How Businesses Can Educate Their Customers to Improve Customer Satisfaction

For many years since first being published in a Harvard Business Review, it's a generally accepted rule that loyal customers buy more, purchase more often, cost you less to do business with, stay with you longer and are more likely to recommend you to others. So winning and keeping customers is vital to ensure the long-term success of any business.

There are many strategies to build customer loyalty such as building a winning culture in your organisation which I wrote about previously in this post.

You can also educate your customers to help them through the various stages of using your product or service. Offering free online courses are a great way to do this.

Software companies are usually very good at supporting their customers in this way. They know that the more educated their users are the fewer support calls they'll get, the happier the customer is and the fewer complains they'll receive.

The smart consumer will opt to buy from the company that’s educated him on the issue and presented him with multiple solutions. That company’s selflessness has built trust — and its ability to teach him has bought his loyalty in the future
– Mark Quinn

Benefits of Educating Customers

In the past there was has been a myth that educating customers makes them less loyal. Not true. In fact, research by Andreas Eisingerich & Simon Bel debunks the myth and reveals the opposite and that educating customers comes with considerable advantages instead.

Three key benefits are:

1. Educated Customers Boost Your Bottom Line

By reducing the number of customers you lose and have to replace each year you boost your business profitability. Your marketing costs are lower since you're spending less on acquiring new customers. And each customer that stays with you longer gets used to doing business with you and transaction costs are typically lower.

2. Educated Customers Complain Less 

It makes sense to help your customers however you can to avoid issues, complaints, and burdens on your support desk or customer service resource that come from dealing with customers that need help.

3. Educated Customers Are More Loyal

At a time when companies are using sneaky methods to lure as many prospects into using their products and service offers, customers are more likely to trust those brands that make efforts to enhance their knowledge.

Research has shown that educating customers strengthens their trust in a brand, and it can act as a key differentiator in a world where customers have so much choice amongst so many ME TOO offers.

Offer Free Online Courses to Help Solve Customer Issues

Providing a free online course for your customers is a great way to educate them about how to use your product or service. For example, Singer has dozens of helpful video tutorials on the YouTube channel all designed to improve the overall education and experience of Singer users.

Free online courses (these can be just a few minutes long) can also help potential customers find your product or service in the first place. So courses can help build brand awareness and expose potential users to the benefits of using your product before they go ahead and purchase it.

Regardless of what businesses you serve in the fashion sector the chances are offering free online courses will help you win new customers and better serve those you already have.

Online Courses can Help Customers in the Following Ways:

• Make a better choice about what to buy from you.
• Understand key features that are important to them.
• Better understand how you compare to the competition.
• Save them time in setting up and using your product or service.
• Reduce mistakes they make and contact they have with your support resource.
• Find new ways to achieve the results they desire.
• Feel more confident they have bought the right solution and eliminate any doubts.

Creating Your Own Online Customer Courses

There are four choices you have for creating an online course for your customers. These are:

1. Do It Yourself
2. Hire a Course Creation Consultant
3. Hire a Team of Freelancers
4. Use a Course Creation Company (as opposed to web designer.)

There are pluses and minuses to each approach but for most businesses where time is money and there's a need to have courses on the shelf within weeks and not months, choosing to work with a course creation company such as The Customer's Shoes, is the optimum route.

Read this post to find out more about the differences between these four approaches to online course creation.

If you are planning to develop a customer training video and need some further advice then talk to us by booking a free Clarity Call here.