What's Mobile Training & Why's it Important?

What's Mobile Training?

Mobile training is online learning that’s designed to be completed on mobile devices. Mobile training is becoming increasingly popular now that nearly everyone has a mobile device of some kind.

Types Of Mobile Learning

User education can benefit several different categories of users, including customers, employees, partners, and gig workers.

Each of these groups has something to gain from mobile training as well.

Let's take a closer look at how different types of mobile learning content could help each of these groups be more successful with your products.

Customers

Traditional customer education tactics like in-person training sessions led by an instructor are no longer as effective as they once were. In the past, methods like this one have been the primary way to deliver training resources to your customers. However, they are time-consuming and expensive, and they’re very difficult to scale. 

As your customer base grows, it'll become harder and harder to offer enough in-person training sessions to accommodate everyone without spending an enormous amount of time, effort and money on your customer training program. Mobile training makes it possible for all your customers to access the same training materials whenever they need them, no matter how large your customer base is.

Employees

Employees at your organization can also benefit from mobile training. Your employees are already doing a lot of their work on mobile devices, so it would likely be extremely convenient for them to also be able to quickly access all the product information they need directly from their mobile devices. In addition, remote work is a trend that continues to grow.

By 2025, approximately 36.2mm people in the United States could be working remotely. Mobile learning opportunities are going to be absolutely essential for these workers.

Gig 

Just like remote employees, gig workers need access to training resources via mobile devices. Training gig workers would be nearly impossible with scheduled in-person training courses. Mobile training resources allow a disparate gig workforce to access the same learning content no matter where they are.

Partners

If you distribute your products through a network of partners, it's important to ensure all your partners are providing a consistent brand experience for customers who are purchasing your products through them. Just like gig workers, it would be unrealistic to expect your partners to come from all over to attend in-person training sessions. It would also be very difficult and resource-intensive for your organization to set up such a training program. By giving partners access to convenient mobile training tools, you can ensure they all receive comprehensive and consistent product education anywhere they’re located.

Why's Mobile Training Important? 

It’s hard to overstate the importance of mobile training. Educating your users about your product is an important task in general, so it’s essential to implement the best methods.

One of the most effective ways to educate your employees and customers is with mobile training tools. When you give your users the option for mobile learning, you can improve the quality of your user education experience in many ways.

Some of the reasons it’s important to implement a mobile training strategy include:

• Your users have already fully adopted mobile devices
• Your users expect mobile capabilities
• Mobile training is more accessible than most other kinds of training

Mobile is the Norm

Building a mobile learning program makes a lot of sense because mobile devices are already commonplace in business. Chances are, employees at your organization already bring their own mobile devices with them to work, like smartphones or tablets, and use them for various work-related tasks throughout the day. 

Checking email, attending Zoom meetings, and other business-related tasks can already be completed with nothing more than a mobile device.

Why not add education to this list and give your employees the freedom to complete training courses from wherever their busy schedules take them?

Users Expect On-demand Training

The days of scheduled in-person seminars and training sessions are behind us at this point. Now, your customers and employees expect to be able to access training or informational resources anytime they need them. 

Making this possible for them is a win-win for everyone: Customers and employees don’t have to wait for the next training session to get answers or develop the skills they need, which benefits your organization by shortening time to value for customers and increasing employee productivity.

Adopting a mobile learning strategy gives your customers and employees the power to take charge of their own product education and learn whenever the need arises.

Accessibility is Key

Your organization’s educational resources are only as useful as they are accessible. If your customers and employees have to go to a lot of trouble to find and access your training content, they won’t get the most out of it. Instead, they’ll likely grow frustrated that they can’t find the information they need. And, of course, they won’t receive the benefits of expanded product knowledge.

By making mobile training available to your customers and employees, you can enable them to access training content anytime, from nearly anywhere. This means they never have to search very hard for the knowledge they need because they each have a convenient gateway to it right in their pocket.

Mobile Learning Examples

There are all kinds of ways to approach mobile learning and many different ways mobile training courses can benefit different kinds of organizations.

Looking at some examples of mobile learning is a great way to see how to apply it. 

Here are a few examples of successful mobile training programs from real companies:

Walmart

Walmart used mobile training tools to power a microlearning strategy aimed at reducing safety incidents in the workplace. The program ultimately yielded a 15% increase in employee knowledge of safety topics and a 91% rate of voluntary participation in the training program. Even better, safety incidents at work were reduced by 54%.

Home Depot

Home Depot leveraged mobile training to provide better service to its customers. Customer-facing employees are equipped with tablets that contain a vast array of relevant customer support content, like answers to frequently asked questions and information about competitors. This empowers store associates to provide faster and more accurate assistance to customers who need it.

Babierge

Babierge is another great mobile learning example. Using mobile learning tactics, Babierge succeeded in reducing onboarding time for new employees from two weeks to just three days. This has enabled a 75% decrease in the amount of time that must be spent on onboarding support. Thanks to mobile learning capabilities, Babierge’s onboarding program is far more efficient than it was before.

Merrill Lynch

By implementing mobile training, Merrill Lynch managed to streamline compliance training and cut down the time it takes by a considerable amount. The company concluded that after adopting a mobile compliance training program, employees finished their compliance training in as little as 20% of the time it took before the switch to mobile learning. The program also recorded a 12% higher course completion rate and no discernable loss of employee comprehension.

Mobile LMS

Implementing a mobile user education strategy has a lot of benefits, but it requires some special tools to set up correctly. One kind of tool that can make the process of building a mobile education program much easier is a mobile LMS.

LMS stands for learning management system, and it's a kind of software that facilitates the creation, delivery, and management of online learning content. By using an LMS that fully supports mobile learning content, you can easily craft a robust mobile education program for your employees, customers, partners, and gig workers. Northpass is an award-winning learning management system with the features you need to develop comprehensive mobile training courses.