When your consumers are satisfied, there’s a high likelihood they’ll do business with you again in the future. What can you do, though, to delight them? In today’s world of intense competition, where several companies compete with nearly similar items, how your company and its services are seen is critical. That’s why everyone in your firm must possess the necessary knowledge and abilities to make client interactions pleasant and healthy. This is only achievable if your personnel have been properly taught and are true experts on your subject. This is where product knowledge training comes into play.
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What Is Product Knowledge Training?
Product knowledge training is a learning program that covers all the information about your products or services that employees need to know to do their jobs well. Product training can focus on different aspects, have distinct learning goals, and deliver different advantages to your business depending on the learners’ roles and responsibilities.
Let’s take a closer look at product knowledge and how it might help your firm succeed.
What Is Product Knowledge and Its Importance?
When we think about product training, we normally think of sales representative training. There’s no doubt that knowing the product well and out is critical for salespeople, but there are many more people inside and outside your organization that need to be trained on your product for your firm to grow.
What Are the Benefits of Product Knowledge?
Let’s go over some of the advantages of product knowledge training.
1. Putting Together Motivated Employees
A passionate and inspired enthusiast is not just a “desk jockey” from a sales, support, or marketing department, but someone who knows the product through and out and believes it can deliver enormous value to a large number of consumers and the world at large. This type of employee may establish committed teams with high drive and outstanding results.
2. Developing Credibility and Customer Relationships
Prospects have likely browsed your website, read a few product reviews, and consider themselves experts in your area when they visit your territory (an office or an online marketplace). They’re not going to forgive your sales rep for being unsure of your product’s features, benefits, or options. Product training will make it easier for your sales force to showcase your product convincingly, overcome objections from prospects, and acquire their trust.
3. Educating Customers About Your Product
Giving your clients detailed information about your products can assist you in creating a pleasant customer journey from the point that they select your solution to the point where they use and maximize it.
For example, you can include product overviews, specifications, and customer reviews to help your prospects make a more informed decision. Your customers would also appreciate online videos or screencasts, such as how to install a washing machine or customize a new CRM to meet their needs.
This will have two advantages: the number of calls to your support department will reduce, and some of your customers will become specialists and evangelists of your product. This is how word-of-mouth marketing works.
Overall, in the B2B world, customer training is essential. Customer loyalty and retention are increased when learning sessions are held. It results in increased adoption and upsells. It enables you to promote the rest of your merchandise. And you’re probably aware that getting a new customer is much more expensive than keeping an old one. As a result, training is beneficial in this situation as well.
PlayAblo is a top-tier customer training platform. It enables businesses to add value to their products by raising buyer awareness. Furthermore, when you invite your customers to attend training classes, they have a rewarding experience, which leads to a healthier, longer-lasting, and more enriching relationship.
4. Partner Networking for Business Expansion
You must also provide product expertise training to your partners if you want to enhance partner sales. This will demonstrate that you are the proper person to begin doing business with since you are willing to invest in their expertise, growth, and success. You will also assist them in achieving better results and increasing revenue.
5. Increased sales
Your sales team will be able to effectively talk to prospective customers about the value of your product, the best method to convey features that impress, and how your product will work for them now that they have the information and a better grasp of it.
6. Boost In Employee Morale
The boost in confidence it gives both your customers and employees is an underappreciated but significant benefit of improved product knowledge. Customers will have peace of mind knowing that you can meet their needs. They are confident in their talents, according to your employees. They are confident that they have the resources necessary to meet and surpass your consumers’ expectations.
What Are the Objectives of Product Knowledge Training?
Product knowledge training illustrates the qualities and benefits of your product so that trainees can advertise, sell, and use it more effectively.
You’ll need to build separate learning programs to enable each group to get the most out of the product training. Here are the objectives of such training programs as per your different departments:
1. Sales Reps and Product Training
The goal is to teach your sales force how to promote your product, overcome objections from prospects, and close deals faster. The more your salespeople understand your product’s benefits and advantages, the more professional and convincing their interactions with prospects will be.
Provide the following information to your sales representatives:
The product: Features, benefits, and customer values – in other words, how and why a prospect’s life or work would be made easier, more productive, or more enjoyable if he purchases it.
What is the best way to use the product? Allow a sales representative to acquire hands-on experience with a product, from the initial installation to the outcomes (e.g., getting clothes washed or launching an air conditioning system.) It will help them better understand their clients and respond to their objections.
Price and Return on Investment (ROI): How to compute the final price, compare it to competitors’ offerings, and persuade the client that the benefits would far outweigh the costs.
Customization: Your sales force must understand how you can customize the product to meet the prospect’s needs.
Updates to come: If your salespeople are aware of upcoming new features, they can use this information in negotiations to address objections from prospects and seal transactions with those who aren’t totally satisfied with your present product but are willing to wait a bit for an upgraded version.
The names and success stories of your current clients: The more well-known names on your list, the easier it will be for your prospect to believe you.
2. Customer Service and Product Knowledge Training
The goal is to teach the support crew how to deliver high-level assistance to consumers.
Here’s what your customer support representatives should be aware of:
Technical features of the product, such as how it works, what components it contains, and how to repair it.
Other items and services compatibility: What additional products will the buyer need to complement their purchase?
Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions: Provide a list of frequently sent requests, along with their responses, to your support service so that support may manage them without having to reinvent the wheel.
3. Marketing Department and Product Training
The goal is to provide up-to-date information regularly and assist in developing an efficient positioning and promotion plan. Most of the time, marketers don’t need to get too technical; it’s more crucial for them to grasp what customer issues your product can alleviate.
Let’s take a look at the data that needs to be covered for the marketing department:
Options, distinguishing features, and advantages of the product.
Who is currently using the product? An examination of your consumer base will reveal who is most likely to purchase your goods and why.
List of upcoming upgrades: Before any revisions or new product releases, you must inform the marketing team.
4. Customers and Product Knowledge Training
The goal is to show clients how to use the product and get amazing outcomes from it. Customers can receive product training through an online knowledge base with instructions, how-to videos, and webinars.
If your product is complicated, needs particular expertise to use, or has many features and options, your customers will require additional information when they first use it.
What information should be included in client product training?
Overview of the product’s characteristics: When a consumer makes a purchase, they focus on the product’s features that will help them address their current problems; afterward, they may wish to look into the whole spectrum of features your product has to offer.
Step-by-step instructions for doing a specific operation include generating a revenue report in your CRM, cleaning an air-conditioning filter, or setting up your alarm system.
Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions: These can assist clients in getting a better look at the product and getting started with it fast and easily.
5. Partners and Product Knowledge Training
Increased revenue, reduced reputation hazards, and expanding the number of partners is the goal.
The same concept applies to partners as internal sales reps: a well-informed partner will bring you many new clients, but a partner who lacks product expertise will most likely become a source of reputation hazards and an ongoing stream of dissatisfied consumers. As a result, you must supply the same information to your partner’s sales staff as you do to your own.
Still, there is one significant distinction between the two groups: you can track and enhance your company’s sales department performance at any moment, even in real-time, whereas your partners’ sales activities are not. As a result, you might want to check their sales preparedness before they begin presenting your product to prospects to make their outcomes more predictable.
You can include a knowledge exam at the end of the product training and establish a minimum passing score. You and your partners can agree that only sales representatives who have passed your “product exam” and obtained a certificate will be authorized to market your company and product to potential clients.
6. Basic Product Training for Recruits
The goal is to provide users with a basic grasp of the product, its value, and why they like it.
Basic product knowledge training should be included in your onboarding program for all new hires, as this will assist them to grasp the firm they have joined and establish their loyalty from their first days on the job.
What Are the Four Types of Product Knowledge Training?
We’ve discovered why product knowledge training is a must-have for firms looking to expand and succeed. Let’s look at how you can do it in different firms and the benefits and drawbacks of each method.
1. In-Person Training
For years, instructor-led training (ILT) in the classroom was the most common method of informing employees about the product and its updates. The trainer can monitor learners’ reactions, tailor the session program to their needs, and keep them engaged because of the direct contact between the instructor and the audience.
Offline product training, on the other hand, has some drawbacks:
- Regular offline sessions incur significant fees, including trainer wages, travel expenses, training space rental, printed materials, and so on.
- You’ll need to collect learners in one location and distract them from their task (and the current pandemic reality makes this close to impossible).
- Information is always delayed for employees in remote offices (unless your trainers have advanced teleportation skills).
We now have a solution, thanks to current technology, that allows us to transcend all of these limitations: online instruction. Online product training allows you to access knowledge at any time.
2. Online Training
You can utilize a learning management system (LMS), an online platform for storing and delivering learning materials via the Internet, to provide regular online training to your staff. Employees have personal accounts in an LMS, where they may view courses assigned to them, view a schedule of upcoming training activities, and track their progress.
Learning and development managers can save hours each day by using the correct LMS to organize and support the training process. PlayAblo, for example, may assign courses automatically, provide deadline warnings and reminders, and track learner progress in a variety of reports.
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3. Synchronous and Asynchronous Training
Synchronous training is based on the assumption that all students will complete the program at the same time. You can either collect them in a physical classroom or connect them online using a video conferencing provider for this purpose.
Alternatively, you can provide your staff with learning materials (printed or online) and a deadline for their studies, allowing them to study whenever they want and at their own pace. Asynchronous learning operates in this manner.
4. Blended Training
Learning that is a combination of traditional and non-traditional methods
For product knowledge training, blended learning usually consists of ILT sessions and self-paced learning activities. Many firms now prefer to use a combination of both modalities since they believe it works better than utilizing solely traditional face-to-face sessions or eLearning.
If your firm takes this strategy, be sure that the LMS you choose allows you to combine multiple sorts of activities in one training program, such as online courses and evaluations for self-study and online webinars.
To Summarize
The importance of product knowledge training cannot be overstated. When properly planned and arranged, it may take your business to a new level, make your personnel more confident and effective in their responsibilities, and make your customers happier. Why don’t you take the first step towards it right now?
Ad: PlayAblo’s Enterprise-Grade Micro-Learning platform is built for the corporate learner. Micro-learning, along with assessments and gamification features, ensures learning outcome measurement along with sustained engagement.
Find out more and request a custom demo!
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