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SaaS LMS for B2B SaaS Companies

SaaS LMS for B2B SaaS Companies

You know you need to onboard your users if you’re going to keep them around, but finding the right learning management system (LMS) isn’t so easy. Many companies build an internal e-learning system to create the learning experiences their customers need, but it often fails to get the job done.

Why? Because software as a service (SaaS) requires a lot of onboarding if your users are to succeed. Yet, instead of carefully tailoring those training needs toward e-commerce, many SaaS companies quickly retrofit an internal system geared toward employees. This makes the e-learning platform far less user-friendly than cloud-based initiatives.

Plus, by updating an old HR system, you lose out on some of the most exciting aspects of modern training programs. Think gamification, awards and certifications, social media integrations, and other elements of an engaging learning environment. When that happens, your learners lose out … and when they bail on your product, so do you.

That’s why a SaaS LMS is irreplaceable. If you’re a B2B company, you can’t afford to ignore the truth any longer, so let’s discuss your options now.

What Is a SaaS LMS?

Before discussing the benefits of using dedicated SaaS learning management systems, we must examine their benefits and why they trump self-hosting options.

What Is a Learning Management System?

A learning management system is an environment that trains people on how to do something. LMS solutions were pioneered as a way to quickly bring employees up to speed on operations without creating an actual classroom in which to do it.

Today, the model has expanded to include many types of onboarding, but one of the most important is onboarding new web-based software users. A SaaS LMS is a system that trains your new users so they understand how to use your software right out of the gate. It scaffolds the content slowly so they have time to absorb information before moving on to the next steps. Done right, this helps reduce customer churn and increase the customer's lifetime value.

SaaS LMS vs. Hosted LMS

The next question many people ask is whether they should use an internally hosted LMS platform or a cloud-based LMS. While a self-hosted system has some benefits, such as not relying on anyone else, most benefits accrue to using external LMS providers. Let’s take a look at those now.

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9 Benefits of a SaaS LMS

You can't beat a third-party LMS system when it comes to management software designed to increase the user experience through online courses and modules. Not only do they know precisely how to encourage learner progress because they help so many companies do that, but they also remove from you the burden of learning a completely new system outside your core competency.

That’s just the beginning, however. Here are nine other ways to use a dedicated SaaS LMS to help your company grow today.

1. Affordability

A cloud LMS is highly cost-effective compared to a hosted learning management system. You don’t have to cobble together nearly the same amount of money and resources to use third-party vendors for online learning as you would with hosted LMS. That makes it easier to fit the CRM functionality into the budget and simplifies startup because you don’t have to produce a bunch of capital upfront.

2. Low Barrier to Entry

Again, getting on board with someone else’s fully designed and developed blended learning system is easy. That’s a whole lot of time and expertise you no longer need to find and pay for. You also don’t have to sign lengthy contracts and pay attention to licensing agreements.

3. Ongoing Help From Experts

When you use a SaaS LMS, you have an entire team of experts at your beck and call, 24/7/365. If you have a problem, you can rely on that team to take care of it for you rather than hoping your employee has the answer.

4. Scalable Systems

Scalability is huge. When your admins can ensure retention through the simple use of authoring tools and learning paths – complete with an academy model that provides certifications, quizzes, and real-time help – that’s the best LMS possible. And you again avoid the hassle of updating licenses, even as you grow bigger and bigger.

5. Privacy and Security

With an external system, you don’t need to worry about hardware failures erasing important information – either your own or your customers’ data. Instead, it’s all backed up by networked systems with redundancy. Whereas hosting your own data on servers will create a lot of stress, maintenance, and security concerns, using a cloud-based solution outside your company will provide peace of mind.

6. Widespread Accessibility

SaaS systems are available on all devices, all the time. Your customers can consume online training that is on demand on their time. That makes it easier for you to provide this system to your own clients and customers, and you can engage with the back end of your LMS more efficiently too. That dispels the need for hardware installation, repair, and replacement, meaning you don’t have to be at the office to use the system fluidly.

