Using eLearning for Customer Acquisition

In this industry, it is obvious that education is the key to the sales process. If you are already using eLearning for sales training, you know how effective this technology is to prepare your sales force. But can you apply eLearning technology to help acquire more customers? Can eLearning play a larger role in revenue generation for the organization?

According to a study by the National Institute for Health Care Management, drug companies spent $2.5 billion on direct-to-consumer ads in 2000, a 35-percent increase from the $1.8 billion spent in 1999. And the numbers continue to grow.

While billions are being spent on marketing and advertising, these efforts are often diffused in a crowded market or missed by consumers, who often TiVo past a television commercial. Apart from awareness, these expensive campaigns are placing further demands on physicians, who have to field more and more questions about products they may not know anything about.

How can eLearning help? Imagine exposing a highly tailored series of eLearning modules to specific end-users. Companies already sponsor luncheons, conferences and workshops to expose their products to physicians. So why not use eLearning to do this to reinforce these efforts? By providing eLearning to your customers, you can increase customer loyalty and potentially grow your revenue, through customer acquisition.

The Return on Investment

In a 2004 independent research study conducted by Brandon Hall, using eLearning for sales training increased sales by 30% and resulted in a Return on Investment (ROI) of up to 100% for organizations.

If eLearning is so successful for sales training, could it be used for your customer base? By applying eLearning across the entire sales spectrum – the sales representative, the physician, and the patient – you cannot only improve your sales, but also acquire new and better educated customers.

Traditionally, eLearning has been used exclusively to assist the sale. Sales training involves eLearning courses that cover a variety of products, topics and sales strategies. In this approach, it is the responsibility of the sales person to retain, filter, retrieve and apply this information in the appropriate context. In today’s rapidly changing world, this is a challenge.

The Customer Acquisition Model

The customer acquisition model uses eLearning across a spectrum, from sales training to sales performance support to customer training. The customer acquisition model leverages eLearning and applies the technology across all three facets of the sales process:

• Assist the sale – one-to-one targeted prescriptive eLearning for sales training
• Involve the sale – just-in-time learning approaches & performance support tools
• Inform the sale – highly targeted end-user learning for customers: physicians and their patients

Assist the Sale

“The true power of eLearning lies not in the anyone, anyplace, anytime model, but rather in its potential to provide the right information to the right people at the right times and places.” (The Engine of the Knowledge Economy” Ruttenbur, Spickler Lurie, 00)

Using a highly targeted approach, eLearning is custom tailored to each end-user.

How it works:

Suppose your organization releases a new product related to oncology. This product is brand new on the market, and it is critical that your sales force understand the product and begin offering it to customers, quickly.

The product launch affects one division in your organization and a specific segment of that division’s sales force, who will be selling the product.

To speed development of sales training on the product, your training staff creates eLearning modules, using templates and standardized development tools such as Microsoft PowerPoint. This learning template approach enables your in-house trainers to focus less on technology and more on content, instructional design and rapid production and distribution.

To effectively assist the sale, the eLearning needs to export content to a variety of portable formats, such as CD-ROM, MP3 audio files, and mobile learning that can be taken on a cell phone or portable device.

The “modules” are published to an eLearning portal and assigned to the sales representatives who will be offering the product. They then access the portal and download the modules to their laptop to take offline at their convenience. This approach creates a more targeted, highly personalized, one-to-one training plan, based on user profiles.

Prescriptive Learning

To speed learning and better assist the sale, a “prescriptive learning” model first determines how much a learner already knows, and then provides targeted, focused training, based on the learner’s deficiencies.

This can be accomplished using pre-tests. Based on accepted thresholds, the learner can “test out” of learning that has already been mastered. The learner should be able to drill down deeper into the content, while the pre-tests ensure that your sales force meets acceptable levels of mastery. HR can access and view learner reports to assess learner competencies and knowledge, based on the pre-test and post-test eLearning scores.

The prescriptive model also helps in identifying deficiencies to the learner. Here, Theo discovers that he needs a refresher on protease inhibitors. The prescriptive learning results automatically link to remedial modules, along with tools, such as fact sheets, etc.

After individual learning needs have been diagnosed and prescribed, the learner is automatically assigned audio pod cast versions of the learning, which can be downloaded to an MP3 player or burned to CD, so that Theo can listen to the instruction offline. This is critical for a learning population that is often mobile and needs access to learning where they live, not just where the learning lives.

Learning “to go”

Theo is on his way to a physician’s office with information on the company’s new offering. And within a short period of time, Theo has taken a finely granular and targeted learning plan related specifically to that product.

In addition, Theo has an audio pod cast on the modules, so that he can listen on the road, on his way to the account.

In the waiting room, Theo uses his cell phone to wirelessly access his eLearning mobile subscription for Just-in-Time training tutorials. This way, he can review just before walking in for a physician visit.

