What I mean when I say educated customer? It’s a customer who understands why he should buy your product and knows how to use it.
How do I get educated customers?
The more effort you put into making sure that potential customers understand the value of your products, the more qualified customers you get.
Let’s have an example: there are two companies. Both provide a SaaS platform (Software as a Service), for example a CRM marketing tool.
Company A uses their campaigns to communicate that their tool has the most features and is at a great price, plus it looks great. The provider demonstrates the features and beautiful videos show potential customers how simple to use the tool is. Plus, that you can try the software for free. Doesn’t it sound like an irresistible offer? Potential users will be attracted by the flashy marketing, and will try the trial version. The tool is really nicely done and has a friendly interface – really great job.
Company B also has a nice and a very helpful tool, and they could just show off how great the tool is. But this provider has a different strategy. They do campaigns to educate potential customers aout how to become successful marketers and how to work with customers. They teach their clients how to win deals and be successful in sales. Why? Because that’s the thing their customer actually cares about when he’s looking for CRM tools.
The winner
Company B is undoubtedly the winner for me and I’m going to highlight their approach.
This is a fictitious example and I don’t want to and can’t claim that Company B will be more successful. But what I do dare to say is that Company A’s CRM system will be preferred by customers for a different reason than the one of Company B. One provider offers a tool, the other one offers a solution.
Let’s suppose both providers successfully acquire new customers.
My assumption is that provider B will be more successful in the long run because their solution helped customers win new business. These customers will have a better understanding of what the value of this CRM is. They will therefore know that they need the tool and will be willing to pay for it and invest time in data entry and learning.
In this example, I was just trying to demonstrate two different approaches to client acquisition. Of course, it depends on what the product and company strategy and goals are and what kind of clients they need.
Benefits of educating the customers
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits Provider B gained by acquiring customers who know why they need their CRM.
Loyalty in exchange for helping the client
The provider taught the customer how to win new deals. Doesn’t the client at least partially associate his success with the CRM provider’s education?
Higher willingness to pay for the service, due to understanding its value
Customer perceives CRM as an important tool for winning deals. The CRM he chooses is developed by people who understand deal-winning and willingly share their skills.
Greater motivation to use the product
Customers know why they need the tool. If they are dealmakers, they will need the tool every day to win as many deals as possible.
Of course it doesn’t end with acquisition and onboarding.
It’s important to continue educating the customer. To ensure that the SaaS provider or any other service and product provider continues to support their clients.
An example could be further training not only on why to use the product, but how to use it properly – to make users absolute pros. If motivation and skill are combined together, you can congratulate yourself. You’ve gained a customer who is educated and these clients will most likely stay with you for a long time.
You can go even further. Like Hubspot which has created perhaps the best (at least in my eyes) customer academy in the SaaS world. Hubspot offers certifications to clients and others that become their partners. Or at the very least, inbound marketing experts. In 2016, Hubspot reported that their team issued over 70,000 certifications to their clients and other prospects. Imagine the huge sales force that their certified users represent.
Czech our academies.
What kind of education are we talking about?
Basically any education. The more a customer learns from you, the better. However, I recommend focusing on scalable training. Business is moving into digital world – and I’m not just talking about cloud services and e-commerce. I’m talking about all commerce and business decision making. Even if you manufacture aluminum profiles, your customers make decisions based on the content they see on a computer screen and on the Internet.
What is scalable education?
It includes online courses, online academies, shot and animated videos, screencasts, texts, interactive media, websites and the list could go on. The point is that it is content that you create once and it serves you repeatedly. It can educate even hundreds of thousands of clients.
You can read about how to build a customer academy in this article.
If you are interested in the topic of customer education, we invite you to join the courses and workshops at Playou School.
If you want and individual consultation or advice on customer education, please contact us and we will be happy to introduce you the possibilities.