Customer Satisfaction Tops List of Reasons to Train Customers

Expertus, a provider of services that optimize the business impact of learning, and Training Industry, Inc., an objective and trusted expert on the marketplace for learning, recently announced the findings from their joint study, Optimizing Customer Training. The results revealed that customer satisfaction is the leading reason that organizations implement and maintain customer training.

The vast majority of respondents both expected and attained improved customer satisfaction from their customer training programs. 82% of respondents expected improved customer satisfaction from their customer training. 93% reported results in this area; 53% realized strong benefits and 40% realized moderate benefits.

There were only two other areas where over one-third of survey respondents reported a strong benefit - increases in customer retention and increases in training revenue. 88% reported increases in customer retention, with 36% reporting a strong impact in this area.

Higher training revenue was also reported as a strong benefit, particularly among the 58% of respondents who operate their customer training as profit centers. 88% of those in profit centers reported increased training revenue – with 63% reporting a strong increase.

--48% of survey respondents believed that customer training budgets would rise in 2009, compared with 32% of respondents who believed that employee training budgets would increase next year. Further, 41% believe customer training budgets would grow by over 10%, with as many as 19% expecting it to increase by over 20%.

--The vast majority of companies use website and email marketing to market training to their customers, which many also considered to be the most effective way to market their programs.

--Webinar technology is used most frequently to deliver customer training.

--The two top challenges in customer training relate to a lack of resources – in staffing and marketing expertise or budget.

More information on customer service and support can be found at www.supportindustry.com