Maximizing Learning Impact: Integrating LMS Customer Communities

What is a learning management system? What is an LMS community and how it continues to customer satisfaction?

In this article, we will answer these questions and explore how customer education can be used for more than product adoption - for creating strong relationships and expanding customer lifecycle.

Let's dive right in!

What is LMS?

LMS or learning management system is a software created to deliver training programs for your customers and employees. It is designed to guide the users through a learning journey about your product and answer any questions they might have.

As a customer education software, the environment is adjusted for customer training: helping them understand advanced features of your product, enabling smooth product adoption. A learning management system enables simple management of online training courses as well as evaluating customer progress. This allows customer success managers to interpret the learning curve for the product and adjust the training program to optimize the learning process.

But LMS platforms don't have to be just about learning. A learning management system can also be a community, fostering collaborative learning, and inspiring a direct feedback within the platform.

The benefits of turning a learning program into a community are exhaustive. Firstly, customers engage with the community and feel integrated into your brands story. They become more than just simple users - a valuable asset to your customer success teams.

Furthermore, customer education community holds the potential to help your business growth. The best LMS platforms motivate customers to increase your customer base through referrals, while helping you innovate your product with an honest feedback.

Understanding LMS

A robust LMS software is packed with features designed to facilitate and enhance customer education and thereby increase the likelihood of success with your product.

Let's take a closer look at what these are:

Content Management: An LMS is not just a storage space for your learning materials; it's a dynamic platform where you can create, organize, and update your educational content. With an array of formats like text, video, quizzes, and interactive modules, your LMS becomes a virtual library that's always open.

Personalized Learning Paths: Customers are unique, and so should be their learning journeys. An LMS allows you to create personalized learning paths based on individual needs and preferences.

Assessment and Feedback: How do you know if your educational content is effective? The answer lies in assessment tools and feedback mechanisms. An LMS lets you measure customer progress, collect feedback, and fine-tune your offerings for maximum impact.

‍Engagement Tools: Learning shouldn't be a chore. With features like gamification and rewards (e.g., certification), an LMS can turn education into an engaging and enjoyable experience. It's the secret ingredient that turns studying from a 'must-do' into a 'want-to-do'.

Reporting and Analytics: Knowledge is power, and with the reporting and analytics features of an LMS, you get to understand your customers' learning behaviors, course completion rates, and more.

Key LMS features

These features and more make LMS software a powerhouse for customer education. But what are some of the top LMS solutions? Keep reading, because that's our next section!

Top LMS solutions

Finding the right LMS to build your customer education system is the first step of building a strong and engaged learning community. We've reviewed top 11 popular solutions, hoping to help you decide which one works best for your use case.

Adobe Learning Manager

Adobe Learning Manager (formerly Adobe Captivate Prime) is a feature-rich LMS designed to deliver engaging training programs with tools for course creation, gamification, and AI-driven personalization.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Adobe Learning Manager (ALM) allows for the creation, management, and delivery of online courses.
2. Custom Branding: Lets you customize the look and feel of your platform.
3. Mobile Learning: It supports a mobile-friendly learning experience, and has a dedicated mobile app.
4. Reports and Analytics: Offers detailed analytics to track learner progress and measure the impact of courses.
5. AI-based social learning: Informal, peer-to-peer discussion forums to help your customers share knowledge as well as content.
6. Integration: ALM can be integrated with a variety of tools such as CRM, HRIS, and content creation tools.
7. Gamification: Includes features like points, badges, and leaderboards to engage and motivate learners.

Pros:

1. User-Friendly: ALM has a user-friendly and intuitive interface.
2. Fluidic Player: The Fluidic player can play virtually any kind of content, which makes it easy for users to access course materials.
3. Learning Paths: ALM allows you to create guided learning paths to help learners achieve their learning objectives in a structured way.
4. AI-Powered: ALM uses artificial intelligence to personalize learning experiences.

