.png?width=3251&height=1107&name=NP_ByGS_ColorLogo%20(1).png "Northpass By Gainsight logo")
Consumer Education: The Definitive Guide for B2C Online Training Teams
Download this Customer Education RFP to find the perfect LMS to power your program.
Reaching the pinnacle of the B2C world has never been more challenging. Between an endless list of options from which to choose, shifting consumer behaviors, evolving technology and a whole lot more, countless B2C companies are fighting to stand out. For the vast majority, that means product or service development. After all, the best product or service wins, right? Not anymore. Moving forward, the most successful B2C companies will emerge victorious thanks to a steadfast dedication to consumer education.
Consumer education is an educationally driven initiative aimed at helping B2C companies provide consumers with the information and resources they need to make informed buying decisions. Post-purchase, consumer education seeks to help consumers be successful with the product or service.
Financial: A financial institute could use consumer education to help people become proficient with its mobile banking app.
Real Estate: A real estate company could use consumer education to help people understand how to use its service to purchase a new home.
Gig Economy: A grocery delivery app could use consumer education to show new users how to create their accounts and get started.
The difference between the two types of training is the companies using the training and their target learner. Consumer education applies to B2C companies and consumers (i.e., a person who purchases goods and services for personal use). At the same time, customer education is linked to B2B companies and customers (i.e., someone who purchases another company’s goods or services).
Consumer education and customer education are very similar because they both have the same goals: Provide people using their product or service (or thinking about using it) with the knowledge and resources they need to be successful and extract the intended value.
The difference between customer and consumer education can be hard to decipher, mainly because the two terms are often used interchangeably. What’s not hard to understand are the benefits. For B2C companies on the fence about implementing a consumer education program or teams struggling to get leadership buy-in, here are five benefits you should start screaming from the mountain top.
A consumer’s path to purchase is rarely linear. Today, consumers go through awareness and consideration stages before making a purchase. After that, they go into the loyalty and retention stages, where companies fight for their future business. All of these stages include touchpoints with internal teams and provide value either before or after the sale. However, consumer-facing teams need to be experts on the product or service for these touchpoints to be valuable. A consumer education program makes sure this happens.
When someone buys something, the onus falls on the company to prove value — show them that they made the right choice. This is why an onboarding strategy is so important. By building an onboarding strategy on a foundation of consumer education, B2C companies can decrease time-to-value and help consumers realize the benefits of a product or service before they start questioning their decision and looking for an alternative.
Consumer education is a cross-functional initiative touched by many teams, including Sales, Marketing and Support. For a consumer education program to be truly successful, these teams must walk in unison toward the same objective. The only way for them to do that is if there’s a seamless connection between them. Building a training program on the back of an LMS with a CRM integration can automatically share information among relevant parties. Everyone can work together to create the best learning outcomes for consumers.
The goal of consumer education is to add value for a specific audience through informative content — whether they’re currently paying for a product or service or not. A public-facing consumer education program offers these very people high-impact and relevant content that helps them learn, become familiar with the company and ultimately raise them higher in consumers’ consideration set, leading to more organic growth (and revenue) over time.
One of the most significant benefits of a consumer education program is its impact on the entire consumer lifecycle. In the beginning, consumer education accelerates onboarding and drives initial adoption. Ongoing training encourages continued product usage. And finally, a long-term strategy increases retention and revenue.
The most successful consumer education teams are cross-functional and comprise people from every internal team the program impacts. These people should bring different skillsets to the table, helping create a well-rounded program that generates real-world results for everyone involved.
That said, the positions below are a “best case” scenario and filling them all right away is by no means a requirement to get started. In reality, a Consumer Education team of one or two people could get the ball rolling and grow over time.
That said, the positions below are a “best case” scenario and filling them all right away is by no means a requirement to get started. In reality, a Consumer Education team of one or two people could get the ball rolling and grow over time.
The executive sponsor is the liaison between the Consumer Education team and the Leadership team. As the executive sponsor, this person keeps the team aligned with the overarching company goals.
The SME is the brains behind the content and works closely with designers to translate their knowledge into visual resources.
The instructional designer works hand-in-hand with the SME to transform their knowledge and expertise into a thoughtful course structure that encourages learning and retention. In addition to an instructional designer, a well-rounded Consumer Education team will include a traditional graphic designer — even better if they have video experience.
The technical lead is responsible for any technology (learning management system) powering the training program and issues during implementation and after.
Unlike some company-wide initiatives, especially ones with the potential to generate a substantial financial return, launching a consumer education program doesn’t necessarily have to eat into a ton of resources. B2C companies interested in getting started can do so in relatively few steps.
The first step of starting a consumer education program destined for success involves setting goals with people from other internal teams.
Business Goals: These goals involve conversations with the c-suite and board (if applicable). Business goals revolve around the metrics the top of the company uses to steer the ship — for example, consumer acquisition and revenue growth.
Departmental Goals: These goals come from department leads from any team impacted by the training program — for example, cost per lead for the Marketing team.
Team Goals: These goals come directly from the Consumer Education team and the proxies they use to gauge the program’s efficacy — for example, course completion rate.
Understanding how the entire company measures success, consumer education programs can get started on the right foot and maintain long-term traction.
The first iteration of most consumer education programs won’t be perfect. Why? Because the necessary resources to build out a robust strategy aren’t available. While a lack of resources is never a good thing, it shouldn’t stop Consumer Education teams from getting started. The key to this step is a shift in mindset.
