What To Look For In Partner Training Software

16th May 2022

Partner training software (sometimes referred to as a Learning Management System) is an eLearning platform that will help you train your external partners, including your franchise owners, resellers, distributors, agents, and installers. This platform allows you to plan, deliver, and track the training programmes that you develop.

There are three types:

Open-source (which can be modified in bespoke ways for your company’s needs)
Commercial (which simplifies the process by letting you pay a vendor to use their software)
Managed (wherein you work with a dedicated training management company to handle all aspects of the partner training software)

Why Choosing the Right Partner Training Software is Important

With the right partner training software, your business will get the following benefits:

Boosted sales — By imparting your knowledge to your partners, you can help further their expertise, allowing them to become more effective sellers. As a direct result, they will be able to close faster, learn how to cross-sell or upsell, and provide a tailored service. The more sales they make, the better your overall revenue will be.
Increased customer loyalty — Trust in your brand is reinforced when your partners understand the product inside out, as well as your consumer preference and behaviour. When you have partners with high product knowledge on your side, loyal customers are not too far behind. They will know how to properly sell your product to their audience and keep their customers happy.
Strengthened partnerships — Training your partners shows them your investment in their growth. This fosters trust, which is especially needed in new and unfamiliar regional markets. Companies that collaborate with their partners have shown twice as much growth as opposed to their competitors.
Consistent branding — As you expand your business, training your partners ensures that the brand you’ve cultivated remains consistent across all branches, franchises, or regions. Not only will they be well-versed with the values your brand espouses, but they will also stay up-to-date with the latest changes implemented to your product or service.

9 Features to Look for When Choosing Your Partner Training Software

To reap these benefits, choose your delivery platform with discernment. The right partner training software should have:

Smooth user experience

When looking for your partner training software, make sure that they have a beginner-friendly interface. Having an intuitive dashboard, whether on desktop or mobile, is going to be one less friction to encourage your partners to take your course and learn more about your brand.

A well-designed user experience can improve conversion by up to 400%. Invest in an easy-to-use platform early on.

Scope to monetise training

The ideal partner training software will enable you to scale up and sell your bespoke training courses to your partners. By monetising your training, you can build stronger relationships with your partners, elevate your status as an authority in your field, and allow you to fund more of your training programmes in the future. It can even be used later on to generate regular profit for your company.

Although producing educational content is an expense for any business to spend at the onset, this will only pay dividends in the long run. To improve your external sales, you can entice your partners with discounts as well as a catalogue of relevant, customisable content that will solve their problems. Make sure that the dashboard is hassle-free and lets you plug in your own KPIs for analytics and reporting.

Reporting and tracking

Data collection helps you see how your partners are engaging with your training programme. When did they log in? How long did it take for them to complete a course? How many users got this question right? What is the average completion rate?

Visualising this data is even more important for effective partner training. These detailed reports will help you make adjustments when you develop new courses or onboard new partners. Look for a partner training software that can get granular with its tracking features so you can tweak your courses over time.

Flexible pricing

Pricing for any partner training software should come in tiers. This structure makes it accessible to small businesses and allows companies to scale up to the needs of industry titans, while providing the same level of quality for all types of organisations.

The platform should also have additional features available a la carte, letting you customise even the entry-level tier. And if there are some features you don’t need, the platform should be able to remove them—or replace them with the ones you do need—to help meet your budget.

Customisable

Your partner training software of choice must let you configure your programmes according to your needs, as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to this type of training. The same goes for the look and feel of entire courses. Your brand look needs to be maintained across all your training materials as well, including the colours, logo, and other defining visual elements of your organisation.

Look into whether the platform you’re looking at allows for this level of personalisation and whether it can accommodate the changes you envision.

Flexible course setup

After you’ve made your materials available, they must be flexible in how your partners can access them. Partner training software should let your partners avail the courses that are best suited for them and answer their day-to-day problems.

The platform, therefore, must have a fully searchable course catalogue, self-paced courses, robust quizzes and assessments, downloadable videos, and mechanisms to provide feedback like surveys. It must also comply with the SCORM eLearning standard.

Certification

Certification is an effective way to motivate your partners, whether you’re already nurturing the long-term relationship you have with them or you’re onboarding them for the first time.

Choose partner training software that lets you award certificates and badges with your training programmes to reinforce coordination with your partners. It’s even better if the software allows for bespoke, customisable, digitised certification. These proofs of expertise, which partners can post on their LinkedIn or Facebook profiles, can provide them with a competitive edge.

Long-term support

The scope of eLearning has changed, especially with the impacts of the pandemic. Look for partner training software that provides support whenever it’s needed, regardless of your partners’ locations.

Having a team dedicated to managing your training courses frees up your internal resources. A well-supported platform, with continual fixes and feature updates, lets your programme weather any disruption and provides support for even the most technical of issues.

Organisational hierarchies

In partner training software, organisational hierarchies give levels of access — based on how your own business is structured — to specific users, teams, and organisations.

This functionality is especially critical when working with external partners, letting you keep your materials compartmentalised. Organisational hierarchies streamline tracking and reporting, keeping you abreast of which partners are using which programmes.

Partner Training Software that Works for You

The right partner training software should make your course development as intuitive as possible. Make sure that the platform you choose lets you create and disseminate training programmes that are aligned with your business goals, allowing you to strengthen your relationships with your partners and move the revenue needle for your organisation.

The transition to training your partners via eLearning can be overwhelming. Collaborating with a partner training software service provider like Wahoo Learning, the only platform designed for external partner training, can help you make programmes that suit you and your partners. Book a demo with us today and see how we can help you.

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