Challenge
Clever provides K-12 students with a digital classroom containing all the resources they need to learn. Teachers create personalized, organized digital classrooms, which proved to be invaluable during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Besides Teachers, Clever also has three other user groups: School Admins (Tech Leads), District Admins, and App Partners (such as Newsela, Kahoot, and Khan Academy, which integrate with Clever via Single Sign On – SSO), each of which uses their platform in a different way. They knew they needed an LMS to help them build a single online training hub to provide each user group with a unique experience–from onboarding to certification–one that would scale as their business grew.
One of the biggest reasons I love my job is: I get to make teachers’ lives a little bit easier by giving them helpful digital tools in an easy-to-use interface made possible by Skilljar!— Blair Mishleau, Sr. Customer Education Manager, Clever
Solution
Clever Academy uses three distinct paths for certifications, quick-start guides, and product spotlights, the content of which is customized for each user group (Teachers, School Admins, District Admins, and App Partners.)
Clever partnered with Skilljar to create Clever Academy, a one-stop-shop for certifications, quick start guides, and product deep dives known as “spotlights”. Blair Mishleau, Sr. Customer Education Manager for Clever, took advantage of many of Skilljar’s features to offer several paths to meet the needs of their four distinct user groups, including:
- Certifications
Signature Clever Academy courses, with four levels for each user type (Teacher, School Admins/Tech Leads, Digital Admins) and a single level for App Partners. As users complete courses, they receive a badge and a PDF certificate automated through Skilljar - Quick Start Guides
Shorter Clever Academy courses that offer a no-frills explanation of specific functions such as setting up the dashboard or getting started for teachers - Video Courses
Clever Academy courses that offer 100% video content (but far less detail than full courses) for users that prefer quick, visual learning - Product Spotlights
Bite-size Clever Academy modules focused on how to use a specific feature, such as Clever Messaging, for current users that want to learn more about the feature or new users that haven’t yet tried a certain tool. These feature clickable tutorials powered by iorad through an integration with Skilljar - Webinar Recordings
A library of webinar recordings from some of Clever’s most popular webinars
Our users may not even know what group they’re in. But if they have a Clever account, we can direct them to the appropriate learning experience through Skilljar. It’s fully automated so I don’t have to worry about anything.
— Blair Mishleau, Sr. Customer Education Manager, Clever
Advice to LMS Seekers or Switchers
Before working at Clever, Blair Mishleau, Sr. Customer Education Manager, actually used the platform as a first-grade teacher and school administrator–talk about knowing your audience! Now, he owns Clever’s Customer Education program, which includes managing Clever Academy, creating new content, and determining new courses.
Here is his advice to first-time LMS users or those looking to switch to a new elearning platform:
- Think about the situations you’re trying to solve for. What are your goals? What’s the biggest feedback you’re getting from customers? What processes can be automated? These inputs can help you inform your initial course offerings.
- Consider success metrics early on. How will you know your program’s been successful in six months or in two years?
- Think about portability of content. If you switch LMSs in a few years, how hard will it be to migrate all of your existing data? Also, what will your tech stack look like? This will indicate what integrations you will need.
- No single tool will meet all your needs. You’ll need a variety of programs and they need to “play well” with each other so you can automate emails, in-product message triggers, etc. Look for a platform that has robust integrations with these types of tools.
Results
According to Blair, Skilljar has made it easy for Clever to build out their customer education program at-scale.
Here are some success metrics for Clever Academy as a result of using Skilljar since its launch in 2019:
- 142,568 course completions since launch
- 21,067 Clever Certified Champions (users who completed all certification courses, Levels 1-4)
- Support ticket volume is approximately 25% lower for District Admins who have engaged with content vs. those who haven’t
- A 15-point increase in NPS for those users who completed course content vs. those who haven’t engaged with it
In addition, Clever has seen higher product adoption when they include customer education content in-product through links or in-product messages.
A live training requires tons of resourcing every time we lead it, but a strong Clever Academy course can be built and shared at scale, available for users 24/7 when it’s convenient for them. — Blair Mishleau, Sr. Customer Education Manager, Clever
Telling Data Stories with the Skilljar Data Connector
The Skilljar Data Connector is a customer-specific database hosted on Amazon Web Services that enables easy and reliable integrations with any tool that can directly access and query data. It enables Skilljar customers to stream all training data directly into their own data warehouse, allowing them to access curated Skilljar student analytics right alongside any additional data points their team measures–in one place. With this level of intel, customers can build reports to attribute the impact of training consumption on important account-based metrics such as expansion, churn, customer success score, and support tickets submitted.
Clever sends customer data to Salesforce, which their support team uses to answer support tickets. This is extremely helpful as it lets support agents know at a glance if the user has engaged with Clever Academy content previously, and if they can steer them to certain courses to get their questions answered.
At the same time, all of the Skilljar data is sent to Clever’s data warehouse through our Data Connector, which allows them to use their data visualization/analysis tool (Sigma) to create graphs of Skilljar usage compared to other metrics, such as how many support tickets are created by users who have completed one or more Clever Academy courses.
Because Blair uses the Skilljar Data Connector, it’s much easier for him to tell a “data story” about what types of content best support their users.
If you are a Skilljar customer and have a success story to share, email us at stories@skilljar.com. Not a customer yet? Request a demo.