Focus on Gains, Not Gaps: It’s understandable how and why upstart Consumer Education teams fixate on world-class programs. Why wouldn’t they? But getting stuck in the mud of envy can’t happen. Rather than focus on what could be, it’s essential to prioritize what can be in the here and now. What steps/projects are possible right now and can make an immediate impact?
Borrow Resources: Consumer Education teams struggling to find the resources they need to get started should look toward other teams to see if they have resources available.
Communicate Often: The spoken word still has swaying power, which is why anyone involved in consumer education should connect with as many people as possible and explain what they’re up to and why consumer education is a smart investment. Eventually, word will spread and translate to momentum, buy-in and budget.
With all company levels aligned on the program’s goals and the team knowing what they have available to reach them, the next step is to create the learning content and launch the program.
To create meaningful content that’ll drive consumers toward the intended outcomes, Consumer Education teams should consider the following:
The Subject Matter: What’s the learning outcome for the consumer? For example, a financial institution could educate consumers about how and why its service is superior to the competition. This is the subject matter and the foundation for the content creation process.
The Content Mix (Medium): Which types (mediums) of content will the team use to deliver it to consumers? Most Consumer Education teams use a mix of blog posts, webinars, infographics, quizzes and instructor-led training. The agreed-upon content mix should align with the learning preferences and behaviors of the target consumer.
Content Length: How long will the blog posts, webinars and other content be? While there’s nothing against creating long-form content, most successful Consumer Education teams will pour their efforts into creating short-form content that meets the needs of the on-to-go consumer. This is commonly referred to as microlearning.
The Delivery Method: Successful consumer education relies just as much on the delivery method as it does on the content. Similar to the content length, the delivery method should match the persona of the consumers.
Once content creation for v1 of the training program is ready to rumble, it’s time to onboard the first consumers and begin the learning experience.
Consumer education is an iterative process, so measuring training effectiveness is imperative to long-term success and leadership buy-in. To that end, Consumer Education teams frequently look at what’s working, what isn’t and make necessary adjustments. And then do it all again.
Are people not completing specific courses? Are they not engaging with certain content? Are they not achieving the intended outcomes? These answers will spark the evolution of the training program and improve it to create better learning outcomes. That said, the savviest teams will dive deeper to understand how the training program is performing.
Proficiency: Are they engaging with the app more? Are they using more features? Are cancellation rates down?
Operational Efficiency: Is time-to-value decreasing? Are there changes to user productivity and usage? Are more users engaging?
Growth: Is revenue increasing? Does a consumer who went through training spend more over their lifetime than someone who didn’t?
Support Costs: Are support-related costs decreasing? Is the Support team receiving fewer tickets or able to close them faster?
Data is the objective pillar that drives every successful consumer education program and is necessary to create improvements in the best interest of consumers. Every piece of data serves as a guiding light that illuminates the path to consumer education success.
The growing popularity of consumer education continues to build upon the learning management system market. Today, Consumer Education teams have a seemingly endless list of LMSs available from which to choose, which begs the question: Which one is the best?
The answer to that question will vary based on the company’s learning needs, so there’ no steadfast answer teams can turn to when making their selection. That said, there are a handful of features they should prioritize that’ll help them be successful now and in the future.
Scalability: Any successful consumer education program will grow over time as more resources and budgets become available. For this reason, having an LMS that can scale with a growing program is mission-critical to all Consumer Education teams. The LMS should be flexible and agile enough to allow the team to evolve their program without disrupting the learning experience or brand standards.
Usability: Compare the best consumer education programs and it’s clear that they all share a common trait: They’re all straightforward for consumers to use. The success of a training program relies on the LMS has features that make the learning experience incredibly intuitive and easy to use. Consumers going through the content should have absolutely no confusion about their expectations or how to achieve the intended outcomes. Mobile-friendly interfaces and learning paths fall into this category.
Analytics: Old-school learning resources like in-person training and manuals lack the analytical prowess for teams to make meaningful adjustments, the same adjustments necessary to maintain engagement. Therefore, a training program that wants to keep its legs for any substantial time must be backed by powerful analytics that gives consumer-level performance insights.
Like anything in the business world, having a successful consumer education program relies on adopting best practices. The list of best practices is constantly evolving based on the learning behaviors and preferences of consumers. Still, there are a few that remain throughout it all: microlearning, visuals and personalization.
Microlearning uses short, “bite-sized” segments of content instead of blocks of text, lengthy seminars or unreasonably long videos to encourage on-the-go learners and aid in knowledge retention. The key to a successful microlearning strategy is to offset the reduced length of lessons with increased frequency and interaction (i.e., consumers see shorter videos more often). Not only does microlearning help people retain the information, but it’s also effective at building momentum that consumers can rely on to learn continuously.
Video is nearly always the preferred consumption mechanism for people, which is why training teams should place a premium on bringing as many learning experiences to life as possible. In addition to upping video utilizations, quizzes and other engagement-driven tactics are a great way to help with content comprehension, retention and decrease the chances for burnout.
No matter the stage or state of the training program, personalizing it to address the unique needs of individual consumers is paramount. The best consumer education programs will prioritize using features like properties and learning paths to tailor the content to different consumers' specific problems and pain points.
Thank you.