7. Significant Integration Potential

Building a million integrations or APIs into a new software system is no one’s idea of a good time. Suppose you’re limited to in-house help and hosting. In that case, chances are you’re going to take a lower road than a third-party company whose core competency is ensuring maximum system utility. That’s worse for your clients, so ultimately, it’s worse for you and your bottom line.

8. Ultimate Customization

Rather than paying for a complete suite of customer training systems, some of which you won’t use, using a SaaS LMS means you pay only for the features that truly matter to you. This makes it easier to customize your courses, add new upgrades and features as necessary, train your users, and scale quickly.

9. Reduced IT and HR Costs

When your IT team and HR staff are wrapped in the price of the software package, you don’t have to find those people on your own. You also don’t have to employ them, which means you’re paying a fraction of the cost of their keep with your subscription.

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How to Choose the Best SaaS LMS for B2B SaaS Customer Training

Many people instinctually want to choose their LMS software based on pricing. While understandable, that’s not the right way to go about it. Many SaaS LMS providers get you in the door that way, but then you find your training courses lack the functionality you need to give your customers the experience they deserve.

Instead, you need a training platform that offers you the same user experience you’re looking for. From webinars to social media, gamification to certification, your training materials must reflect your exact situation. To get that, you need a system that will let you design a program from the ground up.

So just what features do you need to train your own customers well? Here are a few of the most important.

User-Friendly Workflow

It’s imperative that you offer your users a user-friendly work experience with little downtime. However, you want that for yourself as well. Whatever LMS you choose should allow you to make changes easily, test them without reflecting them to the learner, and edit as needed.

Admins need it to be easy to push content across multiple curricula and learning paths simultaneously. Most legacy LMS vendors didn’t build their platforms to distribute and protect content easily. This flexibility becomes increasingly important if you want to use your LMS for other corporate training purposes, such as employee or partner training.

Your chosen system should offer an excellent reporting dashboard, easy content dissemination, and fantastic support.

Integration Functionality

Integrations are key. Your users will want to share their progress on social media. They’ll want to connect their email to it. Perhaps they have a planning or work-sharing app into which your LMS needs to flow. Whatever the case, you want to offer them the ultimate flexibility without losing any of the functionality of the training system itself.

That’s where an experienced, cloud-based LMS provider can help. They can help you manage integrations so your users have the best possible experience. If they don’t offer such a thing, run (don’t walk) in the opposite direction.

Branding Ability

Don’t forget about branding! Sure, you love the LMS provider that’s helping you, but not enough to want to give up an opportunity to build recognition for your own company. Choose an LMS that you can put your own stamp on so that your users will know exactly whom to thank for all the excellent training.

Put your logo on everything from the main user interface to downloadable content, awards, and social media posts. Not only will that remind your learners of how much your product does for them, but it also works as a lovely addition to your organic and word-of-mouth marketing.

Templates

Sometimes you want to build something new, but most of the time, it’s great to have a little to go on … or a lot. That’s where templates come in. They allow you to create modules that meet a new need without reinventing the wheel, for instance, when introducing new features or creating a new branch of your company.

Look for a SaaS LMS that offers templates, either those you’ve created or samples that come with the training system from the outset. You can customize these very specifically but save hours of upfront work. Plus, by using an editor that requires no coding, you can create amazing content for your users without a lick of in-house development knowledge.

Reporting & Dashboards

Your LMS should also offer a bird’s eye view of your users’ progress, how they’re utilizing the software, and whether new initiatives have the results you hope. In the old days, when the antiquated LMS of the past only served employees, tracking user progress was less critical. A customer success team that knows which customers are learning, struggling, and not engaging can use that information to serve their clients better.

Building the right dashboard to make broader product and business decisions is crucial for upper leadership. It is even better if this data can be pushed to internal systems and tools with integrations.

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The B2B SaaS LMS Help You Need … Today

Yes, it’s a lot of acronyms, but that should tell you something: the help you need is very specific. If you don’t find the right platform to deliver the correct B2B SaaS LMS experience, your customers won’t experience the growth you want, and neither will you.

If you’re ready to look beyond the hastily updated employee training LMS, Raven360 is here to help. We invite you to request a demo or get in touch today!

 

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