Product Training On A Global Scale
Providing effective product training is important. But it can get complicated when you’re catering to employees, customers, or partners located around the world.
Good product training empowers your teams to better sell and support your product. It also ensures a more satisfactory experience for customers using it. However, when your targeted learners are all over the globe, it can be hard to design effective training. Things like language barriers, lack of cultural understanding, and logistics get in the way.
Luckily, when you understand the challenges, you can take practical steps to get past them. With the right approach, you can provide top-notch training to globally dispersed learners.
The Challenges Of Global Product Training
Distributing training to a global audience of learners takes more than granting access. Here are some of the biggest hurdles you’ll need to overcome to make sure your training is useful.
Linguistic Barriers
Language differences can impact both comprehension and engagement in product training. Nuances in humor, idioms, or technical terms can be lost in translation, leading to confusion.
Linguistic challenges also go beyond just translating the course materials. You’ll have these same issues to address in other areas, like:
- Communication between learners and trainers
- Communication within discussion forums
- Instructions within your technical platforms (e.g., how to navigate your LMS)
Cultural Considerations
Cultural sensitivity is the ability to understand and appreciate the beliefs, customs, and values of different cultures. It’s about recognizing that what works in one culture might translate poorly into another. And it’s crucial in making your training content work globally.
To illustrate, imagine you’ve developed a revolutionary fitness app. Packed with features and a sleek interface, you’re eager to launch it globally. But during product training for your European customer service team, things get a little awkward.
When showcasing the app’s calorie-tracking feature, you focus heavily on weight loss. This resonates less with your team in a culture that emphasizes overall health and well-being over appearance.
A slip like this could prevent key global teams or customers from getting on board with your product. This will hurt your sales and support and, ultimately, your company’s growth.
Here are some of the types of cultural norms and values that can affect training perception and effectiveness:
- Individualism vs. collectivism. Training focused on individual goal setting might engage audiences in individualistic cultures (like the U.S.) which emphasize personal achievement. But it might fall flat in collectivistic cultures (like China) that prioritize group harmony.
- Communication styles. Assertive communication might be appropriate in some cultures, while others value indirectness and respect for hierarchy. Learners might misinterpret materials that use a casual tone or humor in cultures that value formality.
- Nonverbal communication. Body language, gestures, and eye contact can have different meanings across cultures. For example, a thumbs-up can be a sign of approval in North America but is offensive in some parts of the Middle East.
Logistical Challenges
Trying to address a globally dispersed audience can create challenges with training delivery. For instance, you may have to cater to people working on various devices and platforms. Different locations may have different internet bandwidth and a variety of technological infrastructure.
Trying to reach learners across time zones can also inhibit your training efforts. Coordinating live sessions or synchronizing updates won’t work when half your team is offline at any given time.
Additional Challenges
Global training can also cause headaches with basic operational issues. For example, developing and maintaining materials in multiple languages and cultural contexts can be resource-intensive and expensive.
You may also face legal and regulatory requirements specific to each region where the product is used. Compliance can be tricky.
The Benefits Of Global Product Training
There are hurdles to adapting product training for a dispersed, global audience. But there are also plenty of reasons to overcome those hurdles. Here are a few of the top benefits you’ll get from extending your training:
- Increased user adoption and engagement. Catering to the specific needs, cultures, and learning styles makes training more engaging and relevant. More engagement can mean deeper understanding and higher product adoption rates by your clients.
- Stronger advocates. Tailored training will help your employees understand how your product fits in their market. Which will make them better advocates for it.
- Better customer service. Addressing potential cultural sensitivities and linguistic challenges eliminates confusion. This cuts down on frustration and ensures users have a smooth and positive learning experience.
- Enhanced brand image and loyalty. Adapting training demonstrates a commitment to serving the needs of your global customers. This fosters trust and builds stronger relationships.
There are plenty of compelling reasons to go forward with training. So, now, where do you begin? Let’s take a look at some top strategies for successful global product training.
9 Strategies For Designing Global Product Training
Designing and delivering product training for a global audience requires a multifaceted approach. Here are 9 strategies to help you address linguistic barriers, navigate cultural considerations, and tackle logistical challenges.
1. Localize Materials
Invest in professional translation and localization of training materials. Contracting with a skilled team or agency will ensure accuracy and cultural appropriateness. Which means clear communication across languages.
2. Offer Cultural Sensitivity Training
Train content creators and training facilitators to be mindful of cultural nuances. Help them be mindful of cultural norms, values, and beliefs when developing visuals, examples, or scenarios used in training. Avoiding offensive language, imagery, or examples will help them engage all audiences.
3. Provide Glossaries And Wikis
Taking training to a new culture may mean introducing new concepts or vocabulary. Help integrate these by developing glossaries.
Define technical terms and industry jargon, ensuring clear and consistent communication. Consider hosting wikis or discussion forums to give learners a baseline for understanding.
4. Conduct User Research
Pain points vary between businesses and cultures. If you want to prepare customers and sales reps for success, conduct user research in different regions.
Use focus groups, polls, and other research methods to understand the specific needs, preferences, and cultural contexts of your target audiences.
5. Develop Culturally Diverse Content
Make your training look and feel familiar to engage local audiences. Build examples, scenarios, and visuals that resonate with the diverse cultural backgrounds of your audience. And be mindful of these elements as you localize the content.
6. Design Bite-Sized Content
Limited time or resources for accessing training can keep some learners from participating. Make training more compelling by breaking complex topics into small, digestible modules.
This will improve accessibility and engagement. Especially for users with limited time or bandwidth.
7. Offer Asynchronous Learning Options
Overcome time zone conflicts by offering asynchronous learning opportunities. Host your training in a Learning Management System that lets learners log in whenever it’s convenient. Incorporate prerecorded training materials and webinars. When you do a live session, provide recordings for those in other time zones.
8. Look For Ways To Optimize Costs
Translation and localization can be pricey. Look for resources and innovative solutions for getting the work done while keeping costs low.
For example, combine machine translation with human editing. Or identify and translate essential training content for all languages. (This may include things like core functionalities or basic troubleshooting.) But limit translation of less critical content (like FAQs or advanced features) to languages with larger user bases or higher revenue potential.
9. Prepare For Compliance And Legal Considerations
Build compliance and legal considerations into the training development process.
Partner with legal and compliance experts to ensure materials adhere to regional legal requirements. Maintain records of changes and approvals throughout the process. This keeps training on track to show due diligence in case any legal issues do arise.
Leveraging eLearning Technology To Bridge The Gaps
A well-designed Learning Management System can be a powerful tool in implementing some of the strategies above.
For example, online learning tools often have built-in features to help make your training more accessible. Look for eLearning platforms with components like:
- Adaptive learning
- A variety of language options
- Accessibility tools
Choose a solution that offers mobile learning for learners on the go or who lack more robust training resources and facilities.
Features like content branching can also help you navigate cultural considerations. Leverage an LMS’s branching functionality to create different learning paths based on user-selected language or cultural context. This allows you to tailor specific examples, scenarios, and imagery for different audiences.
Many platforms also offer features like reporting and analytics that let you track user progress. Use these to identify areas for improvement. And to measure the effectiveness of training across different languages and cultures. This data can inform future localization and adaptation efforts.
Designing Inclusive And Effective Product Training
If you want your product training to succeed, ensure it’s accessible to all users. That includes globally dispersed audiences, but also people with special needs considerations. Applying universal design principles will enhance learning for everyone.
By acknowledging the challenges we’ve discussed and adapting your training approach, you can ensure a smooth global rollout of your product. And foster a more inclusive learning environment for your diverse user base.