Cons:

1. Complex Setup: Some users find the initial setup and configuration of the LMS to be complex.
2. Customization: While it allows some customization, the options can be limited compared to other platforms.
3. Cost: It might be more expensive than some other learning management systems.

Pricing:

They recommend contacting their sales team for a custom quote based on your specific needs.

Skilljar

Skilljar is a customer education platform that helps businesses onboard and train their customers effectively. It offers advanced features when it comes to analytics, enabling you to train customers more effectively.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Allows for creation of multimedia course content.
2. Custom Branding: Provides the ability to customize the platform to match your brand.
3. Reports and Analytics: Detailed reports to track learner progress and course effectiveness.
4. Certification: Ability to offer certificates of completion.
5. Integrations: Seamless integrations with business tools, including Salesforce, Marketo, and Zendesk.
6. E-commerce Capabilities: Allows you to monetize your courses through online selling.
7. API Access: Powerful API for custom integrations.

Pros:

1. Ease of Use: Skilljar is recognized for its intuitive interface for both administrators and learners.
2. Integrations: It integrates well with numerous systems, providing additional functionality and convenience.
3. Scalability: The system is well suited to growing organizations due to its flexible structure.
4. Good Customer Support: Skilljar provides strong customer support.

Cons:

1. Limited Customization: Some users have noted that there are limitations in terms of design customization.
2. No Built-In Authoring Tool: Skilljar does not have a built-in content authoring tool, so content must be created externally.

Pricing:

They suggest contacting their sales team for a custom quote.

Thinkific Plus

Thinkific Plus is a scalable learning management software tailored for businesses and educators looking to create and monetize professional courses with high customization options. It is suitable for companies who grow fast and want to invest in customer education.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Allows for easy creation, management, and distribution of online courses.
2. Custom Branding: Lets you customize the look and feel of your courses and platform.
3. Mobile Learning: Supports a mobile-friendly learning experience.
4. Reports and Analytics: Provides comprehensive analytics to track learner progress and measure the impact of courses.
5. E-commerce: Allows for selling of online courses.
6. Integration: Can be integrated with a variety of tools, including email marketing software, analytics tools, and more.
7. Certificates: Allows the issuance of completion certificates for courses.

Pros:

1. User-Friendly: Known for its intuitive and easy-to-use interface, both for course creators and learners.
2. High Customizability: Thinkific Plus provides greater control over course design and learner experience.
3. Excellent Customer Support: Thinkific Plus comes with priority support, including a dedicated customer success manager.
4. No Transaction Fees: Thinkific Plus does not charge transaction fees on course sales.

Cons:

1. Limited Advanced Quiz Functionality: While Thinkific does support quizzes, some users have found the functionality to be limited compared to other platforms.
2. No Built-in Email Marketing: While you can integrate with email marketing tools, there's no built-in email marketing feature.

Pricing:

Thinkific Plus has four different pricing plans for their learning management system offer. A free plan is available for one course and one community only. Basic, Start, and Grow plans all allow unlimited courses, but they differ in the number of communities and spaces per community.

LearnUpon

LearnUpon is an intuitive customer training LMS that enables you to deliver training across employees, customers, and partners with powerful multi-portal functionality.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Provides tools to easily create, manage, and distribute online training content.
2. Custom Branding: Ability to customize the learning platform to align with your brand.
3. Reports and Analytics: Offers in-depth analytics to track learner progress and measure the impact of training.
4. Mobile Learning: Supports a mobile-friendly learning experience.
5. Integration: Can be integrated with a variety of business tools, including Salesforce, Slack, Zoom, and more.
6. E-commerce: Allows you to sell your courses online.
7. Certifications: Provides the ability to issue completion certificates for courses.

Pros:

1. User-Friendly: Known for its intuitive and easy-to-use interface.
2. Scalability: LearnUpon is suitable for both small businesses and large enterprises.
3. Multi-Portal: Allows you to manage multiple portals for different audiences (customers, partners, employees) from a single account.
4. Strong Customer Support: They offer comprehensive and responsive customer support.

