As a travel and tourism professional, your job is to keep consumers up to date with the latest industry knowledge and build loyalty to your brand while doing it. When you have a new product in the marketplace, customer training is essential. These 5 tips will help you get more from your travel agent education programs and your own travel institute.
Until now, you’ve probably relied on traditional training methods like hosting a booth at a trade show or site visits to bring potential customers up to speed. However, if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that we should never get comfortable doing things one way!
Enter the idea of customer online training, eLearning to help your customers use your product.
Online training for customers is an incredibly effective and cost efficient way to educate your consumers. They can learn about your product anywhere and at any time. It also increases the likelihood that your customers will stay with you in the future.
The advantage of an online training program is that it’s flexible and convenient. Customers want to be able to get what they need when they need it.
Online training is user friendly because customers can access content on multiple platforms. They get the information they’re seeking and can immediately follow up by clicking through to a purchase page.
Social media is a great, user friendly strategy for online training as well. Plan live events that can be viewed anywhere and on any device. Live events allow you to really connect your product to your users.
For example, a destination promotion focused on its newest theater can host a agent webinar or Facebook Live event. They can invite some of the actors to participate or share a behind-the-scenes look at its show. They’re connecting their product to the travel professional by giving them valuable and usable destination and travel product information, as well as a direct path to purchase.
Customer online training means sharing the most important pieces of your product information in a way that consumers can grasp quickly and easily. If you try to share all of the features and details at once, you risk overwhelming them.
Give them short snippets (around two minutes) in helpful product demos. Focus on the most useful bits and some of the finer details. Make it entertaining, but don’t get lost in the fluff. You want your customer to leave the demo with an understanding of your product, not overwhelmed.
Sometimes your travel and tourism customers won’t have time to complete a whole online training session. They may simply be looking for targeted product information, like how to earn a certification or who your partners are.
Create an FAQ page and post it on your website or social media page. Frequently asked questions are the guideposts for customers looking for quick answers. Start with the most basic questions and then move into more complex territory.
Your customers will appreciate the shortcut when they have questions about your product.
If your product is completely new to the market or solving a problem in a new way, consider implementing a Q&A during customer online training. An opportunity for the customer to engage one-on-one with an expert makes them feel understood and valued.
Perhaps you’ve developed a new software that will make a travel agent’s life simpler. Incorporating a Q&A into the online training process ensures that the agent understands your product and how to make the most of it.
Question and answer sessions are an inexpensive way to onboard customers (no onsite training necessary!) while tailoring instruction to meet their specific needs
If you really want to create an effective customer online training program, embrace your customers’ feedback. Invite them to actively participate in the process using polls, surveys, or focus groups. Ask them to share their thoughts about what worked and what didn’t.
The goal is to develop a relationship that keeps them invested in your product and coming back for more Customer online training is remarkably effective when you know how to do it right. It helps your client base get to know you better while building your brand loyalty. Keep these must-dos in mind as you move from traditional training to eLearning.