How to Design Customer Product Training

Develop training in using your company's products so customers feel comfortable using these products again and again.

Training customers to use your product properly ensures they get the most out of their investment. This encourages repeat business and can also influence future product design. By offering certification testing, you can establish a professional base of authorities who can in turn promote and support your product. Cultivating this collaborative learning culture produces a loyal customer base that ensures your company's long-term success.

Things You'll Need

• Desktop publishing software

Instructions

1. Assess customer requirements by conducting an audience and needs analysis. Develop and distribute a survey to existing customers to help you understand how customers are using your existing products so you can design your materials to complement how your product is actually used (or how you anticipate it will be used).

2. Create a training specification to define how each product component should be presented. Information covered should include usage, cautions and troubleshooting. Highlight any issues regarding compliance, such as adhering to Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations.

3. Decide on a training format (and price, if appropriate) based on your audience's needs and learning styles. Instructor-led workshops tend to be effective for complex systems. Virtual instructor-led courses provide flexible scheduling options. Online web-based training courses offer just-in-time learning to diverse audiences.

4. Conduct a task analysis to determine what procedural steps are required to use the product.

5. Define a strategy for how you will create your instructional text. Decide on a conversational or formal tone, depending on the requirements. Prepare flow charts and other visuals to describe user processes. Plan to include troubleshooting case studies to prepare students to handle problems that can arise in the course of normal operations.

6. Enhance your instructional materials with audio and video components. For example, printer product training is more effective when it contains animated sequences describing how to use the printer to accomplish each supported function such as printing photos, reports and cards.

7. Design your evaluation strategy. Plan to write questions for quizzes and tests to gauge student progress. Ensure adequate interactivity to make sure your audience stays engaged with your product training.

8. Plan to produce additional student materials such as supplementary guides or workbooks. Typically, product training includes demonstrations distributed either online or in CD or DVD format.

9. Try your materials with a pilot audience to determine how effective your instructional strategy is at achieving its goal.

10. Modify materials to reflect student input.

11. Offer product certification testing, particularly if your product is extremely complex. Effective product training design results in producing training courses that meet the needs of diverse audiences and ensure proper product usage.

12. Develop a course assessment so you can gain ongoing feedback. Use that input to direct future product training development.

References

• "Innovation Training"; Ruth Ann Hattori and Joyce Wycoff; 2004