Cons:

1. Limited Customization: Some users have reported that there could be more options for customization.
2. No Built-in Authoring Tool: You'll need to create content externally and then upload it into LearnUpon.

Pricing:

They suggest contacting their sales team for a custom quote based on your specific needs.

Absorb LMS

Absorb LMS offers a user-friendly platform designed for delivering online courses for professional training of corporate employees. They include a powerful customization and reporting capabilities for a better customer education experience.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Offers tools for creating, managing, and distributing online training materials.
2. Custom Branding: Allows you to customize the learning platform to align with your brand.
3. Reports and Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into learning outcomes and effectiveness of training materials.
4. Mobile Learning: Supports a mobile-friendly learning experience and has a dedicated mobile app.
5. Integration: Integrates with popular business tools, such as Salesforce, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
6. E-commerce: Enables the selling of courses online.
7. Certification: Provides the ability to issue completion certificates for courses.

Pros:

1. Scalability: Absorb LMS is known for its scalability, suitable for both small and large businesses.
2. Intuitive Interface: The platform is user-friendly for both learners and administrators.
3. Customization: Absorb LMS offers good customization options, including branding and learning paths.
4. Strong Reporting: It provides powerful reporting and analytic tools for assessing learning outcomes.

Cons:

1. Customer Support: Some users have reported issues with the responsiveness of customer support.
2. Price: It can be more expensive compared to other LMS platforms.
3. Learning Curve: While the platform is user-friendly, it may take some time for users to fully understand all features and functionalities.

Pricing:

They recommend contacting their sales team for a custom quote based on your needs. However, besides live demo from their sales team, Absorb LMS also provides a free trial version for interested businesses.

WorkRamp

WorkRamp combines internal employee training and external customer education in one LMS, delivering personalized learning paths and a worry-free onboarding process.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Tools to create, manage, and distribute online training materials.
2. Custom Branding: Ability to customize the learning platform to match your brand.
3. Reports and Analytics: Offers insights into learning outcomes and effectiveness of training materials.
4. Mobile Learning: Supports a mobile-friendly learning experience.
5. Integration: Integrates with popular business tools, including Salesforce, Slack, and more.
6. Certification: Ability to issue completion certificates for courses.

Pros:

1. Intuitive Interface: WorkRamp provides a modern, clean, and user-friendly interface.
2. Customizability: Allows you to customize the platform and courses to match your brand and specific needs.
3. Strong Customer Support: Known for their responsive and helpful customer support.
4. Versatility: It's designed to be used for both internal employee training and external customer education.

Cons:

1. Limited Assessment Types: The platform could offer more diverse types of quizzes or exams.
2. No Offline Access: Users require an internet connection to access the learning materials.
3. Limited Language Support: It primarily supports English which may not suit international businesses.

Pricing:

WorkRamp's pricing varies based on the headcount of your company. If your community will host around 200 employees, the range is typically $17,300 to $29,600 annually, according to Vendr.

Docebo

Docebo is a customer education software that integrates AI-powered learning for extra personalized and engaging experiences. Besides interesting training content formats, it comes with comprehensive reporting, helping you optimize the training process. This makes Docebo stand out as a high-end customer LMS.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Easy-to-use tools to create, manage, and distribute online learning materials.
2. AI-Powered Learning: Utilizes artificial intelligence to deliver personalized learning experiences.
3. Social Learning: Supports collaborative learning through discussion boards and other social learning features.
4. Mobile Learning: Offers a mobile application for learning on the go.
5. Reports and Analytics: Comprehensive analytics and reporting capabilities for tracking learner progress.
6. Integrations: Can be integrated with a variety of third-party applications including HRIS, CRM, and content management systems.
7. Custom Branding: Allows for customization of the learning platform to match your brand.

