Why Instructor-Led Training Still Matters
With enough time, patience, and resourcefulness, you can teach yourself how to do a lot of different things. But sometimes it’s just easier, faster, and less frustrating to learn alongside an experienced instructor, with real-time opportunities to ask questions and get help.
The Evolution of Gainsight’s Training Programs
Several years before we launched Gainsight University with all of our self-paced elearning resources, we started out offering monthly webinars to help introduce new Gainsight Administrators to some of the more technical aspects of the Customer Success application. Over the years, our education program has grown to include instructor-led training (ILT) and self-paced elearning, certifications, training for five products in two languages, and so on. After years of experimentation and iteration, ILT for the Gainsight CS Admin persona and Gainsight End Users has become a core pillar of our training program.
Blending ILT with Self-Paced Learning
We use elearning, hosted on Gainsight University, to deliver introductory training for all new customers. For the Admin persona, we strongly encourage that new customers complete the aforementioned elearning as a prerequisite to the ILTs. We designed the ILTs so that learners will get more hands-on practice and guidance in the technical product areas that every customer will use (e.g., Rules Engine, Data Management, Journey Orchestrator) and to go deeper into these topics than the elearning format allows.
Currently, we offer six core ILT courses for a new Admin, along with six more optional courses on topics and features that not every customer uses (e.g., Surveys, Reports & Dashboards). We bundle these courses together with admin certification (at a discounted rate) and try to ensure every new CS customer includes them in their contract. For customers who are implementing a more standardized set of initial use cases, we offer a condensed version of our new Admin ILT at a lower price point. All of our ILTs have evolved in length, topics, use cases, and exercises, often in response to product changes or customer feedback.
Expanding Training for Personas & Timezones
We run our Admin ILTs typically every 4 to 6 weeks, with some flexibility based on customer demand as well as sales cycle seasonality. Classes are usually kept to 10–15 participants at most due to the hands-on nature of the content. As interest in our ILTs has grown, we expanded the time zones in which they are offered—for example, increasing availability in EMEA. Additionally, we partnered with a training delivery specialist in Japan to support ILTs being delivered in Japanese when the business decided to localize the CS product for Japan.
We also offer ILT for CS End Users in a few different formats and price points, based on the customer’s CS team size and available budget for providing training and enablement. On the more basic and inexpensive end is a 90-minute public webinar that all new end users can attend to see a demonstration and walkthrough of the core workflows in Gainsight, as well as ask questions. These sessions are currently offered about once a month, and ideally, a new customer sends their end users around the time of go-live.
At the other end of the ILT spectrum is what we call Custom End User Training. As the name implies, we customize our product training based on the use cases and features that an organization is initially rolling out, and we deliver private sessions that typically include some hands-on practice.
In Person Training
Additionally, we use our annual Pulse conference as an opportunity to gather Gainsight Admins together for more advanced training. This ILT is special in that it’s often the only opportunity for Admins to meet in person and share learnings. Over the years, we’ve used these training days as a testing ground for new virtual ILT courses that we hope to offer on a regular basis.
The Impact of ILT: Success Stories and Data
Our trainers have been teaching the ILTs for several years now, and they consistently receive outstanding reviews from participants. In fact, one recent participant admitted:
“No more running away from the Rule Engine. Thanks for insightful training—Pivot and Formula fields are quite clear now. 1-2-1 Training is better than Self-learning; especially for a Deep Dive into Rules Engine.”
Beyond anecdotal feedback, we’ve also seen impressive product adoption and retention usage data from those who participate in ILTs. For example:
- Admins who attended live training returned to the Gainsight CS platform 41% more often than other users.
- The accounts they manage show a 33% higher product adoption rate compared to all accounts.
- Customers who invest in ILT for their Admin and/or End Users see about a 10-point increase in GRR impact.
Overcoming Challenges in ILT Delivery
When the business software you are training on changes frequently, maintenance can be a challenge. Trainers need to test their demos and exercises after each product release that impacts a relevant training topic to:
- Ensure things still work as intended.
- Determine whether a new or altered feature should be added to the curriculum.
We use real Gainsight CS instances to support our hands-on exercises, and sometimes these orgs can have issues that impact the ILT experience. We partner closely with our TechOps team, which is responsible for creating these orgs, and stay in touch when/if there are system performance issues affecting the training experience.
Key Lessons for Scaling ILT Programs
As our customer base has grown and expanded into new regions, we’ve adjusted the ILT scheduling frequency and continue to remain agile and responsive to evolving customer needs.
One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is ensuring you have a market and internal support for a new ILT offering. If you need Sales’ support to launch a new paid offering, be prepared to:
- Demonstrate the impact your program is already having (on KPIs they care about).
- Showcase the anticipated impact of the ILT program.
- Incentivize sales teams appropriately to support ILT adoption.
Ideally, other teams view your ILTs (and other training initiatives) as solving an important need—and potentially reducing extra work from their plates. For example, in smaller organizations, it’s common for onboarding teams or CSMs to perform 1:1 training with new clients. As their account loads grow, these repetitive conversations may become a poor use of their time, making scalable Education programs essential.
However, if other teams don’t feel that Education is covering the right topics, at the right level of detail, or at the right price, they may—consciously or unconsciously—undermine new training initiatives.
The Future of ILT at Gainsight
From foundational Admin training to tailored End User enablement, ILT helps our customers gain confidence, deepen their product knowledge, and drive meaningful adoption. While challenges like curriculum maintenance, resource coordination, and internal alignment persist, the impact of ILT is clear—customers who invest in training see stronger product usage and retention.
As Gainsight’s platform and customer base continue to evolve, we will keep refining and expanding ILT to ensure that learners always have the best possible support to succeed.
