We’re really happy to announce that ClickLearn—market leading e-learning authoring solution—have launched their new community on the inSided platform. To celebrate the launch and find out what tips and tricks they have up their sleeve to get the most from their community we caught up with Per Ferdinandsen, Director of Customer Care at ClickLearn. Here’s how our chat went:

First of all thanks for chatting to us and congratulations on your new community! Happy?

Thank you! Yes, we are very happy so far. We knew we had a lot to learn (about launching and building communities), and needed all the support we could get to ensure we could get a good start. And we feel the onboarding process provided all the tools we needed to get a good start, and we are very happy with the results we are seeing already.

Briefly, what exactly is ClickLearn’s mission, product, and what’s your role at the company?

Since ClickLearn was founded in 2010, our mission remains to help companies with their need for quality and varied learning material and documentation, particularly in relation to complex ERP systems. Our solution allows authors to produce multi-format learning materials from a single source recording, and simplify otherwise complex processes such as change management and translations of those learning materials. My role as Director of Customer Care overall, is to provide the best possible experience for our customers.

Backtracking a little, when did ClickLearn first decide to start a community and why?

Last year, when planning our future strategy, we had come to the conclusion, that if we wanted to create a better customer experience, while at the same time sustaining a high growth, we needed to become much better at engaging with our customers. After conducting interviews with customers, we realized a community platform could help us do so.

How does your community come into your overall strategy, what happened after you first launched and how did you manage to get your customers and ClickLearn employees involved?

The community is an absolute key part of our focus on increased customer engagement. It enables us to provide our customers with a platform where they can communicate and network amongst each other, and share valuable feedback with us, on a scale we haven’t been able to in the past. We have communicated very openly internally and involved every stakeholder at ClickLearn, to build a sense of ownership across the board.

On the customer side, it was obvious prior to launching, that we needed to work with a long-term plan. It includes actively treating the community as a separate content channel of its own (which requires a separate content strategy and plan), and also integrating use of the community into our own software and other customer-facing services.

On the day we launched the community, we were excited to see if our careful planning would pay off. We are still in the early stages, but we can already see some of the benefits we were hoping for, are starting to show.

Moving on to the new platform: Why did you choose inSided? What specific features were you looking for and how is the project going so far?

We undertook a lengthy and careful vendor selection process, and we focused on ease of use both from customer and admin perspectives, onboarding during our implementation, a balance of customization options without requiring much coding, and integration options. We also looked a lot at existing inSided customers and their communities.

What is the primary business goal of the community?

We believe a thriving community will help us in a number of ways, but most importantly it will enable our customers to easily find any information they require about our solutions, at any stage in their journey. It will therefore be a critical platform to support our growing customer base.

What would you say are the main KPI’s you’re tracking for the community?

At this point in time, shortly after launch, we are primarily tracking the number of user sign-ups, and user posts & replies. As the community matures, we want to track and see if there is a transition of activity moving from our email support service, towards the community. Also, with a further increase in the level of activity on the platform, we’re going to explore which content is consumed the most and which categories spark the biggest interest among the users.

How do you measure them and make them actionable?

Currently we use the analytics features in the platform. In the not so distant future, we plan to bring the data into our internal BI solution, along with other relevant data sources.

Any great tips on engagement strategies for people looking into community options?

Ask your customers what they would like from a community, before you start. And start focusing on what they tell you is important to them, and build from there.

Finally, if you had to describe the project in one word what would it be?

I think it would be something like ‘expedition’. Since we have commenced our work on the Community, it has broadened our horizons in so many ways. Suddenly we get to explore “territories” we have not been to before, presenting us with unexpected opportunities along the way. And this is still just the beginning.

That’s great! Thanks so much for taking the time to answer our questions. We’re extremely proud to have ClickLearn as a customer, and we’re looking forward to the expedition ahead!

By Remco de Vries