If you work in SaaS, there’s a by no means ending want for schooling surrounding your services or products. An account might be open for 10 years, however that firm will all the time have new customers that must be taught the ropes. Typically even present customers might take months, if not years, to undertake new options that exist simply past their consolation zone.
When your organization is simply getting off the bottom, you possibly can afford to — and will — do a variety of individualized schooling, as you might be studying from these early prospects simply as a lot as they’re studying from you. However as you scale, giving one to at least one demos or assist periods turns into way more troublesome.
Simply think about an organization of 10 or so workers with a buyer base of 1,000. It’s not sensible to anticipate each worker to have the ability to drop the whole lot and practice 100 prospects on a brand new product launch. And even when it have been, what concerning the new ones coming by way of your digital entrance door every day? Who will get them in control?
Whereas the thought could appear overwhelming, there’s no must panic. You’ll be able to simply meet the calls for of latest, outdated, and potential prospects alike by turning one on one periods into lessons.
Buyer schooling at Assist Scout
A few years in the past, as Assist Scout was rising quickly, we realized that we needed to begin scaling up our efforts to assist people get to know the product higher. Connecting with each particular person was nonetheless of the utmost significance, however it wanted to be in a method that also felt private when scaled out.
Internet hosting periods in a “class” format appeared like the right reply. Lessons take the strain off of your staff, whereas additionally giving every attendee a customized and pleasant studying expertise. Questions will be addressed dwell within the second, attendees can be taught from one another, and if wanted, you possibly can personally comply with up after the category with additional, tailor-made schooling for any people who want extra assist.
As soon as we knew that we wished to maneuver within the course of internet hosting lessons, we needed to resolve who would educate them. There are a variety of methods an organization may go together with this — gross sales reps, buyer success and product managers, and engineers all carry helpful perception to the desk. Nonetheless, for us, turning the method over to our assist staff made probably the most sense. Our assist staff is within the place of not solely understanding the product one of the best, but additionally understanding the job of buyer assist greatest.
We wished to current Assist Scout from that standpoint – that of an individual who does the very same job because the human on the opposite facet of the pc and deeply understands the issues that should be solved by a assist platform.
As soon as we knew which staff would personal this system, it was time to get to work!
Selecting a subject and making a script
When launching an schooling program, step one is to find out what matters you need to cowl. Clearly, we wished to sort out all types of issues like deep dives on particular parts of the app, new options, and app updates. Nonetheless, the rapid want was for a full product walkthrough.
Whereas it may be tempting to only “wing it” in terms of giving a product walkthrough, it’s often higher to create a script. Scripts make sure that you cowl the whole lot you got down to in the identical method, each time, guaranteeing that the data your viewers receives is constant, whatever the session they attend. In fact, you might advert lib a bit in case your viewers has questions, however you continue to need that base expertise to be repeatable.
On the subject of writing the script, we thought of these questions:
What are an important issues for individuals to find out about Assist Scout?
What have we discovered from our years of answering emails from people who find themselves simply getting began?
What ideas do they most want to know to achieve success?
As soon as written, the script grew to become a dwelling organism that would constantly be up to date relying on tendencies of questions that have been being requested not solely throughout the Q&A on the finish of each class, but additionally based mostly on emails we obtained from individuals within the queue.
Class is in session
With the script in hand, it was time to resolve ship the data to our viewers. There are many video internet hosting platforms on the market, however we settled on Zoom. Being a remote-first firm, Assist Scout had used it for 1:1s, staff conferences, and city halls for years. The pandemic, nevertheless, is what solidified our alternative for sticking with it for lessons as effectively.
Ever since 2020, Zoom has develop into a software that every one generations from grandparents to elementary college youngsters are acquainted with, so it relieves a variety of strain that individuals would possibly really feel when becoming a member of a studying session. When somebody attends a Assist Scout class, we would like them to be as snug as doable and there’s nothing much less snug than battling new software program!
From our facet of the display screen, the method we began out with is pretty just like the one we use for lessons as we speak. We use Zoom’s webinar product and all we now have to do is begin the session, share our display screen, after which we are able to run the category. Attendees can use the Q&A perform in Zoom to ask questions as we go alongside, after which we reply all of these on the finish of the session.
We’ve discovered that utilizing an exterior monitor is useful when instructing our lessons. It permits us to have our screenshare and script facet by facet, with solely the screenshare seen to attendees. Then we are able to have tabs open in our browser to shortly transfer between Assist Scout the app and different websites we would wish to present (like our data base) as we undergo the category.
As soon as we now have answered the entire questions and the category is full, we export the Q&A report from Zoom, after which comply with up with every person that requested a query by way of e-mail. That enables us to ship extra assets to them and even file a video for them that goes deeper right into a topic if want be.
For those who construct (and market) it, they are going to come
With a script in hand and video platform chosen, you’d assume we’d be all set to launch. However there was one factor we have been nonetheless lacking — advertising and marketing. We wanted a touchdown web page promoting our class in addition to a method for potential attendees to enroll.
If you begin from scratch you’ll be tempted to hack collectively the only answer, and that was undoubtedly our strategy. Six years in the past, the lessons web page was a GitHub file and modifications may solely be dealt with by me or a member of our ops staff. Fortunately, our course of has developed as our staff and tooling have grown.
We at the moment have a lessons web page that was constructed for us by the advertising and marketing staff. It’s each a repository for all of our on-demand lessons (movies of earlier periods that folk can view each time it’s handy for them) and a hub for the entire dwell lessons we’re providing at any given time. Attendees can use the embedded HubSpot type to enroll in the particular class they wish to attend.
