Educational Services is an important part of any self-service marketing software. Skai’s offering is a multi-faceted approach to ensure clients are trained and confident in our platform.
With marketing technology such as the Skai suite of products, one of the most important factors in client satisfaction is how well they can drive business goals and ROI with the tools. And when clients are fully comfortable and trained on the platform, they are more likely to succeed with great campaign performance. We also tend to see fewer support tickets from clients who are trained which keeps our support team freed up to tackle bigger challenges.
Thus, at Skai, we believe strongly that an investment in training our customers is an investment into our own success.
“If software companies truly want their customers to embrace their self-service products, they have to provide top-notch training to empower them and so they have the confidence to take the wheel, ” says Christine Vincent, Skai’s VP, Center of Excellence. “That’s why we have put such a strong emphasis throughout the years on providing the best client education.”
To meet the needs of our clients, Skai’s Educational Services has three core offerings: in-person training, self-paced training, and certification through Skai U.
Educational Services: In-Person Training
The first 90 days of a technology partnership is key to how the rest of the relationship will probably go. Although there are many different steps to the onboarding process, the initial training is absolutely key. While help centers and videos can be a great way to learn, nothing is better than sitting with a trainer and truly learning the ropes with the ability to ask questions.
“Today’s marketers are overloaded with technology. It’s part of the job,” says Jennifer Christiansen, Skai’s Group Lead, Client Education & Enablement. “This stuff can be hard. Skai is a powerful, robust platform built to handle the needs of the most complex advertising programs for the world’s largest brands and agencies. It simply makes sense for us to be there at the beginning to really help our clients get started.”
The Educational Services in-person training isn’t limited to just new clients who are onboarding. Skai offers ongoing in-person training when needed. Employee churn is always a reality so new users to Skai are common even with organizations that have been clients for years.
Educational Services: Self-Paced Training
As fantastic and hands-on in-person training can be, most of the time, marketing practitioners like on-demand training because they can access it any time from anywhere, especially if they just want to brush up on a few areas. That’s where Skai U comes in to fill the gaps.
Skai U is free for all Skai clients to go through video training on a variety of topics related to working within our platform. The curriculum offered covers a wide range of courses from beginning to advanced levels.
“Clients have found a lot of success with our self-paced training,” says Dan Zlotoff, Director of Training for Skai Social. “Many of them want to be completely self-sufficient, so giving them access to Skai U lets them explore topics and fine-tune skills at their own speed.”
Educational Services: Skai U Certification
Also part of Educational Services and Skai U is the certification program. Videos and other educational materials are available for each certification track, culminating in a comprehensive certification exam.
“The certification program helps our clients realize just how skilled they are in our platform,” says Kara Frasca, Skai’s Education & Enablement CSD, Search. “Sometimes they don’t know just how good they are until they take the test and realize that all of their hard work has really paid off. It’s also a great way for agencies to demonstrate their expertise to their clients on Skai.”
The certification test isn’t easy, but for marketers who have been using the platform for a while shouldn’t have much of a problem to pass. The goal is simply to make sure that anyone with the certification is truly proficient at Skai.
What do our clients think?
Here are just a few examples of the feedback we’ve heard from clients about our Educational Services team:
“Thank you very much for coming in and providing the training to our team. I’ve heard extremely positive feedback and heard it was great training for both first time and more experienced users. And thanks again for the great training!”
“Thank you SO MUCH for all of your help and training over the last few days. It is greatly appreciated!”
“I’m hearing positive feedback from the team. This is just the beginning and we look forward to growing into deeper and more advanced utilization of the tool. Thanks for the continued partnership!”
“The on-site training and follow-up notes exceeded my expectations.”
“Thank you for the training yesterday and today. You’re a great presenter and I feel like I learned a lot about the platform. The team is excited to get in and practice. I know I am.”
“We found the training sessions extremely helpful and appreciate you and the team taking the time to walk us through everything and provide this material to help. We’re looking forward to leveraging everything we’ve learned!”
Looking for a marketing technology partner that invests into your success?
The Educational Services team and Skai Certification Programs are available only to Skai clients and are included in the license fees for the suite. To enroll, contact your Skai account representative for access to Skai U. If you’re not a Skai client, contact us to learn more about the value Skai can drive for your organization.
If you don’t feel like your current tool provider is making it easy for you to grow your expertise on their platform, give Skai a shot!
