How to Lead Online Customer Training

In March 2020 it seemed like the entire world suddenly went virtual–and much of it did. Suddenly organizations around the globe needed to come up with different ways of interacting with employees, customers and others. While companies have certainly been faced with a lot of challenges over the last several months, they’ve also been presented with some new opportunities—such as using virtual technology like Zoom for online customer training.

Customer training is important for a wide range of organizations. In particular, those offering software as a service (SaaS) need to effectively train customers and staff on their platforms.

Zoom for Online Customer Onboarding

For SaaS companies, the ability to ensure that customers can quickly get up to speed to use their projects effectively and efficiently is important for boosting satisfaction and ensuring a positive customer experience from the very beginning of the relationship.

Nectar HR is an example of this type of company. An employee recognition and rewards software developer, Nectar HR’s CEO Trevor Larson says: “Training our customers to use our software is important if they are to maximize the value they get out of it, and Zoom can be an effective training method because it allows you to share your screen and walk people through your product or service.” Using Zoom for online customer training has additional benefits, Larson says, “because you can record and save the meetings and then send them to customers as files that they can reference at their convenience.”

Zoom works well for online customer onboarding, says Larson. Although there are other customer training solutions, the ubiquitous nature of Zoom makes it especially convenient.

Of course, SaaS companies aren’t the only ones that can benefit from using Zoom for customer training and customer onboarding. In truth, any type of company can utilize Zoom to improve its customer experience. Zoom can also be an effective customer retention strategy, offering a way to get in front of customers to maintain awareness for your company and what it has to offer.

For example:

• Cosmetics companies can use Zoom to demonstrate how to effectively use their products
• Home improvements retailers can demonstrate projects and do-it-yourself options for homeowners and others
• Food service companies can share and demonstrate recipes

The possibilities really are limitless when thinking about ways that Zoom can be used for online customer training, onboarding, and retention now, and into the future.

Another popular way that Zoom can be, and has been, used for—even before the pandemic—is for holding webinars.

Zoom Webinars for Customer Training Online & At Scale

Simon Elkjaer is chief marketing officer at avXperten, an electronics retailer in Denmark that uses webinars for customer training. When doing customer training online via webinars, Elkjaer says, it’s important to think about customer engagement and the customer experience.

“In order for it to be truly effective, you need to make use of interactive content such as slides, infographics, videos, and the like so that it’ll be more engaging to your customers and make them feel more involved.”

He also recommends holding Q&A sessions so customers have an opportunity to speak up and ask for any needed clarifications. “You can also include surveys and games at the end of the webinar to check if your customers found the webinar effective. You can then use this insight to improve and optimize your webinars even further,” he says.

Webinars can be offered live, made available via company websites in an asynchronous format, or both. The flexibility of Zoom’s many presentation and recording options give companies a variety of choices for meeting customer needs.

While companies have ample opportunity to think about how they might use Zoom proactively to improve customer experiences, there are times when they may need to step in to remedy a poor experience or product breakdown. In these instances, Zoom can also be a great tool for troubleshooting.

Zoom as a Customer Troubleshooting Tool

During the pandemic, in situations where social distancing was a must do, many companies needed to think of new ways to work with customers when breakdowns occurred. Digital technology was definitely a big boon here. Technology firms are probably most experienced with this type of customer interaction as they address issues customers may have with using software or handling technology breakdowns.

Annie Gray, director of customer success with LiveHelpNow, says, “as with most software companies, we needed to find a way to troubleshoot technical issues that users were having, and Zoom’s remote-control feature solved this for us.” It’s a feature, she says, that allows companies to take control of participants’ desktops so they can quickly identify what might be causing an issue and then solve the issue on the spot. It’s also an option that can reduce resolution time from hours to minutes, she says.

Being readily and easily accessible to customers, especially in a digital environment, should be one of every company’s go-to customer retention strategies. Zoom can make that happen easily and seamlessly ensuring a positive customer experience even, and especially, when things may go wrong.

Additional Best Practices for Using Zoom for Customer Training

It may go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: mind the basics. Reuben Yonatan, founder, and CEO of GetVoIP, reminds company leaders to dress professionally. “Even if they show up in casual clothing, you want to look your best,” he says. “Dress more formally than you would for any other Zoom call, because you’re representing the company at one of its most important customer inflection points.”

Another basic best practice is to be mindful of your background and your video filters. You’ve probably heard about the now-infamous “cat lawyer”, who somehow inadvertently applied a cat filter to his image during a Zoom call. “Choose a background that’s relevant to your business and the training topic and keep it consistent across sessions,” Yonatan recommends.

Finally, be prepared. Practice makes perfect, but Larson also recommends always working from a script when training customers “so that your instructions don’t seem haphazard and unprofessional.” Also, take it slow so new learners can easily follow along, he says.

For now, and far into the future, Zoom offers some great functionality for customer training and the opportunity to create new touchpoints with customers to help boost both your brand and the customer experience.