage Virtual Instructor-Led training.” Why would you want to use Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT). What are the options for delivering it? What kinds of pitfalls and tips would you suggest? Oh … and most importantly Adam sings for us, making this another can’t miss episode!
Virtual Instructor Led Training (VILT) lets you prototype faster As Customer Educators, we know that content development is no small feat. It takes a long time to product and develop content. Self-paced, online, and interactive content take the longest. In this episode, we reference the content development estimates from the ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2017 survey. This survey shows that even an hour of passive e-learning takes 42 hours to create, and that balloons as development becomes more complex.
When we’re developing for customers, passive won’t always cut it. When we create content, we often need it to have more interactivity to promote real learning goals.
That’s why it’s important to know where you’re going when you create self-service content. While e-learning will provide more scale, vILT allows you to prototype content more quickly.
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What are the key customer education leadership skills you need? Join Adam and Dave as they dive into three great skillsets, each one of which ties to a book. These are required reading material for new and aspiring Customer Education leaders.
- Mindset by Carol Dweck
- Multipliers by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown
- Tribal Leadership by Dave Logan, et al.
Adam here. In case you missed it, I have a new book out, called “Customer Education: Why Smart Companies Profit By Making Customers Smarter.” Pick up a copy before they run out! This post corresponds with Episode 8 of “CELab: The Customer Education Lab.” Subscribe and download our latest episode on our site, Apple Music, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever quality podcasts are found.
Even though I recently published a book, that’s not what this post is about. Today I’d like to share three books that not only every Customer Education leader, but every leader, should read. Each one corresponds to a key mindset that enables us to create a sense of growth and experimentation on our team, and to maximize the potential of every single team member. After all, we succeed or fail together.
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Skilljar Connect 2018 In this episode of CELab, Adam shares his experiences from Skilljar Connect, hosted in Seattle on November 14 and 15, 2018. Adam shares his experiences in talking on a panel hosted by Maria Manning Chapman from TSIA focused on Content effectiveness and how to make training stick! Join us for this recap and tons of myths and misconceptions about content!
This week on CELab, we recap another Customer Education conference: Skilljar Connect! Adam attended and spoke on a panel at the conference, and it was a great day spent with other Customer Educators.
Let’s face it: Aside from CEdMA (which we recapped on a previous episode) here aren’t many conferences devoted to customer education. While big conferences like DevLearn and ATD TechKnowledge are helpful for instructional designers and technologists, they aren’t often customer education oriented. I’d highly recommend them to anyone looking to learn more about instructional design, content development, and learning technology. But as a customer education professional, you often must make the leap away from the context of traditional L&D, asking yourself, “How does this apply to customer education?”
So similar to how Gainsight Pulse is focused on the discipline of Customer Success, Skilljar Connect was a forum for Skilljar customers to discuss the discipline of Customer Education and share our programs.
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It’s increasingly clear that a big part of a Customer Education leader’s role also includes “Digital Transformation” or Automation. In other words looking at the software we use and thinking seriously about how it works – together.
In this episode we discuss data. How do you work with your data, automate learning journeys, make data about learners “actionable”, and much more.
In Episode 3, the LMS discussion, we mentioned that Learning Management Systems are core systems for Customer Education professionals. They often integrate with other customer systems of record, like CRMs and marketing automation tools. But as Customer Educators, we’re still often deprived of the data we need.
Many Customer Education programs use upwards of 10 systems to create content, deliver training, measure feedback, and perform other business-critical tasks. Now we have the opportunity to start pulling data together, visualizing it, and using it throughout the customer journey.
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In this episode, Adam recaps the highlights from CEdMA’s Fall 2018 Conference.
If you’re unfamiliar with CEdMA, or the Customer Education Management Association, it is one of the primary organizations for Customer Education Leaders. Adam spoke at their fall conference in Boston and brought back some nuggets to discuss.
CEdMA, or the Customer Education Management Association, is one of the primary organizations for Customer Education Leaders. Adam spoke at their fall conference in Boston and brought back some nuggets to discuss with Dave in Episode 005 of CELab.
At CEdMA, all the presentations are led by member organizations, so you’re not hearing from abstract “thought leaders” — you’re hearing from other Customer Education leaders. This also means that, rather than artificially imposing a theme, the themes that arise are more organic and based on the issues and trends that Customer Education leaders see on a day-to-day basis.
