Rolling out a new tool like the Gainsight Customer Success application is not just about training people how to use it. It’s equally important to help your team prepare for the change and to set everyone up for success after your initial go-live.
Over the years Gainsight has helped hundreds of different companies implement Gainsight CS, and along the way we’ve fine tuned our own enablement strategies, and observed many others who did it well.
We often hear from customers who are looking for end user enablement guidance and best practices, so I thought it would be helpful to write them up and share.
Preparing the team for change
Prior to working with Gainsight, your CS team may have been using other tools or everyone may have been doing their own thing to try to manage their customer portfolio. In any case, leadership needs to prepare the team for what’s coming, and address what's in it for them. Getting buy-in is typically easier when the team is involved in designing the solution. For example, you can engage your CS team in developing your best practice email templates, playbooks, and more, so that they’re invested in the success of your implementation.
Answering the “why” behind the new tool and processes is critical to support early adoption. (Partnering with the right stakeholders in the evaluation and buying process is also beneficial.) At Gainsight, our Professional Services team created a series of email templates for customers to help prepare their teams for the rollout. We also offer a free introductory Change Management course, as well as custom services if you need more tailored support.
Tips for successful training
When it’s time to train your end users, we’ve noticed that teams who use elearning (or short videos) as a starting point often see better and faster overall adoption. Gainsight offers free introductory elearning courses on Gainsight University both for end users and administrators. These resources enable learners to become familiar with the terminology and core concepts at their own pace, and to better absorb follow-on live training. Starting with self-paced training also encourages learners to come to the live training with thoughtful questions and ideas to share. And, it’s just best practice to use a variety of training methods since everyone has different learning styles and preferences.
Does your organization have distinct roles and responsibilities that require them to use Gainsight in different ways? If so, you will likely want to offer persona-based training that focuses on the workflows most relevant to their daily tasks. (Gainsight’s Education team also offers tailored training for multiple personas.)
Having tried several different approaches to training users on Gainsight, we recommend focusing on 2 to 3 key use cases or workflows that you want to see immediate adoption of, rather than doing a top-to-bottom platform training. This helps drive a purposeful session that results in early adoption.
Similarly, you want to connect your workflows to desired outcomes (the “why” again!). Gainsight helps customers identify their key outcomes using an outcomes based framework that starts in the sales process and carries through onboarding, implementation, and beyond with support from their CSM.
Speaking of desired outcomes and the why behind the application, end user training is a great time to invite your CS leadership to address how Gainsight is critical to advancing your customer success mission and initiatives.
There’s always some pain involved in adopting a new tool and way of doing things, but if you can help your team realize some quick wins and identify pain points that Gainsight helps relieve, your rollout is more likely to be a success.
There are lots of training strategies that can work well, but the one that learners always ask for more of is hands-on practice. Consider creating a dummy company for everyone to practice with in your production instance, or use your Sandbox.
Other tactics that can make training fun and productive:
- Show a “before and after” with Gainsight that illustrates nothing is being lost, but rather access and visibility to customer info is increasing
- Include games, like in-app scavenger hunts with prizes
- Schedule live training in 60 - 90 minute chunks, particularly if it’s virtual
- For virtual training, use breakout rooms to encourage interaction and discussion
- For in-person training, leave more time for discussions
- Involve Managers in end user training, and then consider hosting an additional session for managers to focus on their dashboards, how to use Gainsight in their team meetings, and 1-on-1’s, etc.
- Provide short job aids / user guides to support step by step usage and share them post-training
- Depending on your company culture, consider a launch party (virtual or in-person) and a fun theme to rally the organization around
Ongoing support and refinement
Once initial training is complete, give the team follow-up opportunities to ask questions, share feedback, report issues, etc. Many teams use office hours or a Slack or Microsoft Teams channel for discussion and questions, or a type-form or tool for reporting issues.
And similar to how you gained early buy-in from end users by involving them in the initial setup and implementation, you may want to consider creating a Gainsight council with representatives from various teams that provide ongoing feedback and input on your Gainsight instance and evolution.
All of the above can help foster a community of users within your organization where learners share their experiences and best practices.
If you have your own training or enablement team, you’ll also want to plan how to provide new feature training or support the rollout of new workflows.
There’s a lot to consider when rolling out a transformative platform like Gainsight, but you’re in good hands with the expert support of our Professional Services team. And for training and enablement in particular, we offer a variety of training services with varying levels of support depending on your team size, budget, personas, and learning needs.
