Top LMS Automation Trends: Customer Ed Nugget 4

Today, we’re exploring one of the most glamorous topics in customer education — LMS automation!

Well, automation may not be glamorous by everyone’s standards. But think about it this way: Are you interested in saving time and money, improving the learner experience, driving key business performance metrics and making your learning program operations sing? Sounds pretty attractive to me. And I bet most customer education professionals would agree.

Not yet convinced? Here’s another reason to care:  If you still rely on spreadsheets and manual labor to manage customer education workflow, you’re probably underperforming compared to your competition.

So, how are the best customer education organizations applying LMS automation? What tools and techniques can elevate your customer education programs? Find out in this fourth episode of the  Customer Ed Nuggets podcast!

Today’s Guest Expert

Today, we’re fortunate to welcome a special guest who lives his life on the front lines of LMS buying and selling — Gill Williams, SVP Sales at CD2 Learning. Gill and his company have been leading the way in customer education innovation and LMS automation for over 10 years.

The Business Benefits of LMS Automation

Many customer education organizations are investing more heavily in LMS automation as a strategic priority these days. That’s because they manage customer education as a business, and LMS automation has a direct impact on business results:

• Cost and Time Savings — Any minute you spend on manual learning administration is probably a minute wasted. Successful training organizations manage these boring details efficiently so they can focus on excelling at important things like content and marketing.

• Customer Experience and Engagement — If you make customers wait to start the learning process, or if you delay their progress, they’re likely to give up and move on. LMS automation makes it easier to give customers instant access to whatever they need, based on their actions inside or outside of your learning system.

• Improved Business Metrics — When you don’t waste customers’ time during the learning process, they’re likely to learn more about your products faster. And well-educated customers are happy customers. They engage more deeply with products and services. They also buy more, renew more, call support less and tell others about their experience.

Top 10 LMS Automation Uses in Customer Education

Every day, Gill Williams focuses on unique uses of LMS automation while addressing the demanding automation requirements of manufacturing industry training partners, distributors, suppliers, customers and employees. Similarly, as an independent LMS selection consultant, I help a diverse range of clients define their LMS automation requirements.

So when we compared notes, it didn’t take long for Gill and I to identify 10 innovative LMS automation examples that are in demand:

1. Course Access — Assign mandatory or recommended catalog content based on changing values in the user profile, products purchased, training progress or social interactions.
2. Notifications and Communication — More email marketing and less LMS progress reporting is a customer education standard.
3. Resource Management — From virtual labs to MRI machines to diesel engines, managing,  scheduling and shipping instructional resources can be completely automated.
4. Personalized Learning Paths — Use changing learner demographics to tailor learning paths in infinite ways that are relevant and meaningful to individuals.
5. Analytics and Reporting — Based on defined routines, automatically send the right reports, with the right security and data.
6. Customer Support and Assistance — Route content to customer support staff during inbound call lags, or as needed with one-on-one customer interactions.
7. Discounts and Promotions — Based on learner interaction in and out of the LMS, automate the distribution of coupons, discounts and promotions via UI, email marketing or text.
8. Gamification — Support leveling up, assign badges, and initiate competitive challenges between learners based on a variety of if/then, and/or conditions.
9. Live ILT Scheduling — Automate planning, scheduling and staffing of learning events for a quarter or an entire year.
10. Actions in Other Business Systems — Customer education ecosystems are diverse and unique. Automation can drive actions anywhere in the technology stack, triggered by any action in the LMS.

This list only scratches the surface of what is possible. However, it illustrates the many ways customer education organizations can benefit from LMS automation.

Watch This Episode of Customer Ed Nuggets

30 years ago, the goal of any LMS was to automate learning processes. That objective hasn’t changed. But now, the areas of application are vast and expanding. Customer education LMS automation is important because it improves the learner experience by instantly adapting to individual needs. It also saves training organizations tons of time and cost over manual operations. Watch the eight-minute video nugget below to see the Top 3 LMS automation uses Gill and I agree are essential:

If you’d prefer to listen to our conversation, tune in to this Customer Ed Nuggets audio podcast right here at TalentedLearning.com.

The Bottom Line

If you’re wasting time on manual LMS administration, your customer education efforts are falling short. Learners hate to wait. Voluntary learners really hate to wait. Minimizing manual administration streamlines the customer education experience and improves related business metrics. If your LMS can’t do this, it’s a problem. However, there are multiple ways to resolve these issues.

About Talented Learning Customer Ed Nuggets

Hosted by Talented Learning CEO John Leh, the Customer Ed Nuggets podcast is a trusted source of advice, guidance and best practices for customer education professionals of all types. In this series of brief video and audio “nuggets” (each 10 minutes or less), we explore key topics with numerous guest experts.

Join us anytime here or on our YouTube channel to explore all facets of customer education learning tech, from how to build a persuasive business case, to effective strategies, technologies and content that help professionals create, deploy and grow successful customer-centered programs.

How to Follow the Customer Ed Nuggets Podcast

We practice what we preach by providing our content in a format for every learning preference. You can stay up-to-date with this podcast series through these channels:

• Listen and subscribe on popular audio podcast platforms:
  Apple | Amazon | Google | Spotify | iHeart | Blubrry | Android | Email | RSS
• Watch and subscribe to Talented Learning videos on YouTube
• Subscribe to our weekly Talented Learning newsletter

Learn More About Customer Education Learning Analytics

Explore related resources at TalentedLearning.com:

• Customer Ed Nuggets Series main page
• Customer Education LMS Resource Center (at TalentedLearning.com)
• 2023 Talented Learning Commercial LMS Market Report

Learn More about CD2 Learning:

To learn more about CD2 Learning, check out their vendor profile, demonstration, review, insights and case studies in our Learning Systems Directory or visit their website at CD2 Learning.

Need Expert Guidance to Find the Right Customer Education LMS?

Looking for a new or improved system for customer education? Be sure you make the right decision. Fill out the form below to request a free consultation with Talented Learning Founder and Lead Analyst, John Leh: