B2B Organizations Can Evaluate their Customer Training Programs with Critical Business Insight from Over 150 Respondents, Including Data Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic’s Current Business Implications

Thought Industries, the world’s leading B2B customer training platform provider, announces the results of their 2020 State of Customer Training Report survey. Working with Claire Schooley, the former lead learning analyst at Forrester, the team surveyed over 150 participants spanning a variety of industries during Q1 2020 to gauge the perception of customer training in the workplace. The most significant survey findings revealed product adoption is seen as the top benefit of customer training, while usability is believed to be the most important aspect of a customer training platform. The report also indicated one of the biggest challenges is customer engagement and adoption, with customer retention and moving in-person training online becoming top priorities amid the current global pandemic.

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The survey findings come at a critical time of growth for the customer training industry, which is no longer seen as an afterthought tagged onto a company’s new service or product. While many other surveys examine employee training, the second annual State of Customer Training Report is the first of its kind to take an in-depth look at how companies are navigating the digital training options available for external training.

Other key findings include:

• 96% of respondents believe customer training is important to their organization
• COVID-19 has led to a major shift in the market, with 59% of respondents indicating retaining customers and moving from in-person to online training or virtual instructor-led training (vILT) are top priorities in light of the pandemic
• 85% said they have an LMS for employee training, yet just over half (57%) have one for customer training
• 75% have increased their customer training in the past five years, yet only 14% believe a majority of their customers are adequately trained
• 37% revealed their most deficient area is onboarding training, followed by 32% who indicated they could benefit from increasing customer training in the areas of ongoing engagement and retention
• Almost half (43%) noted they are struggling to measure the impact of customer training

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“As businesses rapidly shift to online learning to fill the void of in-person training and events, they’re at the crossroads of speed and quality,” said Barry Kelly, CEO, Thought Industries. “Our report shows that product adoption and learner engagement have become critical components of retaining customers and enhancing brand loyalty, while customer training has become an integral driver to business success at scale.”

Looking to the future, respondents noted a few goals for customer training in 2020 and beyond. Almost half (49%) want to expand their content library beyond feature functionality; 47% want to build out their training beyond the onboarding path; 43% want to incorporate online training within their product or platform; 39% want to get a better grasp on measuring their ROI.

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