How to Create Product Champions that Retain & Expand TCV

There's a reason why 83.6% of consumers choose companies that invest in their education. Effective customer education is a strategic asset that fuels your business. Imagine a customer journey filled with empowered users who have a deep understanding of your product's value and become product champions. This translates to tangible benefits: higher customer satisfaction, reduced customer churn, increased customer engagement throughout their lifecycle, and ultimately, a higher total contract value (TCV).

This article discusses how to create B2B product champions through customer education. We'll also show you three ways to leverage customer education for higher retention and how your learning management system (LMS) can support your education strategy for even greater business results.

Why prioritize customer education for retention and expansion?

Customer education is often seen as a cost center, but in reality, it's a strategic investment that fuels both customer retention and expansion.

First, a customer education program fosters a deep understanding of your product's value proposition and its potential to solve specific pain points. Better yet, when end-users master your product, they are more likely to advocate for it within their organization. They can confidently showcase its benefits to team members, influencing stakeholders and decision-making and leading to wider adoption among cross-functional teams. We call them product champions.

Second, since customer training can drive wider adoption of your product within a customer's organization, more users become proficient. This translates to a larger user base on your platform, potentially leading to upsells or additional licenses purchased, increasing TCV.

How to turn B2B customers into product champions

Ever wonder why some customers become your biggest fans, raving about features and learning to use them in unique ways? The secret is unlocking the full potential of your product for them.

By curating content to address specific customer needs and pain points throughout their journey, you empower them to become power users proficient in advanced features. This not only increases perceived product value but also drives product adoption, which helps to mitigate churn risk.

Here are some key metrics and areas of your customer education program to monitor:

• Engagement levels: Low course engagement indicates a lack of interest or difficulty grasping concepts. Customers who consistently avoid or drop out of training modules might be struggling with the product or losing interest, potentially leading to churn.
• Learning paths: Incomplete modules or specific areas of difficulty within training can pinpoint potential product roadblocks. Use this information to address specific concerns throughout the customer journey. Maybe a guide or tip sheet on a specific use case could improve engagement.
• Feature exploration: Limited engagement with training modules on advanced capabilities suggests the customer might not be aware of the product's full potential or it might not be relevant to their needs. Consider role-based training to ensure users are accessing the information most pertinent to their needs.

Training data can provide a window into customer behavior, revealing early signs of dissatisfaction before churn occurs. So, companies that want to transform their users into successful product champions should identify at-risk customers and proactively intervene with targeted support and training paths tailored to address their specific learning gaps.

How an LMS can elevate customer education

Let's explore how an LMS can enhance customer education, leading to more engaged customers who become product champions. An LMS acts as a centralized platform for creating, delivering, and tracking educational content:

• Personalized learning paths and analytics: Use your LMS to create personalized learning paths based on individual needs and usage patterns to ensure users receive the most relevant content. Plus, detailed analytics track engagement and learning outcomes, giving insights into customer understanding. This allows you to address potential churn risks with targeted interventions and uncover opportunities to expand product usage within your customer base.
• Community and peer-to-peer learning: Foster a thriving customer community through your LMS. The platform facilitates knowledge exchange and sharing success stories. These interactions not only strengthen customer relationships and increase product stickiness but also cultivate a vibrant community. Active communities are a powerful driving force for retention and can even help with product development by identifying potential enhancements or even new product opportunities based on user needs and discussions.
• Customer success integration: Third-party integrations, especially with customer success platforms like Totango, allow you to link your LMS with your CS workflows. This bridges the gap between educational content and customer interactions.

Learn how Entelo increased customer retention by 95% and improved its NPS score by 200% using Skilljar

Skilljar can help you build an engaged customer base

Building a knowledgeable customer base is an ongoing process and it’s easier with the right tools. Skilljar, a leading learning management system (LMS), empowers you to create effective learning experiences that cultivate product champions, drive higher TCV, and foster long-term customer retention. Skilljar offers features designed to elevate your customer education efforts, which include personalized learning paths, interactive content formats, advanced analytics and reporting, and an extensive list of third-party integrations.

Get a Skilljar demo to learn how our solution can help you build a solid customer base through engaging learning experiences.

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