Hi everyone,

I am currenty developing an external customer training program for my organization, and need some help finding some resources about how to go about doing this.

The customer training also has to be revenue generating, so any help or advice that experts could offer me would be greatly appreciated.

You need to use a disciplined design and development process that involves the customer at every step. This includes doing research on how to market and price the program for the customer.

If this sound foreign to you, it's a good idea to get some help.

I'm also responsible for customer training, and I've found that there is not a lot of best practice information or guidance on developing customer training programs available.

You can apply some HPT and ISD concepts to customer training, but there are very distinct differences from internal training.

However, many of the vendors who provide outsourcing services that are used for customer training have white papers and webinars that are very helpful. Examples would include Centra, WebEx, GeoLearning, and ViewCentral. Info and webinar sign-up is usually available from their web pages.

You may also find good information by exploring the sites of companies that are known for good external training. Red Hat and Oracle come to mind (both technology companies). I'm sure there are others.

I agree with the previous poster that if you plan on generating revenue from the program, you will need to do some serious research about how much your customers are willing to pay, and compare that to the development costs. Besides learning about the customers' needs, you will need to be tightly aligned with the product manager for whatever product/service you are teaching, and with the sales staff who know the customer best. When I've been responsible for customer training in the past, I've had the most success when the sales team can clearly see the value customer training adds as they try to close deals.

Since there aren't many existing sources of info, I'd be interested in knowing about others who might want to start a Community of Practice around the customer training topic, so we can learn from each other.

I am also in charge of developing a Customer Certification Training Program for my company. We are using our internal training curriculum on our software products as a basis for our Customer Training Program since our employees and customers needs to learn how to use the same products. The most complex issue is in the area of assigning a price per day/class/etc. and how to approach that issue. Doing pretty well on what to offer, content, and who is teaching what but the financial issues of what to charge is rather complex. Any help in the area of external training for customers would be much appreciated. Especially information regarding resources, websites, and any workshops that are available in the area of Customer Training Management. Company leadership is convinced this will be a huge revenue center for our company so the pressur eis on me to deliver. Any help, advice, or experience is much appreciated!

If you train customers about computer software or hardware, I'd suggest joining CEdMA (Computer Education Management Association) at http://www.cedma.net. Don't judge the organization by its Website, which is in desperate need of updating. The value is in the members, who are experienced and happy to help a newbie out. Some big players are members.