Back in March I wrote about how certification programs are pissing off their customers by continuing to offer up inefficient services. Every day, thousands of workers rely on these programs for testing and certification, yet they encounter subpar customer service because the program hasn’t invested in certification management software.
Instead, these programs continue to adopt archaic practices like requiring users to download PDF applications and fill them out by hand. They offer inadequate service because they don’t have an easily accessed database of customer contacts, and they make those customers wait an inordinate length of time to receive their certifications.
It’s time for certification programs to ditch the practices of yesteryear and join the 21st century by investing in certification management software. Here are four reasons why such an investment is worth it.
Customers now expect superior user experiences
We now live in an app-based economy in which customers not only expect to handle all transactions online, but do so on a website with responsive design and mobile capabilities. I still continue to see certification programs that require a customer to first download a PDF, fill it out by hand, and then mail it into the organization. In a world where those same customers can hail an Uber from their phone or make a one-click purchase on Amazon, they won’t stand for a website that looks like it was designed in 1997 (and probably was).
To improve your own staff’s morale
Using outdated processes isn’t just bad for customers, it also wears down your staff. Dealing with paper-based filing systems is tiresome and mind numbing. Forcing your staff to manually carry out tasks they know could be automated while also dealing with irate customers will make their work lives hell and increase turnover. Certification management software will free up the time they spend on menial tasks so they can instead focus on the problems that require true innovation and skill.
[LIKE THIS ARTICLE SO FAR? THEN YOU’LL WANT TO FOLLOW US ON TWITTER TO GET THE LATEST CERTIFICATION MANAGEMENT INSIGHTS]
There’s a moral imperative
Your customers aren’t engaging in your services for the fun of it; they’re doing so to become better-equipped within their careers. Each day you delay someone receiving their certification, it’s another day they have to wait before they can receive a promotion or a job, especially since many jobs list certification as a prerequisite. Certification management software will reduce the number of errors made and will speed up the time between when a user initially signs up for a test and when they receive the results and certification.
Business intelligence
How can you possibly run a business or gauge its success if you can’t actually view and analyze the data in the system? A real certification management system provides you with the business intelligence and analytics that allow you to monitor the organization, analyze the data, and then make decisions based on that data. You can track everything from the number of applications each week to the time it takes your staff to answer customer services queries, all without having to input the information manually.
There’s a story I like to tell people. About a year ago we had a certification program customer who told us about a report she had to provide her board of directors every quarter. It took two people on their staff — including someone from the IT department — to compile the report and they had to start preparing it six weeks in advance from the board meeting. She estimated that they spent between 80 and 100 hours just building this one report for their board. We were able to automate that report in our system so they just clicked a button to run the report. Think about that for a second; they went from spending upwards of 100 hours on a task that certification management software was able to reduce to a mere click of a button.
***
So why hasn’t every certification program adopted this software? Because they’re not able to look beyond the sticker shock of the price tag. But when you consider the potential loss of customers from a bad user experience, the lower staff morale, and the hours wasted on inefficient tasks, you can’t afford not to adopt certification management software. With every day you spend using antiquated systems, that’s another day your organize falls further behind the curve.
Are you ready to take your certification offerings to the next level with cutting-edge certification management software? Go here to learn more.