Involve the Sale

The traditional paradigm for eLearning has been as a replacement for instructor-led training. ELearning offers the convenience and standardized delivery that gives learners access to content, anytime.

But the new eLearning paradigm involves more portable learning that also provides performance support, so the learning can be taken any place, as well.

How it Works

During the five-minute sales call, the physician has questions on the new product. Is it right for her patients? Here, Gloria is the sales rep and her assigned learning plan included details on the product. She was also assigned associated sales performance tools to help her quickly retrieve details and make recommendations, right in the office. Interactive product guides and FAQs help her answer specific questions, right away, on a mobile device or cell phone.

When Gloria accesses the performance support resource, that data is tracked, so that HR and sales can monitor usage and see what content is most often accessed or covered, by which representative. This can provide valuable business intelligence that can be used in the sales and marketing efforts for the new product.

Dr. Harris is running behind schedule, but is interested and wants more information. Gloria promises to follow-up, later in the day.

Inform the Sale

When the company’s training staff produced the sales training, they created alternate versions of the assigned modules. These eLearning tutorials were tagged as “customer friendly resources.” They were also tagged to specify who they were most appropriate for, such as physicians, pharmacists, consumers, etc.

Since these modules were developed by the training staff as subsets of the original eLearning content, they provide a consistent follow-up message for the doctor. This reinforces the sales message, while tailoring the content for the new audience.

How it Works

On her way back to the office, Gloria stops for coffee. Using the wireless connection, Gloria accesses her eLearning portal, remotely.

Gloria follows-up from this morning’s office visit by assigning the “customer friendly” modules to an eLearning portal that is branded for Dr. Harris’ practice.

By noon, Dr. Harris receives an e-mail from Gloria, thanking her for her time and providing a link to the tailored eLearning site, providing more information on the product they were discussing this morning.

Dr. Harris follows the link and takes the quick tutorials, which answer her remaining questions and provide “the right information to the right people at the right times and places.”

She immediately sees which type of patients may be candidates for this new product.

Customer eLearning portals

When Dr. Harris reviewed the eLearning module on the product, she chose the “Post to MySite” link. This automatically includes the eLearning resource on Dr. Harris’ eLearning portal site, which is open to her patients.

Now, when Dr. Harris is discussing treatment plans with her patients, she can send them to her portal site to access the eLearning, which includes FAQs and patient-specific information on the product.

Charlotte is one of Dr. Harris’ patients. She has been having reactions to her medication. During her appointment, Dr. Harris referred Charlotte to her eLearning site for information on a new product she thinks may be appropriate.

Charlotte follows the link and takes the tutorial. Now, when she returns, she’s already familiar with the new product. The eLearning answered most of her questions, and at the next appointment, she and Dr. Harris decide to move to the new medication.

The Customer Acquisition Model – a Learning Lifecycle

For the sales force, there is an ever-growing amount of information on products and offerings. Even with effective eLearning in place, without a context or a more tailored one-to-one delivery, these resources can be ineffective and difficult for the sales representative to apply in the appropriate context.

For the physician, keeping up with medical advancements is daunting. To meet the information needs of her patients, a physician needs a more focused resource that provides tailored and actionable information.

For the patient, there cannot be enough information related to his or her specific condition. Yet, the internet lacks credible, timely information from a trusted source.

All of these individuals need a tailored eLearning portal that can serve as a go-to source to support a consistent learning lifecycle.

Customer training

Just as the sales staff is assigned a one-to-one learning path, the physician develops a learning “footprint,” where assets are assigned to their personalized eLearning portal based on requests, interests and needs. These eLearning assets are easily accessed by patients – to supports the learning needs of both audiences.

With an eLearning portal, your organization can continually assign assets, resources and messages to specific physicians. As these resources are disseminated and forwarded to others, the channel provides a viral marketing effort approach that is a proven model for customer acquisition.

Over time, the eLearning portal can become the physician’s reference to new information, as well as provide access to previously viewed eLearning modules.

Physicians are provided with more flexible just-in-time learning and patients are better informed about product offerings, alleviating their reliance on untrusted or outdated sources.

Throughout the Inform the Sales process, eLearning assets are distributed across the spectrum, to help educate not only the sales force, but also the physicians and their patients. As these audiences participate in the educational process, they develop higher product and company loyalty.

Conclusion

The customer acquisition model leverages your eLearning technology investment to benefit both the organization and the customer.

Your sales force benefits from more tailored just-in-time learning, along with corresponding performance support tools.

By offering eLearning to your customers, physicians can make more informed and deliberate choices. Furthermore, by offering physicians the ability to redistribute targeted eLearning modules to their patients, they can better serve their patients, as well, by increasing their awareness of your products and the benefits they provide.

This new paradigm can help you target your eLearning to deliver the right information to the right people. The results are more customers and increased revenue.