This year’s conference saw two key themes:
- The role of the traditional Education Services P&L (which stands for profit and loss, and refers to running your department like a business, where you must achieve profitability) vs. using Customer Education to support the overall health of the broader business.
- The role of certification and badging, to certify and credential our customers.
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With the rise of Customer Education in SaaS companies, many Customer Success, Marketing, or Services leaders are in the position of needing to make their first Customer Education hire. But who do you hire?
Do you promote your rockstar CSM or support rep? Do you bring in an experienced Education Services leader? What skills are you looking for?
When you’re looking for your Customer Education Leader, you can choose someone who’s been in your business or function (like a great CSM, who has Customer Success experience), someone who’s led Customer Education for a company with a different business model than yours (i.e., on-prem instead of SaaS), or someone who has competency in a key skill like Instructional Design but hasn’t done it for customers before. So you end up looking for someone in a Venn diagram kind of like this one:
For smaller companies, your first Customer Education hire will often be doing the job solo for a few months. This means you’ll need someone comfortable being a player-coach: someone who “has done it before” but also “still wants to do it.”
More established companies may already have trainers or content developers in place — they just haven’t formalized a Customer Education function yet, and now they’re looking for a leader. Here, you have more options. You can potentially promote someone on the current team, or you can bring in a leader from the outside.
There’s no one right solution to these challenges, but if you’re intentional about whom you bring in, you’ll be ahead of many companies!
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One of the most common questions we get asked from people who are starting Customer Education programs is, “Do I need a Learning Management System?” How do you go about selecting a Customer LMS?
An LMS seems like a standard part of a Customer Education Program and it’s usually the first system to be implemented. But is it right for everyone?
Startups can’t always get the budget for it or justify the ROI. Even more established companies find that their LMS doesn’t always work for them.
The Learning Management System (LMS) is often the first system that a Customer Education function will purchase. After all, if you’re going to deliver online courses, you need a place to host them and track people’s completion. And even for live courses, you need a place for people to register and manage their enrollments.
The earliest LMS platforms were used in academia, government/military, and then corporate HR departments, to track courses and required trainings. But today, many LMS systems serve more modern use cases like sales enablement and — of course — Customer Education.
These LMS platforms have become both more sophisticated and more specialized. Some “extended enterprise” systems allow you to manage training for internal learners, partners, and customers. Other “customer training platforms” focus primarily on customers or other external learners. There are so many subcategories that the overall market has over 800 vendors!
But many of those vendors are clunky, hard to manage, or not friendly to customers. According to a benchmark by the Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA), LMS platforms continue to be among the most used, but least liked, software for Education teams.
This means that even though you’ll likely need an LMS, you’ll need to be choosy about which one you pick. You also may want to experiment before choosing an LMS. In our third episode of CELab, we debate the pros and cons of Customer LMS platforms.
What’s essential about a Customer LMS — and what can you do before you have one? (more…)
Is Customer Education just Customer Training? Or is it something more?
Whether you’re scoping out your program for the first time, or consolidating separate functions into one Customer Education experience, you have to know which programs to include — and which ones to leave out.
But we think that whether you call it Customer Education, Enablement, or Education Services, you’ve got to think bigger than just training.
If you had said the term “Customer Education” even a few years ago, it would have been a synonym for training. In Episode 002 of CELab, we question the role of “training” in a Customer Education program.
After all, that’s the main way that tech companies thought to educate their customers: bring them into a room (or a webinar), teach the materials, facilitate some activities, and then the customer was educated.
The Internet has changed the way we live and work, but it’s also changed the way we learn. And it doesn’t just mean taking our long training sessions and posting recordings or breaking them up into webinars. The industry is seeing a shift in the way that people look for, and use, information.
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Welcome to the Pilot episode of CE Labs – the Customer Education Laboratory!
This podcast series is devoted to you – The Customer Education pioneers out there – to share what we, and others have learned from hard-won experiences in the trenches of fledgling SaaS companies and tech startups.
- Maybe you’re a member of a Customer Success team realizing that you need to invest in Customer Education — or that you have an interest in doing it yourself
- Perhaps you’re the first Customer Education hire at a growing company
- Maybe you’re part of the growing community of Customer Education Heroes.
In this episode we introduce ourselves and our mission and begin challenging the assertion: “You don’t need a customer education team until your company is mature”.
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