Pros:

1. AI-Powered Recommendations: Docebo's AI can recommend courses based on a learner's past behavior, making learning more personalized and effective.
2. User Interface: Docebo's UI is clean, modern, and easy to navigate.
3. Scalability: Can support businesses of varying sizes, from small to enterprise-level.
4. Rich Integrations: It offers a wide array of integration options to suit the needs of different businesses.

Cons:

1. Pricing: Some users find Docebo to be more expensive compared to other learning management systems.
2. Learning Curve: While the UI is sleek, it can be a bit complex to learn initially.
3. Customer Support: Some users have reported issues with customer support responsiveness.

Pricing:

Docebo does not have transparent pricing available, but they divide their pricing plans into three categories based on the features you'd like included.

Moodle

Moodle is an open-source customer LMS that offers extensive customization and a lot of third-party tools integrations. It is usually used for Universities and educational institutions, but it's efficiency and the fact that is technically free makes it a popular choice to manage courses for customer education as well.

Key Features:

• Open-source LMS platform with extensive customization options.
• Wide range of third-party plugins available.
• Supports mobile learning.

Pros:

• High level of customization.
• Large active community for support and resources.
• Cost-effective.

Cons:

• Requires technical expertise to set up and manage.
• User interface is less modern compared to other LMS platforms.

Pricing:

Moodle is a free, open-source platform. However, additional costs can be incurred for hosting, customization, and support services.

Litmos

Litmos is a cloud-based LMS offering easy course creation, gamification, and mobile learning, designed for businesses who need to create courses for engaging customer onboarding.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Includes a built-in course authoring tool as well as the ability to upload pre-made content.
2. Gamification: Includes features like points, badges, and leaderboards to engage and motivate learners.
3. Mobile Learning: Offers a mobile application for learning on the go.
4. Reports and Analytics: Provides comprehensive reporting to track learner progress and course performance.
5. Integration: Can be integrated with numerous third-party applications including HRIS, CRM, and content management systems.
6. E-commerce: Allows the selling of courses online.
7. Custom Branding: Allows for customization of the learning platform to match your brand.

Pros:

1. User-friendly: Litmos has an intuitive interface for both administrators and learners.
2. Mobile Learning: The platform supports mobile learning, enabling users to access courses from anywhere, anytime.
3. Scalability: The platform is scalable and can accommodate the needs of both small businesses and large enterprises.
4. Content Library: Litmos offers a pre-made content library, which can be a time saver for businesses without much eLearning content on hand.

Cons:

1. Limited Customization: Some users have reported that the platform could offer more customization options.
2. Customer Support: There have been reports of inconsistent customer service quality.
3. Advanced Reporting: While Litmos offers reporting functionality, some users feel it lacks more advanced reporting features.

Pricing:

Litmos does not have transparent pricing plans. They format their offer based on the features you need to include in your learning management system.

LearnWorlds

LearnWorlds is a platform tailored for creating interactive and engaging online courses, with unique features like interactive videos and built-in community tools. It is handy for different use cases for a learning program, including employee training and customer training.

Key Features:

1. Interactive Video: Ability to create interactive videos with embedded questions.
2. Course Creation: Easy-to-use course builder for creating engaging courses.
3. Certificates: Provides customizable certificates upon course completion.
4. Built-in social network: Facilitates student interaction and community building.
5. Tests and Quizzes: Allows you to assess your learners' progress with a variety of assessment tools.
6. E-commerce: Enables you to sell your courses online.
7. Mobile Learning: Provides a mobile-friendly platform.

Pros:

1. High Customizability: Allows for extensive customization of courses and the learning platform.
2. Interactive Content: Offers unique features like interactive videos to increase learner engagement.
3. Built-In Community Features: Enhances learner engagement and facilitates learner interaction.
4. E-commerce Capabilities: Strong tools for selling courses online, making it a good choice for educators looking to monetize their content.

Cons:

1. Learning Curve: Some users report that the platform can be a bit difficult to learn initially.
2. Limitations in Design Customization: While the platform is highly customizable, there may be some limitations in customizing the look and feel of the platform without technical knowledge.

