When you think of a thriving business, what comes to mind? Profitability? Market share? Brand recognition? You’re not wrong – all of these are key to enterprise success.
But one of the most important, and frankly, overlooked, elements of success is customer education. Stay with us – customer education is the engine behind key metrics like product adoption. And if you think about it – product adoption is the driver behind nearly all booming businesses including profitability, market share, and brand recognition. User adoption impacts your revenue, your customer retention, and your brand loyalty.
So, what can you do to increase product adoption?
In this blog, we’re explaining what product adoption means, how a customer education platform supports it, and how these activities drive ROI.
What is product adoption?
Product adoption is how customers integrate new products or services into their workflows and lifestyles. This step comes after purchase – and is often neglected by busy organizations focused solely on selling. Your enterprise's relationship with your customers must continue beyond the transaction to help them realize a product's value and maximize usage. That’s where a customer education program comes in.
Why does product adoption matter in customer education programs?
Product adoption sits at the center of successful customer education programs. A meaningful customer education program differentiates a lifetime customer from a one-time purchaser. And product adoption metrics reflect the success of your customer training program. High adoption rates are a visible marker indicating your program’s success. It shows your organization delivers knowledge that helps customers use your product effectively.
What are the different stages of product adoption?
Product adoption isn’t a one-and-done. In a customer education program, understanding the different phases of a user’s product lifecycle helps you tailor your content and support for each phase.
Here’s a breakdown of the phases:
Onboarding
- What it is: Onboarding is the initial phase of product adoption and sets the stage for success.
- How customer education comes into play: Creating and delivering onboarding materials like tutorials and FAQs helps users understand your product’s core features.
- What your organization can do: Use a customer education platform to proactively address basic questions and troubleshoot initial hurdles through personalized training.
Active user
- What it is: At this point, customers are comfortable with basic functions but might not use the product to its full potential.
- How customer education comes into play: Provide intermediate-level training content that shares use cases and advanced features.
- What your organization can do: Offer ongoing support but encourage resources created as part of your customer education program. This builds self-sufficiency and reduces dependence on customer support.
Expansion
- What it is: Customers are actively using your product for complex tasks.
- How customer education comes into play: Delivering in-depth resources like extended technical guides or workshops can help customers reach their highest level of product knowledge.
- What your organization can do: Continue offering support for complex issues and encourage users to participate in community forums to help them learn from each other.
Advocacy
- What it is: Happy customers become brand ambassadors and promote your product to others.
- How customer education comes into play: Give them the tools to educate others on your product. For example, advocate toolkits with templates and talking points can be useful. You can feature these users in case studies for your customer education programs.
- What your organization can do: Build a dedicated support community to support these top-tier users.
New features and capabilities
- What it is: Onto the final stage of product adoption – your customers are ready for new functionalities.
- How customer education comes into play: Implement personalized training for these new features. Webinars and interactive sessions help users understand how to use the latest capabilities.
- What your organization can do: Consider hosting a live Q&A session with your product team to address questions or challenges.
How do you measure product adoption?
Measuring product adoption is a multi-faceted process. Depending on your organization’s product stage and customer segments, one method might work better.
Here’s a breakdown of how to measure user adoption with product adoption metrics:
- Engagement metrics like active users, time spent using your product, and completion rates of customer education modules help you gauge user interest. Tracking learner progress isn’t a manual effort with the right LMS tools, For instance, Absorb Analyze builds custom reports to track learner and training data.
- Product usage is measured through new feature adoption rates and user trends. For example, an online learning platform tracks 60% of users who use the product’s search function, but only 20% use the product comparison feature. This could indicate an underutilized feature that may benefit from investment in educational resources.
- Retention is a product adoption metric shown through customer churn rate. Although it isn’t directly tied to product adoption, it indicates your customer’s perceived value. For example, a low churn rate suggests that users are satisfied with the product.
The role of customer success teams in driving product adoption
Customer success teams are the major force behind product adoption. As customer advocates, they have a unique (and accurate) understanding of your client’s pain points and needs, bridging the gap between product development and support. With product teams, they share user feedback and usage details to support improvement and innovation. On the other hand, with customer support, they join efforts to help users overcome product adoption hurdles. These key enterprise partnerships help to optimize the product for adoption and ultimately, customer success.
How product adoption ties to ROI
Product adoption is a foundational element of return on investment (ROI) for many reasons. Here are a few:
- Improved customer satisfaction: Strong product adoption means customers actively use your product. This translates to a high renewal rate and referrals to other potential customers.
- Lower support costs: It’s no secret that hiring solid support staff isn’t cheap. Creating an education program drives product adoption and leads to customer success. It encourages individuals to self-service through training and frees up time for your staff to focus on more complex tasks. Less customer service inquiries + more strategic time for support staff = an efficient use of resources.
- Higher customer value: By supporting product adoption, you ensure customers get the most value from your product. This boosts the perceived value of your brand and translates into a higher ROI.
Findings from the recent Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ study commissioned by Absorb showed a composite organization representative of interviewed customers saw:
- A $590K increase in revenue from increased CX
- Reduced support costs of $383K
- A 1-point improvement in CX scores
- 20% reduction in advanced technical support and an 80% reduction in general help desk tickets
“By offering comprehensive training and certifications, we enable our customers to fully leverage our capabilities, thereby accelerating their onboarding process and reducing time to market. This creates a win-win situation, where customers gain expertise and proficiency while we benefit from increased adoption and customer loyalty.” LMS integration strategist, software
6 ways to drive product adoption with your customer training LMS
So, we’ve gone over what product adoption is and why it matters. But you might be wondering how to drive product adoption and create a customer education program to make it a success. Here are six ways outlining how to increase product adoption with a customer education platform:
Onboarding
Create a customer-focused onboarding program that sets users up for success from the start. Using a customer training LMS, you can build tutorials and step-by-step guides personalized to your users. For example, Absorb Skills creates customized learning paths based on individual needs.
Certification programs
Create brand advocates with advanced certification programs. A customer education platform can help you design courses with quizzes. Plus, users can earn badges or certifications to show off their knowledge.
Knowledge base integrations
For existing users, develop a comprehensive library filled with product information and FAQs. You can even integrate your LMS with your knowledge base, allowing learners to reference both resources quickly.
Skill-building modules
For advanced users ready for in-depth training, offer modules to hone their product skills. Similar to onboarding, personalized learning paths can help users move through training aligned with their skill level.
Gamified learning
Who said product education has to be boring? Engage your customers with interactive learning elements like points, badges, and leaderboards through gamification in your LMS.
Peer learning and community
Lastly, creating a collaborative learning space allows users to learn from and support one another. Through a customer education platform, you can build a discussion area, giving learners a sense of community to connect and ask clarifying questions.
Choosing the right customer training LMS
To set your organization ahead of the pack with customer education, you need a platform designed to make learning easy. That’s where we come in.
Our customer education platform, Absorb LMS, creates meaningful learning experiences that produce tangible results.
But don’t just take our word for it, one of our clients described our user-friendly LMS by saying, “The Absorb LMS stands out for myriad reasons, but what captivates me most is its unwavering commitment to user experience. Be that experience through a computer or mobile device. We have had over two thousand users access Absorb over the last year and have had wonderful feedback across the board. Seamlessly navigating through its interface feels like a breeze, making learning and managing courses effortlessly efficient.”
With a modern learning management system, you can create personalized learning experiences that drive revenue and champion your customer’s voice in a consistent and scalable way. Check out some of the ways you can enhance your customer training with an extended enterprise LMS.
