By Marjan Bradeško
There were seven of us in the company, and my employee ID was 007 (does it sound like James Bond?). And we figured out that we had to start training ourselves, so we organized evening “transfer knowledge” sessions delivered by our top technical person.
Soon, we had to train our customers as well. The company decided that I should become an instructor. I started teaching the others how to use our home-built email program; I even created a nice user manual. Is it starting to sound like a Learning & Development (L&D) “department” covering both internal and customer needs? I am still proud we did not make a mistake common to some start-ups, which often forget to “train” themselves—and their first (potential) customers.
Apart from traditional learning companies, most L&D departments are involved in internal training only. Customer training, if present, is driven by another department, such as “Customer Success,” or outsourced to an external vendor. In some cases, L&D cooperates with this vendor or department, while in smaller organizations customer training may be handled by L&D itself. Looking from a profit and loss (P&L) perspective, the internal training is considered a cost, while the customer training brings revenue. But, irrespective of organizational setup, L&D can bring numerous benefits to the organization, even if it is only partially involved in customer education. Moreover, L&D benefits itself when working on customer learning solutions.
L&D is best positioned to train your customers
Customer education is crucial in the technology-led world, in which adoption and digital experience drive success. Problems and issues that your organization faces are often similar to the issues of your customers. So, it is natural that—with respective capabilities—your company and your L&D department are better suited to help customers than some third parties. Third parties will do the training only, while you can do much more, to paraphrase Will Thalheimer in The CEO’s Guide to Training, eLearning & Work.
Now think about your specific role. Even if you are not directly involved in training for customers, you can provide learning consultancy services. There are several arguments in favor of that: The customers are your customers, and who knows them better than you? They use your products, and who knows the products better than you?
Learning leaders’ involvement in customer education brings extra value to your organization and enables you to extend your organization to the customer—a concept called “extended enterprise.”
For example, in our company we migrated from one email tool to another. When one of our major customers did the same, our sales team asked our learning team to create a series of videos and help the customer. It was a great case of cross-departmental cooperation, of sharing our experience, and of tightening our customer relationship.
Helping customers in the pre-sales phase can benefit your organization, too. Establishing a trusted relationship with customers and becoming their trusted advisor increases your customer’s belief in products and solutions that your organization offers.
I remember the early days in my organization, where quite often at our courses we had attendees who were potential customers. Our sales invited them so they could learn not only about technology, but also about specific products and solutions we were offering. That helped them to make informed decisions—and often resulted in a long-lasting relationship.
So, it is evident that you, as an internal L&D, when involved in customer training, need to collaborate with the sales organization, with the customer success department. You must be connected to teams who implement and support solutions in the customer environment and know the specifics of the customer. Together you extend your enterprise to your customers and build a trusted relationship which results in business benefits, both for the customer as well as for your organization.
Find synergies & build on customer trust
Even when you do not handle customer training directly, your services can be essential for the organization.
In my organization, for example, we try to deliver webinars to our internal audience as a “dry run” for the webinars that our sales organization conducts for customers. These internal presentations enable us to get feedback; we then adjust the content for the customers. Our L&D team provides “polishing” services, making the content for customers more professional.
There are also cases where our sales organization delivers a webinar for our customers first, and then we in L&D repeat it for an internal audience. Such an approach enables the sales and technical teams to be aligned to the customer messages.
Extending the sales team’s abilities
In the past, when our L&D was directly involved in customer training, we worked to turn instructors and facilitators into an “extended sales arm.” Who comes closer to the customer than an instructor spending a whole week with the customer’s employees? If an instructor is open to customer feedback and provides that information back to the sales organization in the company, up-selling or extending the business is much easier.
A trusted instructor makes customers open to discussing their wishes, pain points, issues, etc. That is why, in some closed-enrollment training for our customers, we added a teaching assistant along with the instructor; both were able to capture valuable feedback.
Enhancing your service offering
The benefits go even deeper.
Take, for example, needs assessment, or skills assessment services: If your department delivers this type of service to your customers, then you have an enormous opportunity to learn the customers’ needs—and bring that information back to your organization.
Even when the result of needs assessment is not training, or training is only a part of the solution, the benefit to your organization is huge. During conversations and interviews, you learn much more about the customer than your salespeople ever could.
Customers are normally reluctant to be fully open to the salespeople, since subconsciously they can see them as a threat (thinking “They are pushing me to buy.“). On the other hand, L&D is considered a behavioral consultant—someone who helps the customers be better, helps them to grow their people and competencies. Thus, they are willing to expose much more to the L&D team than to the salespeople.
In your conversations with the customers, you not only identify their needs, you also hear about their wishes, desires, issues, pain points—things that are considered as “buying signals,” customer insights which help your sales organization articulate the offers for the customers and potentially up-sell or renew sales.
Furthermore, one of the most valuable things you can learn in your interactions with customers is how they perceive your organization, your solutions, and your people. They may open up enough to point out some “skills gaps” in your organization. Several times, when I was facilitating courses for our customers, I learned from them about glitches that our sales had in the sales process, or about issues with our engineers involved in implementation.
Bringing such information back to your company is immensely valuable. The organization that learns and wants to improve will appreciate your contribution. By bringing this feedback back into your organization, you become a powerful business enabler for your organization.
You benefit; customers benefit more
In interactions with customers, you see businesses (different ones) firsthand, you get real-world experience, and you learn how customers use your products and solutions. Furthermore, you see practices outside of your organizational domain and can learn from them. All these experiences are extremely beneficial for L&D.
By working with customers, you also get in touch with the latest technologies and innovations, and you can partially transfer them to your organization. For years, our organization worked with our vendor on developing learning solutions, and in the process, we came in touch with technologies that were yet to come—a huge business enabler for us.
Irrespective of the benefits that your organization and your L&D gain from customer education, it is customers who benefit most.
First, you are their consultant, responding to non-sales questions as well, helping them in the adoption of products and solutions and brainstorm potential process optimizations with them.
You have a different view—you look at everything from the behavioral side, from the performance side, you focus on competencies.
Through your training services, you help customers uncover their opportunities, find tacit skills, and optimize the workflows and organizational structure. You are not only an L&D team; you are also an organizational consultant.
You in L&D, by focusing on optimal use of products and services within customers` business, bring true value to customers. Your contribution to their operational excellence can go beyond their expectations. And satisfied customers are the best assurance for thriving business in your organization.
In times when we desperately search for “a human in the loop,” collaborating with customers offers an excellent opportunity to insert that human— and keep them there. With more tasks assisted by AI, your L&D will have more time for building relationships, eliminating your scalability issues in customer interactions.
Don’t miss the Customer Education Summit at DevLearn
If you’d like to learn more about extending the L&D function to include customer education, join our daylong Customer Education Summit at the DevLearn 2025 Conference & Expo. The Summit is November 11, and the Conference is November 12-14, both at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Registration is open!
Image credit: Mykyta Dolmatov