Pricing:

LearnWorlds' pricing plans range from a Starter plan to a High Volume & Corporate plan, with prices starting at $24/month (when billed annually) and increasing based on the number of features and services required.

Their Pro Trainer plan costs $79/month and Learning Center plan costs $249/month. They suggest contacting their team for a quote for the Enterprise plan.

Northpass

Northpass is a modern and stylish LMS that enables you to deliver a tailored customer training program with a focus on ease of use, integrations, and detailed analytics including individual learner performance.

Key Features:

1. Course Creation: Allows for easy uploading, creation, and editing of course content.
2. Custom Branding: Businesses can personalize their platform to match their brand.
3. Learning Paths: Allows you to guide learners through a series of courses.
4. Reports and Analytics: Detailed reports to track learner progress and course effectiveness.
5. Integrations: Supports integration with various business tools, including Zendesk, Salesforce, and Slack.
6. Mobile Learning: Offers a mobile-friendly platform.
7. API Access: Provides a powerful API for custom integrations.

Pros:

1. User-friendly interface: The platform is easy to use for both learners and administrators.
2. Strong customer support: Northpass offers responsive and helpful customer support.
3. Customizability: The platform is flexible and can be customized to a company's specific needs.
4. Integrations: Northpass can be integrated with a number of other systems, increasing its versatility.

Cons:

1. Limited Assessment Types: Northpass only offers quizzes and exams for assessments, which might not suit all learning styles or assessment needs.
2. No Offline Access: Learners need an internet connection to access courses.
3. Limited Languages: It is primarily English focused, which may not suit international businesses.

Pricing:

Northpass does not share their pricing publically. They, however, say that all their plans have a fixed price for unlimited users, admins, and content shared.

Learning Management System - LMS Community Comparison Table

Understanding community platform

Now that we've explored different LMS solutions, let's learn more about community platforms. These are the digital spaces where your customer community can come together to share, learn, and grow. Here are some of their key features:

#1 Customization tools

Many community platforms allow you to customize the visual elements of your space such as color and typography, while others also let you create a custom domain and build the pages, layout, and navigation of your community space.

Bettermode allows for complete brand customization of the learning community platform. You can adjust the logos for dark mode, update preferences for different devices, change fonts and styles.

Moreover, Bettermode enables changes of every little detail, allowing a fully branded experience.

#2 Integration

A community platform for customer engagement must integrate tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom, Zapier, and more. Seamless integration can also help automate your processes such as sending welcome emails, setting up rewards, or tracking key metrics.

Bettermode includes 17 integrations (HubSpot, Zendesk, MailChimp, Slack, Discord, to name a few), as well as 12 different add-ons such as translations and API keys. These sophisticated solutions are designed for large communities spread globally.

#3 Templates (discussion, Q&A, events, etc.)

Templates to help you launch your community quickly while ensuring you are leveraging best practices. Different spaces in the community allow your customers to start discussions, ask questions, and share insights about your products or services.

Over the past year, Bettermode has developed 25 ready templates for various use cases, and we are working on creating more. All templates are set to go, all you need to do is customize the branding and community settings.

A template that works best for LMS use case would be Edumark or Bytelink. These themes include articles, help center, and customer support sections to provide the answers to your customer questions. Moreover, Bytelink includes a leaderboard to inspire community members to engage more and gamify the entire experience.

‍#4 User Profiles and Personalization

Every member of your community is unique, and user profiles allow them to express their individuality. Additionally, personalization features can help tailor the community experience to each user's preferences. It's a way of making your community platform feel like home.

To enhance user experience, add some of the following sections to the user profile:

• Country or Location field to enable community members to connect;
• Pronoun to make the learning community more inclusive and welcoming;
• Bio or About section where each member can introduce themselves to the rest of the community;
• Birthday for your database - surprise your customers on their special day.

