How to Train Staff on New Customer Experience Software

We spend months interviewing to find the “perfect” CSM… and then set them up to fail. Here’s the reality I see too often: ❗ New hires are thrown customers after 1–2 weeks. ❗ Product training is rushed or nonexistent. ❗ SOPs are thin, outdated, or missing. ❗ Leaders don’t invest the time to set expectations or coach. ❗ And then KPIs are handed down that even seasoned CSMs struggle to hit. The issue isn’t the talent, it’s the lack of enablement. But here’s the good news: you don’t need a dedicated L&D team or endless resources to onboard well. You need intention. A simple enablement plan for new CSMs (even with limited resources): 1️⃣ Onboarding Buddy - Pair new hires with an experienced CSM for shadowing, Q&A, and feedback. 2️⃣ 30-60-90 Plan - Outline clear goals and expectations for their first 3 months. (Focus on learning before doing.) 3️⃣ Product Deep Dives - Host weekly “lunch and learns” where Product, CS, or Support walks through one feature in detail. Have them shadow customer onboarding or watch recordings. 4️⃣ Playbook Starter Pack - Even if you don’t have full SOPs, document 3–5 repeatable workflows (renewals, QBR prep, escalation handling). 5️⃣ Mock Meetings – Run practice customer calls internally before they ever face a real customer. 6️⃣ Leader Time - Block weekly 1:1s focused not just on performance but on coaching, context, and confidence-building. These aren’t heavy lifts, they’re discipline and focus. If you want your CSMs to succeed (and your customers to stay), stop spending all your energy on hiring the “perfect” candidate and start spending more on enabling them once they walk through the door.

🧠 Generation Effect 🧠 We tend to remember information better if it's generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. Actively participating in learning, such as by teaching a concept or creating a summary, can enhance memory and understanding. --- A while back, I worked on a pretty complex business problem. It was a massive system with lots of technical information and moving parts. As the team grew, my UX team started getting pushback on things we thought were straightforward, and we would get weird questions about things that seemed perfectly logical to us. We eventually realized that our dev team had no idea about the process they were building for. They made these connections in their heads using their own mental models, but these were different from what our users were thinking. There were a lot of underlying issues, but one of the big problems was that our engineers had no idea who they were building for and why it was important. So, I started a series of monthly sessions where I went through the high-level processes and reviewed everything with the engineers. They had an opportunity to ask questions and better understand what the tool was being used for. We started bringing an engineer on research trips as a note-taker to get a first-hand view of how the software was used on the shop floor. When new engineers joined the team, the engineers used this opportunity to explain the process to the new hires, boosting their own understanding and learning. After a year of this, we saw a huge change in the engineers' attitudes. The pushback stopped. The types of questions we got changed. The engineers were able to think about the problem more deeply and provide some honestly unique ideas for the product. Plus, in doing all of this, I definitely gained a deeper understanding of everything I was doing. Check the comments for links to learn more about the Generation Effect! --- 🎯 Here are some key takeaways: 1️⃣ Make onboarding hands-on: Create programs where new hires actively learn about their roles and the company. This could include writing job summaries or sharing what they've learned. 2️⃣ Use real-life training: Design training that involves problem-solving or role-playing situations. This helps the team devise their own solutions and use their new knowledge. 3️⃣ Let learners explain things their way: When teaching complex ideas, ask the team to create their own examples or diagrams. This can help them understand and remember better. 4️⃣ Use methods that help remember: Include activities like writing about your learning or teaching others. These activities allow us to think about and explain what we know, which helps us remember it better. 5️⃣ Encourage teaching among coworkers: Set up ways for the team to share what they know through talks or mentoring. This helps both the teacher and the learner understand things better. ♻️ If you found this helpful, share it 🙏! #UXdesign #ProductManagement #CognitiveBias

As someone who prefers to jump into a product and play around with it - I’m a fan of less live training and more async resources. So it’s been cool to hear customers are using interactive demos to onboard/train both employees and customers. In our State of the Interactive Product Demo 2024 - this was the 3rd + 4th most popular use case. Below is how customers set it up: Option #1: Add Interactive Demos to Help Center Articles Why: In-depth help docs reduce the need for one-off training for new users ”After deploying product tours for user enablement, we saw a 90% decrease in the number of one-on-one training needed to activate new users.” How to: ▪️ Create mini 10 - 15 step demos for high-value features ▪️ Add the demo (embed or link) before written text so users can see the feature they're learning about Option #2: Build Checklist Demos with Multiple Products/ Features Why: If you’re teaching employees about a new process or tech stack, may need to show multiple products in one easy-to-share demo. “We’ve used product tours for a variety of training use cases for internal teams around new processes” How to: ▪️ Combine multiple demos together using a Checklist to share via one link ▪️ Create Share Links for customers or employees to track what parts of the demo they went through Option #3: Create a Demo for Multiple Users at an Account Why: Scale multiple-user training for larger accounts so your team doesn’t have to host 20 training calls for 100 users “These self-serve training options have significantly reduced the need for our success reps to train individual users on the platform on calls.” How to: ▪️Build a generic demo template with all your top training features ▪️Choose relevant features to that account and customize with find + replace Read the full write-up below to see customer examples ⬇️