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By David Boggs
Customer acquisition and customer retention are important
issues for any company today. A simple definition of "customer
acquisition" is the process of acquiring or obtaining new
customers, and/or converting prospects to customers. "Customer
retention" is the process of keeping, sustaining, and/or
growing the relationship your customers have with your company
and its products and services.
These activities become more involved for
business-to-business,
value-added, manufacturing, and technology companies that
create
and distribute complex products and services that require
training and specific product knowledge in order to use the
product or service effectively. Using e-learning, i.e., a
learning management system to deliver web-based training and
support for complex products and services has several
advantages.
Customer Acquisition Uses of Web-Based Learning Management
Systems (LMSs)
1) Educate your prospects on your products and services. One
advantage of using a e-learning to deliver product training
and
support is that the web-based LMS becomes an effective way in
which to educate a prospect on your products and services.
Sales cycles for complex products and services can take from
three to eighteen months or more to make the sale. In
business-to-business selling situations, several people at
many
different levels need to evaluate the product and must be
educated on your company's wares before they can come to a
decision.
2) Customize your approach to each of the different
stakeholders involved in the sale process. The Chief Financial
Officer (CFO) will have a different set of concerns about your
products and services than Chief Information Officer (CIO).
The
user interface layout and content of the web-based learning
management system can be customized to each of the specific
stakeholders' needs. A web-based learning management system
can
contain several courses, training modules, or repositories of
information specifically designed to meet the needs and
address
the concerns of all the various stakeholders in the decision
making process.
Most of the decision makers involved in business-to-business
purchases are busy, executive-level managers. Since the
information is web-based, they can access it and do a training
module at their convenience.
3) Establish a knowledge base for salespeople, resellers, and
partners. A web-based LMS used to deliver training and product
support is a great resource and knowledge base for your sales
team, resellers, and partners. It can provide a backup for
sales people, resellers, and partners that might not have the
same level of understanding of your products your field
engineers. Your sales executives, resellers, and partners will
feel more confident about offering your products and services
with a good library of training courses and helps available
24-7 on the web.
4) Ramp up your new salespeople more quickly and keep them on
the road. An e-learning system can be used to train your sales
force on your company's products and services. New sales
people
are able to ramp up more rapidly and start to sell your
products
and services in less time. With this system, they do not have
to
lose time off the road to be updated on the latest features
and
functionality.
5) Track your prospects as they move through the sales
process.
Web-based LMSs can track and provide data about your prospects
as they move through the stages of the sales process. With a
custom reports feature, the LMS allows the sales or marketing
manager to go directly to the web to pull the latest reports
on
all prospect activity.
6) Harvest other types of information from your market to help
your company close business more quickly. In addition to the
data collected on your prospects, a web-based learning
management system can be used to monitor your sales force or
other users' activities. The sales or marketing manager can
access web-based reports to see what products the sales force
is actually working to sell and deploy. This data can be used
for research and development, to plan product initiatives, to
obtain insight on repositioning, and other tactical and
strategic initiatives.
7) Promote your products and services to prospects using the
features in the web-based learning management system. Once a
prospect's information has been loaded into the LMS, you can
use the features and functionality of the system to promote
your products and services. For example, a built-in, online
survey tool allows you to send surveys to your prospects with
the data being recorded in the learning management system.
E-mail messaging capabilities in a web-based LMS allow you to
send e-mail marketing campaigns your prospects. Sales and
marketing people can use the learning management system to
conduct "webinars" using its integrated web conferencing
technology. The web conference can then be archived and used
in
the future. Creative marketers can develop promotions using
the
testing feature with the information returning to the LMS
database.
About The Author: Dave Boggs is the founder and CEO of
SyberWorks, Inc (www.syberworks.com). He has been
involved with computer-based and web-based training for more
than twelve years. Before founding SyberWorks, Dave was the VP
of Sales and Business Development for Relational Courseware.
He
holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Union
College
in Schenectady, NY, and an MBA from the Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.
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