CELab: The Customer Education Lab

In this episode of CELab, we broaden our conversation about inspiring a “culture of learning” that inspires innovation.  We dive deep with Leila Ishtayeh Colburn, the Learning Platform Enablement Leader at Trimble, and Owen Chamberlain, the Senior Education Alliance Manager at Trimble. The discussion delves into Trimble's innovative approach to digital credentialing, exploring how they are leveraging this strategy to drive customer engagement, build brand equity, and foster a culture of continuous learning.

The guests share insights into the challenges and best practices of implementing a standardized digital credentialing framework across Trimble's diverse business units. They also discuss Trimble's broader efforts to transform their customer education programs, including the introduction of their successful "Learnfest" initiative and the exploration of gamification and hands-on learning experiences. Throughout the conversation, the speakers emphasize the importance of leadership support, the need to prioritize the learner's perspective, and the value of embracing failure as a pathway to innovation.

Key Discussion Points:

In this episode we had the pleasure of speaking with Neel Balar, the co-founder of Clueso. Clueso is a platform that aims to revolutionize the way Customer Education content is created, offering a fast and easy solution for producing high-quality videos and documentation. Key discussion points include:

Check out Clueso today by clicking this link and get your demo!

In this episode, we invite Samantha Murray discuss her journey of boomeranging back to Customer Education where we explore the importance of consolidating customer education programs, the challenges in the industry, and the need for career inspiration.

Samantha shares her experiences in customer education at Shopify and Docebo, highlighting the value of cross-functional collaboration and the impact of customer education on the overall customer experience. What's the overlap between customer education and product marketing? There are so many similarities and synergies to explore, so don't miss this lively discussion!

Key Takeaways:

In this episode, Dave Derington and Adam Avramescu explore the role of strategy and active listening in the field of customer education. They challenge the notion that rigid frameworks and pre-defined strategies are the key to success, arguing that the ability to adapt and deeply listen to customers and stakeholders is often more important. 

Resources

Adam Avramescu and Dan Ennis discuss the evolving field of digital customer success, emphasizing its focus on leveraging digital-led programs to improve customer outcomes, retention, and growth. Dan highlights the importance of proactive and reactive digital programs, such as email and in-app series, to engage customers at scale. He stresses the need for clear definitions and metrics, including leading indicators like adoption and performance metrics like open and click-through rates. Collaboration between digital customer success and customer education teams is crucial, with regular feedback loops ensuring alignment on customer outcomes.

In the evolving world of business, customer education plays a crucial role in driving success. Yet, creating impactful, scalable programs can be challenging. Traditional methods often fall short, requiring innovative approaches to enablement and education.

We’re joined by Melissa Kruminas, a global enablement leader, now at Docebo, where she focuses on customer education that connects business outcomes with learning. Join us as we explore Melissa's approach to value-led, product-supported education, and how she’s driving initiatives in community learning and customer success.

Summary:

Melissa emphasizes that customer education goes beyond teaching product features; it's about helping customers realize the full value of their investment. She discusses her focus on scalable learning through experiential events, certifications, and knowledge management.

Melissa highlights the importance of balancing creativity with efficiency in customer education, drawing parallels to delivering a five-star meal versus providing quick, actionable resources. She shares insights on building communities, capturing institutional knowledge, and scaling learning solutions.

Ultimately, Melissa's work centers around helping customers achieve long-term success by aligning education with their business goals, while fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous learning.

In business, the need for engaging learning experiences is staggeringly important. Yet the “how” is elusive.  Conventional educational approaches don’t work well.  You can be tempted to fall back on trusted methodologies only to find them to be too slow, unwieldy, or frustrating.

We’re joined by Michele Wiedemer, Customer Education consultant and expert who’s hard at work to learn more and to expand her already impactful approach to learning in B2B SaaS.   Join us as we dive into the Learner-Centered Design approach that she and many of us leverage to build amazing content!

Summary for Part 2

In business, the need for engaging learning experiences is staggeringly important. Yet the “how” is elusive.  Conventional educational approaches don’t work well.  You can be tempted to fall back on trusted methodologies only to find them to be too slow, unwieldy, or frustrating.

We’re joined by Michele Wiedemer, Customer Education consultant and expert who’s hard at work to learn more and to expand her already impactful approach to learning in B2B SaaS.   Join us as we dive into the Learner-Centered Design approach that she and many of us leverage to build amazing content!

Summary for Part 1

Books Cited in this Episode:

Non-Designers Design - Robin Williams

Michael Allen’s Guide to E-Learning

Geoffrey Moore - crossing the chasm

Malcolm Knowles - Self-Directed Learning

Certification - it's a challenging and sometimes contentious topic for Customer Education professionals. At CELab, we hear this question come up quite a lot. Chances are good that you may be asked to create a certification, or decide that you want to offer one.

So how do you get started? Should you even be trying to build such a program? In this "mini" episode, Adam Avramescu answers that question down including:

We've covered this topic a number of times here at CELab, so make sure you check out the following episodes:

In addition, we recommend bookmarking and reading Debbie Smith's article (found on LinkedIn) called "The 13 Principals for Certification". Essential reading for anyone working towards developing their own certification!

Disclaimer: We are not giving legal advice in this episode. Make sure you consult with your company's legal team to understand their risk posture - especially if you're going to develop a legally defensible high-stakes cert.

Customer Education is evolving rapidly. We've come a long way from the days of "smile sheets" and attendance metrics being our guide to success. Gainsight, is one such innovative business that's showing how education data and usage data connect so we can measure its impact on business outcomes.

Lila Meyer shares her journey at Gainsight, from early roles when the organization was new to her current position leading the Education Services team. We cover a lot of ground including the importance of developing transferable skills and collaboration within the customer education community.

Key points: