In one of my Scenario Pattern reports for the Customers.com Research Service, I address a common outcome-based scenario pattern: acquiring a skill. In it, I identify four Moments of Truth that are showstoppers for customers:
- I can’t find training appropriate for me
- The lessons are too expensive
- I can’t keep up with the lessons nor achieve the goals of each lesson
- I am not proficient in the new skill at the level I had hoped within the timeframe I have set
It is a bit fortuitous that this is the pattern I wrote about right now, because we are finally re-launching our Customer Scenario® Mapping Facilitator Training program. The program has been on unofficial hold while we took our customers’ pain points and priorities into account. We recognized that our customers had two major problems with the way CSM training was offered:
1. It was too expensive to achieve the ultimate outcome of being certified to work with customers
2. The certification process was so complex that facilitator trainees couldn’t become proficient in the skill within a reasonable time frame
So we followed our own advice (how very clever of us) and streamlined the time it takes to learn the methodology and reduced both the complexity and cost of becoming certified and able to lead customer co-design sessions with your end-customers.
Customers have been clamoring for a more Do It Yourself approach to learning the basic concepts of CSM and facilitation techniques. Our new DIY CSM Online Training is now available via downloadable training modules and worksheets, and can be taken at your convenience and pace at a lowered price of $2,500.
Another major change is how we are handling certification. Rather than requiring you to arrange a complete customer co-design session with your customers at your location (after practicing with internal stakeholders), we will now offer two-day public customer co-design Certification Workshops several times a year. At these workshops, trainees will spend the first day practicing the techniques they learned online. On the second day, we will bring in a sponsor (from a not-for-profit organization) along with her partners and end customers, and we will mentor the facilitators-in-training through the actual running of the CSM process. (Trainees will also be involved in preparing for the public session by interviewing customers, working with the sponsor, etc., all via the telephone and online.) For customers who don’t want to wait for a public workshop to be certified, or who would prefer to get started quickly with their own customers, we will work with trainees to create a customized Certification Workshop at their location for a negotiated (low) fee.
Oh, and we’ve lowered the cost of certification from $50,000 (or more) to $2,500 per facilitator trainee. See, simple and inexpensive.
I didn’t mean for this to sound like a commercial—although if you want to sign up or get more information, please contact me at 617-734-9566 or rmarshak@customers.com. Rather, I wanted to show how a company can take a scenario pattern and apply it to their own customers’ requirements, and change how they do business to delight their customers. Already, the feedback from customers has been great. They just wonder why we hadn’t done it already! Ah well, all good things take time.
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