HRTech Interview with Frances Kleven, Customer Experience Leader at LearnUpon

Hi Frances, We’re delighted to have you at HRTech Cube. To start, can you please share a bit about your professional journey?
I’ve spent more than 15 years working in the technology and education sectors, helping organizations create and implement thoughtful learning strategies. Right now, I lead LearnUpon’s Core Customer Experience team, where I oversee both the Customer Success and Implementation teams.

My career journey actually started with the goal of becoming a university professor, but I soon found myself drawn to the administrative side of higher education. I worked closely with universities to shape their digital learning strategies, which eventually led me to the private sector. At Coursera, I had the privilege of collaborating with university partners to develop content strategies for online certificate programs.

LearnUpon has recently introduced ‘LearnUpon Anywhere,’ an exciting step towards seamless customer education. Can you explain how this new feature addresses the evolving needs of organizations for real-time, integrated learning?
More and more, I’m seeing organizations face the challenge of getting their customers to engage in learning—people have less and less time to devote to these types of activities! And customer education is vital as an onboarding, support, and retention tool.

A key strategy to improve engagement with customer education is to bring the learning to the learner. This means you’re enabling them to access and engage with courses in real-time, right where they are spending their time: your product.

LearnUpon Anywhere does just that. It integrates courses directly into an organization’s own product and service, making it simple and straightforward for customers to access learning then and there, right when they need it.

Importantly, with LearnUpon Anywhere, the LMS remains the hub for admins, as they can still manage, deliver, and track all the learning that is happening.

How does embedding learning directly into an organization’s product or service enhance the overall customer experience, particularly in terms of engagement and retention?
We all know that for a customer to be successful with your product or service, they need to see the value of it, and customer education is a big component in that.

According to a TSIA study, 68% of customers indicated that they use products more frequently after receiving training. Additionally, 87% of customers reported that training enables them to work more independently.

But if there are barriers to learning, like time or having to log into multiple platforms, customers can easily get distracted from the task at hand.

By integrating learning directly, LearnUpon Anywhere makes it seamless for customers to access learning where it will get the most engagement and adoption—within your own product or solution.

From your perspective, what role does LearnUpon Anywhere play in simplifying customer onboarding and reducing the time and resources typically associated with training new users?
One-to-one customer education can be both cost- and resource-intensive; in 2023, training expenditures increased to $28.7 billion. Traditional training can include costs such as travel, training instructors, in-house training development, equipment, and more.

Technology like Learning Management Systems (LMS) has the power to reduce the time and human power it takes to onboard, support, and engage customers, ultimately leading to stronger customer retention. LearnUpon Anywhere takes it a step further and brings the learning directly to the businesses own platform, making it simple and fast for their customers to train.

In what ways does LearnUpon Anywhere open up opportunities for businesses to drive revenue through cross-selling and upselling within their product ecosystem?
A key benefit of LearnUpon Anywhere is that it enables businesses to embed courses directly into their products or services. This integration allows organizations to offer additional courses related to their products, creating opportunities for users to discover new features and services. By providing relevant courses within the product ecosystem, businesses can encourage customers to explore and purchase complementary products and services.

Tracking customer engagement is critical for success. How do LearnUpon’s reporting features help organizations monitor learner progress and outcomes, especially with embedded courses?
At LearnUpon, we’re highly invested in helping businesses measure the impact of their learning programs. LearnUpon’s reporting features are designed to help organizations monitor learner progress and outcomes effectively. With embedded courses, admins can track every learner’s interaction, including progress, completions, and exam results. This detailed tracking allows organizations to gain insights into customer engagement and learning effectiveness.

We also made it easier to see the big picture with integrations with leading CRMs, like Salesforce and HubSpot. So, when a customer engages with a course, that data is all sent back to a business’s CRM, meaning they can see if that learning impacted everything from onboarding time to product adoption to retention.

What are some of the key challenges you see businesses face when it comes to customer education, and how does LearnUpon’s solution help overcome them?
The big challenge for businesses trying to educate their customers is resources. It takes a lot of time, money, and people power to onboard a customer one by one.

LearnUpon Anywhere addresses these challenges by providing a seamless, integrated learning experience. By embedding courses directly into products, it reduces the need to handhold every customer, all while providing them with cost-effective, consistent learning.

As a customer experience leader, what personal strategies do you rely on to ensure that customer success is always at the forefront of your approach?
With over 15 years of customer experience, I’ve learned that listening to feedback and focusing on continuous improvement makes all the difference. Simple strategies like regular check-ins, personalized learning programs, and using data to track customer success ensure that we’re always keeping customer needs front and center.

It’s also important for us to really understand how our customers’ businesses operate and stay updated on their priorities. That way, we can tailor our support to help them achieve their goals. Whether it’s adapting LearnUpon to boost product adoption or finding ways to reduce onboarding costs, we’re here to make sure our customers’ learning programs succeed as their needs evolve.

You have to know your customers. This sounds obvious but it’s not about knowing their birthdays or their dog’s names but it’s about really understanding how their businesses run so that your training can drive real business results.

What advice would you give to organizations looking to enhance their customer education programs to achieve higher engagement and adoption rates?
To make customer education programs shine, it’s important to focus on creating content that’s not only engaging but also relevant to your audience. Using technology to scale your solutions and actively listening to customer feedback are key steps in making sure your learning hits the mark. Plus, really getting to know your customers’ businesses and the individual learners is a must! When you understand both, you can tailor the training to fit perfectly into their world.

Offering on-demand access to learning materials and seamlessly integrating learning into the product experience can really boost engagement and adoption. Also, think about the length of your learning videos—people are used to short, snappy content thanks to platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Creating quick, digestible videos helps learners fit learning into their busy schedules, making it part of their everyday routine.

Finally, what are your thoughts on the future of customer education, and how do you see it evolving in the next few years?
The future of customer education is exciting. With AI and machine learning becoming more integrated, learning experiences will feel even more personalized. As technology advances, we can also expect to see more immersive and interactive training and learning becoming the norm. These innovations will make customer education more engaging and effective, helping to drive even greater customer satisfaction and success.

That said, competing for learners’ time will be an increasing challenge. With so many learning options available, customer education teams will need to think carefully about the value they offer. It’s not just about educating people on software anymore—teams will need to create programs that provide real professional development opportunities and help learners excel in their roles and industries. Offering learning that truly makes a difference in their careers will be key to standing out and keeping learners engaged.

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