Are you “training the trainer” or are you just being lazy?

Having a customer who has developed robust internal training for your product is the holy grail of any SaaS company with a highly customizable solution. They’ve created customized versions of training materials tailored to their own workflows? Amazing! They’ve made it a part of their employee onboarding process? Sweet! And…unfortunately rare. So how do you help make this happen?

What doesn’t work is just putting one or two people through your training and then sending them on their merry way. Hoping they’ll take the next steps to develop their own customized training is not a strategy. Depending on your product and your customer, you may be relying on folks who don’t even do training for a living — they are just people who are using or administering your product as part of their day jobs. And if your customer does have an internal training team, keep in mind that they are most likely NOT users of your product and therefor will have much less knowledge or understanding of how it works and what value it brings. Do not leave either of these two types of trainers empty handed! Expecting your trainers to start with a blank piece of paper sets them up for failure.

It is possible to provide training materials that can be customized — even video content. Here’s how:

— Create slides and provide them to the customer in an editable format. They can swap out screen shots and edit the content. Don’t forget to provide the talk track in the notes! Include an FAQ and answers.

— Create bite-size video content. The smaller you make each piece, the more easily your customer can mix and match to adapt it to their workflows, or record a version with a slight tweak if needed.

— Provide email templates for things like inviting new users to the system. Incorporate the “why” of the product and how it’s expected to be used within the organization. It’s much easier for your customer to edit this to fit their processes and culture than to create it from scratch. After all, who can pitch your product better than you?

— Even for a highly customized product, your standard self-serve training can still be useful. Don’t overthink the customization component. “Generic” training can still provide end users with a useful overview of the product and how it works. People are used to SaaS products being customized and likely understand that components of their version may be slightly different.

— Don’t forget to update your materials when there are major changes. Give your customer trainers a way to incorporate the new features into their existing content.

So don’t be lazy just because your product is highly customized! There’s lots you can do to set your customer up for success. Get cracking!