The Customer Education Playbook

9Step 7: Who Trains the Trainers? Transforming Your Team into Experts

By now, you've determined what content to include in your education. You should also have a plan to ensure that it's effective for the customer, is created according to proven best-practices, and meets your overarching learning objectives. Now it's time to turn your head to who will be delivering the education. The success of your education depends heavily on people outside of your own team, so you'll need to consider how to choose the right instructors, which subject matter experts (SMEs) to speak with, and how to keep all stakeholders educated and aligned on the product roadmap.

Choosing Trainers for ILT

A common question people ask when hiring trainers for instructor-led training (ILT) is whether instructors need to be subject matter experts. Especially for a technical product, do they need to be technically proficient themselves, or should you lean toward those who are great trainers and not worry about a technical background or skillset?

When you're hiring a trainer, there's no doubt that you need to look for certain core competencies around training. These include the ability to facilitate conversation, to make thoughtful inquiries and quick decisions on the fly, and to recognize when customers understand what they're being taught and when they need more support.

When you're interviewing candidates, you'll see that some instructors may be expert trainers but have poor technical knowledge. Others may ...