Our CMS, Contentful, even shows the time of the category within the customer’s appropriate time zone in order that nobody has to fret about changing time zones when selecting which session to attend.
As soon as somebody fills out the shape to enroll in a category session, the data is handed on to our Zoom account. From there, Zoom handles sending out affirmation and reminder emails to the registrant. Then when it’s time for the category to start, the attendee can click on the Zoom hyperlink from their e-mail and are available proper into Zoom for the session.
We’ve refined our course of over time, however if you happen to’re simply beginning out, it’s not a nasty thought to start out enthusiastic about how you’re going to broaden the method as issues develop. For example, you might wish to take into consideration alternative ways to promote your class choices, comparable to social campaigns, mentioning them in your organization e-newsletter, and even instantly recommending them to prospects.
These few further hours of labor you place into designing scale could make an enormous distinction within the expertise of each your staff and their college students.
No girl is an island
Talking of scaling, there’s one other space wherein you’ll must deal with as you construct your schooling program — staffing.
As I discussed earlier, our assist staff runs all of Assist Scout’s lessons. Numerous individuals over time have taught the periods, however for 3 of the final 4 years, there was only one individual managing our efforts — me!
Class creation, scheduling, and execution have been all on my plate alongside my different day after day assist duties and through that point, I discovered so much. Nonetheless, after a couple of years in cost, I began to get the itch to develop my position of buyer schooling lead and dive into new tasks. I didn’t wish to fully abandon instructing lessons, however I wanted assist.
Fortunately, Assist Scout (and our assist staff particularly) believes in worker growth. Whereas I used to be on the lookout for the prospect to broaden my expertise outdoors of lessons, we additionally noticed the state of affairs as an awesome alternative for others to develop. In any case, presenting dwell (or on video) is an effective way to strengthen public talking abilities and construct confidence outdoors of the Inbox.
So we threw the chance out to see if anybody, no matter title or tenure, was excited by giving instructing a go. Some individuals have been eager to strive. Others have totally different pursuits comparable to deeper technical troubleshooting or a particular space of speciality throughout the product and wished to maintain their focus there. We inspired everybody to strive, however didn’t make it a requirement.
To people who raised their fingers, we set them up with the whole lot they’d must get began: the script for the category, directions on arrange their screens, and entry to step-by-step directions on arrange a webinar inside Zoom. From there, we inspired them to experiment throughout the software and file their follow periods for suggestions.
In subsequent to no time, what was a one girl manufacturing grew to become a gaggle of 5 individuals from our assist staff who now break up the duties of scheduling, creating new lessons, and internet hosting particular person periods. There was just one very last thing to resolve on — greatest talk with one another.
In the end, we landed on spinning up a devoted Slack channel only for these concerned with lessons to maintain the strains of communication open — Is one thing inside a category not working anymore? Is a selected time of day not as profitable as others? Have new wants come up that we have to pivot in direction of? No matter it’s, we focus on it in channel to maintain everybody concerned and within the loop.
Measuring success
We’re not beholden to management for particular numbers, as it’s agreed upon throughout the corporate that buyer schooling is one thing we wish to spend money on. Certainly one of our firm values is “completely satisfied to assist,” so from a enterprise perspective, we imagine instructing others — each about our product, but additionally about buyer assist matters usually — is simply the precise factor to do.
And whereas we didn’t have to justify our work, our staff wished to take issues a step additional and present the corporate at giant the affect our buyer schooling efforts have had on the underside line. So we teamed up with our income operations staff, who helped us hyperlink the signup type for our product walkthrough class to our database the place we measure conversions.
From that integration, we discovered that within the final 5 years, the category has transformed — an attendee grew to become a paying buyer — at a fee of 54%. In fact, we knew there’d be a correlation between class attendance and a better conversion fee. It’s solely pure, given the effort and time these people have put into studying extra about Assist Scout. Nonetheless, we’re fairly pleased with the outcomes and assume it’s a metric value maintaining a tally of.
As an extra, albeit anecdotal success measure, we’ve noticed that the overwhelming majority of those that attend considered one of our product walkthroughs wind up staying for all the session. That lets us know that we’re offering helpful data all through the whole thing of the category, and that we’re doing so in a method that’s really preserving our viewers’s consideration for the complete half-hour.
In a world the place most folk can’t even watch a film with out scrolling by way of social media, we predict that’s fairly spectacular!
Are buyer schooling lessons proper for what you are promoting?
At Assist Scout, we at the moment provide anyplace from three to 5 dwell lessons every week that cowl numerous matters, all of that are open to anybody who needs to attend and be taught. This contains those that are on the hunt for a brand new buyer communications software, new assist execs which can be onboarding with considered one of our present prospects, and even people who’ve been utilizing our product for some time and simply wish to dig in deeper.
If this appears like one thing you would possibly wish to do to your personal enterprise, ask your self:
Determine that drawback or piece of useful recommendation, write a ten minute script to cowl the subject, and simply begin doing it dwell.
In fact there are a couple of logistical hurdles to recover from. You’ll want a webinar license to your Zoom account, assist establishing a signup web page, and some keen souls (or at the very least one!) in your staff who’re prepared to present instructing a strive.
And issues will consistently be evolving. Having hosted dwell lessons in numerous types for greater than 10 years now, I’m nonetheless studying and iterating with every session. The bottom line is to only start after which hold an open thoughts — you’ll be stunned not simply by what you’re capable of impart to prospects, but additionally by the whole lot your prospects are capable of educate you.