#‍5 Knowledge Base

A community platform can serve as a repository of useful information about your products or services. This can include FAQs, guides, tutorials, and more.

One of the most common use cases of Bettermode platform is building a knowledge base with various content types to offer a complete service to your customers.

For example, the Cloud Project template is designed to fill your needs for a comprehensive customer service knowledge base. It includes spaces for keeping product documents, FAQs, and a discussion board for the community to meet and chat about your product and features.

Furthermore, leverage Badges such as New Member or a custom role (e.g. Ambassador) to help community members reach out to one another when they need help.

‍#6 Social Media Integration

Social media platforms are where many of your customers are likely to hang out, and integration with these platforms can help your community grow and stay connected. It's like extending your community platform's reach into the social media world.

One way to integrate social media platforms is to allow the users to share links to their social media profiles (Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Telegram, Twitter, etc). That way, customers who meet on the platform can move their communication beyond your brand.

‍#7 Moderation and Security Features

Moderation tools help ensure that the conversation stays constructive, and security features protect your community members and their information.

For example, Bettermode's moderation settings include advanced features such as AI spam detector that filters bots and unwanted guests on your platform. Moreover, you can opt for moderation alerts for specific keywords (including common profanities), as well as monitor and admin-approve content posted by the community members.

Other good monitoring practices may also include age-based moderation to protect the youngest members of the community, and a Members watchlist where you can flag those members who tend to go rouge and need admin-approval to post.

These features make a community platform more than just a digital gathering place. They make it a vibrant, active, and valuable part of your customer experience. But what are the exact benefits when it all comes together with LMS software and customer education? Let's find out in the next section!

Benefits of integration between LMS and community

Before we connect the dots between LMS and customer communities, let's talk a bit more about why customer education and engagement are so important.

First off, customer education. This isn't about turning your customers into walking encyclopedias of your products. It's about equipping them with the knowledge they need to make the most out of your offerings. It's like giving someone the recipe along with the cake mix. Sure, they could probably make something edible without it, but with the recipe, they can create a culinary masterpiece.

When customers understand your products or services better, they can use them more effectively, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty.

Then there's customer engagement. This is about sparking and nurturing a relationship with your customers that goes beyond just transactions. It's like inviting them to a party, not just to celebrate a sale, but to dance, chat, and share experiences. Engaged customers are more likely to become repeat buyers, provide valuable feedback, and promote your brand to others.

In short, customer education gives your customers the knowledge they need to succeed, while engagement transforms them from passive consumers to active participants. Now that we know why these two elements are essential, it's time to see how an LMS can bring them together within a thriving customer community.

Conclusion

Educating your customers about your product is not only useful to relax the customer support, but also to bring the users closer to your brand. Gathering a branded community benefits your company's reputation, increases the revenue through referrals, and supports customer retention along with satisfaction.

There are numerous software solutions on the market. You can leverage professional educational course-builders for your LMS, or build your own website to gather like-minded people around customer training.

If you decide to make your own LMS, you can do so in no time with Bettermode - and start for free. Why wait? Start growing your customer learning community today!

This article was originally published on May 25th, 2023, and was updated on November 28th, 2024.

FAQ

What is a customer education platform?

A customer education platform is a system that helps train and onboard customers by creating educational content such as courses, webinars, and tutorials to enhance their product or service experience.

What is LMS in customer service?

A Learning Management System LMS in customer service provides a platform for customer and partner education, to deliver and manage training programs for customer support teams, ensuring skill development and consistent service.

Which is the best online learning platform?

The best learning management system is the one that caters the needs of your learning community. A good training platform helps you introduce different training modules, share educational courses, include interactive learning tools, and enable customized learning paths for different users. One such platform is Bettermode, a no-code app with intuitive user interface that fosters a stimulating learning environment.

What are some customer service platforms?

Notable customer service platforms include Bettermode, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Help Scout, and LiveAgent, which help improve customer support and increase customer satisfaction.