You’re reading the final post in a five part series on recognizing whether and when you need to build an enterprise software training function. You can read the complete series here.

by Bill Cushard (@BillCush)

Throughout this series of blog posts, I have shared many reasons to consider when determining whether your enterprise software customers need training. Even if it becomes obvious that your customers need training, it is not so easy to just start offering training. Training is hard, training is time consuming, and training is expensive to develop. Training is also a necessary condition when selling software into the enterprise market, particularly in larger enterprises. The good news is that this decision is much more than just about whether or not to offer training. It is about deciding whether you should build a training business that can help your customers succeed and help you grow your business.

If, after reading the first four parts of this blog series, you are still not convinced that your customers need training, below are four additional reasons to help you make this decision.

You know your enterprise software customers need training when...

1. You want to reduce the amount of time it takes to on-board customers

On-boarding new customers can be time consuming and expensive. When you begin to calculate the time spent by your services team implementing your solution and the time spent by support answering questions from employees of your customers, the time spent can be staggering. The last thing you want to do is spend too long on-boarding new customers. Not only is there a direct cost of people's time bringing a new customer up-to-speed, but there is an opportunity cost of not on-boarding other customers. An organized and repeatable training program can take some of the load off of your services and support teams, which will speed up the on-boarding process.

If your training function paid for itself or even made a profit on it's own, what would that be worth to you?

How much money would you save on direct expenses by shortening the on-boarding process by one week? By two weeks? How much could you increase revenues by speeding up the on-boarding process and getting more customers on-boarded in shorter time frames? Think about those figures as you scale your business? If an organized training program can help you do this, how much would you invest in building a training function? Last question: If your training function paid for itself or even made a profit on it's own, what would that be worth to you?

2. If your customers are not using all the features of your product

One leading indicator of a customer who will not renew your service is a customer who uses few of your product features. In general, we know of the struggles to get people to use more than just the basic features of any type of software. There is evidence to support this assumption. According to the 2012 Adoption Insight Survey, enterprise software adoption is falling. To survive, you need to increase customer adoption at the feature-level to increase the chances that your customers are successful and renew their service agreement with you. Training can be a great way to do that. Training courses can be designed so that customers can learn how to use your product right from the start.

Training courses can be designed so that customers can learn how to use your product right from the start.

But there is another problem. Employee turnover, which averages 13% to 15%. And if you sell to customer service or sales organizations, annual turnover can be much higher. If you have an organized and repeatable training program in place, when your customers hire new people, they can be enrolled in your training courses, preventing your customers from missing a beat.

3. If you want to make an outstanding first impression on your customers or potential customers

What could be a better first impression of your company than for a new customer to show up at a training course with an enthusiastic and knowledgeable trainer who not only facilitates a great training class, but also indoctrinates new customers with t-shirts and unbridled enthusiasm?

Even if you offer virtual training, it is impressive to follow up on a signed contract with an implementation plan that includes a complete training schedule. In doing this, you look organized, professional, and say to your customer, 'We are here to support you and help you be successful.'

4. If you want to increase customer satisfaction

According to Gainsight, the number one reason for customer churn is that customer expectations are not met. When customer expectations are not met, your relationship starts off on the wrong foot, making it difficult to recover. What makes things worse is that the person who bought your product is not necessarily the person who uses it. And if users' expectations are not met, the risk of churn goes way up. A great way to set customers expectations from the start is with training. Great training shows customers the best way to use the product as it was designed, giving them the best experience with it, reducing friction and increasing satisfaction.

From Whether to How

Once you have decided that you want to build a software training business, the next step is to figure out how. In future posts, I will address issues that include assessing your current stage in a training function maturity model, possible training organization structures, role descriptions, how to select a learning management system (LMS), and training method options, to name a few.