Customer Education LMS Integrations: Customer Ed Nugget 2

LMS integrations can make or break any customer education platform. But why are they so important? Integrations can help customers gain easier access to instructional content with a user experience that adapts to their needs throughout their relationship with your company. What’s more, the right LMS integrations can drive critical data sharing and analytics that help prove and improve program performance over time.

Still, many learning professionals are needlessly intimated by the perceived complexity of LMS integrations. Others are concerned about their organization’s limited technical skills, or the limitations of their existing platform.

Sound familiar? Want to understand more about how to leverage customer education LMS integrations? Check this second episode of Customer Ed Nuggets, a new short-form podcast from Talented Learning!

Buying or selling a customer-focused learning system? Get independent insights you can trust, with our in-depth analysis of 20 top solutions. Learn about our 2024 Customer LMS Capabilities Report

Today’s Guest Expert

Today, I’m discussing what learning professionals need to know about customer education LMS integrations with expert, Brett Strauss, Founder and CEO of NetExam. More than 20 years ago, NetExam designed the industry’s first customer and partner education platform, and has been on the leading edge of learning systems innovation ever since.

Benefits of Customer Education LMS Integrations

Integrating a customer-focused LMS with other corporate systems offers numerous business benefits, for example:

• Streamlined Data Management — Integrating your LMS with other systems enables a seamless, automated exchange of key customer information, course enrollments, progress tracking and feedback. This type of automation reduces manual data entry errors and duplication.

• Personalized Learner Experience — With dynamically driven intelligence from other platforms, an LMS can provide easier access to more relevant, useful instructional content, learning paths and other resources that speed onboarding and customer success.

• Measure and Prove ROI  — By linking your LMS with business intelligence or reporting systems, you’ll have more comprehensive customer education insights. You’ll also be able to more quickly and confidently gather, analyze and act on this information.

• Eliminate Manual Administration — Integration with other corporate systems can automate various processes, such as enrollment, certification, and notifications. For example, when a customer completes a training module, the LMS can automatically update their CRM profile, trigger follow-up emails or issue certificates.

• Decrease Time-to-Value — Integration eliminates seconds or even days when customers move from buying to accessing training, and ultimately beginning to see value from their purchase.

Overall, integrating your customer education LMS with other corporate systems can lead to a more cohesive, efficient learning ecosystem, which in turn, improves customer satisfaction, increases training effectiveness, and aligns more directly with your business goals.

Two Types of Integrations

Confusion with customer education LMS integrations often comes from the fact that there are two ways to connect systems and applications:

• No-Code/Low-Code — These pre-built integrations are provided by an LMS vendor to connect with specific 3rd party software applications such as Google Analytics, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, PayPay and thousands of other platforms. These integrations can be deployed easily, with a checkbox, username and password.

• Documented API — Using an industry-standard language such as GraphQL or Restful, an LMS vendor provides a library of calls that can be used to pull and push data into the LMS. Deploying these integrations requires technical skills, services, and maintenance. This comes at a cost, but is generally more powerful than pre-built integrations.

Top 10 Customer Education LMS Integrations

Before Brett and I met for this podcast discussion, we brainstormed a list of different customer education LMS integrations that we regularly see. Our combined top 10 list includes:

1. Single Sign On (SSO) — Regardless of the SSO technology, until you automate the username and password process, you’ll always see issues with user access and more.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) — Who are your learners? What is their relationship with your organization? What kind of product education would be most beneficial for them? CRM intelligence can offer helpful answers.
3. HRIS — Data about internal sales and customer service employees is often stored in a different third-party or custom HR application.
4. eCommerce — Storefront, shopping cart, payment gateway and global taxation is important, not only to monetize customer education but also for broader insight into customer value.
5. LXP — Access to custom learning content repositories can serve up adaptive content in learner-friendly ways, including headless LMS models.
6. Customer Service — This helps answer customer questions quickly, which drives down support calls and related costs. It also offers helpful insight into issues that front-line teams commonly face.
7. Virtual Labs — This makes it possible to move from conceptual knowledge assessments to more realistic, practical assignments, experiences and assessments.
8. Learning Analytics — Combine training data with business data so you can verify and underscore the effectiveness of training.
9. Social Media — Social integrations make it possible for customers to share content with others in a cohort and provide broader proof of individual success.
10. Contextual Training — This brings content to learners when and where they need it, by embedding learning with the applications they use every day. Also, you can track their activity and progress.

Watch This Episode of Customer Ed Nuggets

After creating this list, we recorded the following unscripted 10-minute podcast. In this video, Brett and I reveal our top 3 choices. We also briefly explain how organizations use them and why they’re so important in the customer education process:

If you’d prefer to listen to our conversation, tune in to this Customer Ed Nuggets audio podcast right here at TalentedLearning.com.

The Bottom Line

Successful customer education platforms are designed to operate as an integral part of a broader ecosystem. By tying marketing, ecommerce and other business systems together with learning, you can elevate your LMS from a cost center to a strategic profit center.

Thanks for reading!

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About Talented Learning Customer Ed Nuggets

Hosted by Talented Learning CEO John Leh, the Customer Ed Nuggets podcast is a trusted source of advice, guidance and best practices for customer education professionals of all types. In this series of brief video and audio “nuggets” (each 10 minutes or less), we explore key topics with numerous guest experts.

Join us anytime here or on our YouTube channel to explore all facets of customer education learning tech, from how to build a persuasive business case, to effective strategies, technologies and content that help professionals create, deploy and grow successful customer-centered programs.

How to Follow the Customer Ed Nuggets Podcast

We practice what we preach by providing our content in a format for every learning preference. You can stay up-to-date with this podcast series through these channels:

• Listen and subscribe on audio podcast platforms:
  Apple | Amazon | Android | iHeart | Email | RSS
• Watch and subscribe to Talented Learning videos on YouTube
• Subscribe to our weekly Talented Learning newsletter

Learn More About NetExam

Also, to find out more about the NetExam LMS, check the company profile, product demo, review, case studies and related insights in our Learning Systems Directory. Or visit the vendor website at NetExam.com.

Check out these Talented Learning productions featuring NetExam CEO Brett Srauss:

• Talented Learning Show Podcast #58: Inside a Channel Training LMS with Brett Strauss
• Customer Ed Nuggets Podcast #2: Top Customer Ed LMS Integrations
• Blog: Expert Tips to Educate Dealer Franchises by Brett Strauss

Need Expert Guidance to Find the Right Customer Education LMS?

Looking for a new or improved system for customer education? Be sure you make the right decision. Fill out the form below to request a free consultation with Talented Learning Founder and Lead Analyst, John Leh: