Product knowledge is a key part of many businesses, in terms of customer service as well as operational efficiency and effectiveness.
Many businesses struggle in terms of their employee product knowledge and it’s one of the key factors that holds them back from being as competitive as they’d like to be.
e-Learning helps employers create product training that lets employees gain a full understanding of not just the basics of the products offered by their business, but also how to best sell them to the customer.
Some of the advantages of using online learning for product training include:
- It’s available anytime, anywhere. This is a big benefit when it comes to training employees on products. With a learning management system your employees can not only complete their initial training on a desktop computer or mobile device, but they can also give themselves a refresher course or quickly access information on-the-fly. It really provides your employees with all they need to close a sale right at their fingertips, which is one of the most unique aspects we see when comparing online training and a learning management system to traditional classroom training.
- e-Learning tends to be more engaging and therefore more effective. It can be a challenge for employees to sit through days of classroom training to learn about a new product, and that means it’s also probably going to be difficult for them to retain information. With an LMS you can present product information in a way that’s interactive, with byte-sized bits of information. Training is straightforward and it feels fresh and exciting.
- When updates to products occur it’s easy to change your training materials. If you rely on traditional training methods and there’s a small change in your product that needs to be changed you’re going to overhaul everything. With an LMS you can go in, make the necessary changes in a matter of minutes and then training is up and ready to deploy.
Along with those advantages, there are some tips you can use when it comes to training your employees on your products and ensuring you’re getting the maximum return on your training costs:
- Combine e-Learning and online training with hands-on experience. Using these two techniques allows each method of training to bolster the other. Present the technical and relevant information in an LMS format and then allow your employees to have that information reinforced as they interact in a hands-on way with the products.
- Training needs to be consistent and on-going to ensure employees stay on top of products. Don’t expect to train your employees once and have them retain all of the necessary knowledge to effectively sell products. Instead, look at product training as a long-term proposition where there’s initial training but then continual development and refreshers. e-Learning provides an efficient and cost-effective way to deliver continual product training.
- Include in your training not just the specs and features and benefits of a product—use your online training as a way to show how these products address problems of the customer. One great way to do this is through the use of interactive scenarios and case studies within your e-Learning. This allows your employees to delve into not just the basics but also to become more engaged in how the product is useful and relevant. Employees can then take the facts and features about the product and make them applicable to problem-solving for the customer.
- When you’re creating training quizzes don’t just test employees on the features of the product—refer back to the tip above and also ask them to critically think when it comes to assessing their knowledge. Present them with various situations and let them determine how they would approach these situations while simultaneously selling the product.
These are just a few of the ways you can improve your online product training. e-Learning with eLeaP provides the tools and resources you need to deliver impactful product training that’s going to resonate with employees and that can become a long-term development opportunity.
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