Learning Pool - Customer Service Success

Company: Learning Pool, Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Company Description: At Learning Pool, we help clients deliver exceptional performance with pioneering online learning platforms, creative content and powerful analytics. We are a full-service online training provider, offering courses, tools, and content creation to over 800 organizations and 3.5 million learners around the world. Our team has grown to 200 colleagues across 6 offices worldwide.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Awards Success Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Success - Business Service Industries

Nomination Title: Learning Pool - Customer service success at our heart

Learning Pool (LP) is a full-service e-learning provider, offering award-winning service (alongside pioneering technology and creative content solutions) to 3million learners, speaking 42 languages, in 21 countries – with a 96% customer retention rate for over ten years. Launched 2006, we’ve grown from five staff – servicing the UK public sector – to an e-learning industry leader, with 260 people in eight offices (UK and US).

Our unflinching objective is to deliver first-class customer service and satisfaction; our team and customers are the priority, and our collaborative, relationship-based approach produces outstanding long-term results and satisfaction.

LP’s Customer department is divided into Customer Engagement (relationships and development) and Customer Success (support and problem-solving). Together they handle every aspect of our customers’ needs. We believe it’s our point of unique differentiation; deemed the ‘Learning Pool way’, we provide every customer:

-Lowest total cost of ownership.
A dedicated learning consultant.
Unlimited first-line telephone/email support.

In the last 18 months, our customer teams have almost doubled, onboarding eight new members into the Customer Engagement team (+65% team growth) and six members (a further two starting in the coming months) into the Customer Success team. This brings the team to 22 agents (+20%). (Appendix-1.)

Outline the organizations customer service achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

Successful launches, outstanding long-term results and major satisfaction – this is what our customers expect, and we deliver by ensuring every customer receives first-class service.

Since July-2019, we’ve seen our two Customer Service teams achieve:

Rapid scale-up

The acquisition of HT2 Labs, renowned forpioneeringtechnology, enabled us to rapidly expand into the US market in 2020, with:
-A revenue increase of $800k to $1,300k since July-2019.
-32 new US clients – including Facebook and Amazon.
-New US-based staff with customer roles hired.

At the end of 2020, LP also acquired Remote Learner, an LMS specialist and learning technology company based in Colorado. This acquisition delivered 300 US clients, 35 US-based employees and $7million revenues.

With this rapid expansion, we’ve extended our customer contact hours and implemented a new phone number to reduce customer-usage costs during lockdown.

Customer involvement

Being at ‘the heart of everything we do’, customers uniquely shape our vision, via:
-Quarterly steering groups.
-Learning Pool Labs: A unique collaborative process, where we build what customers need.
-Learning Pool Live: 350 customers, 40 employees and guest speakers share best practice/ideas.

Outstanding delivery

A collective, customer-centric strategy has produced:
-80% growth, versus 70% target (2019).
-98% CSAT.
-20 award wins (Appendix-2).
-96% retention rate of new contacts, YOY.
-Average order value growth from £29k to £38.8k.

Such indicators have helped us to increase customer count by over 200 and grow our overall revenues by 32% in our last fiscal year.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Appendix-1: Our Customer team – meet our two teams and their roles.

Appendix-2: In the last 18 months, we have seen amazing success for our business, our team and our work with clients. Over 20 awards include –

Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology Award 2020:
-Best Advance in Technology Innovation for the Remote Workforce – Gold.
-Best Advance in Technology for Readapting to the Workplace and Workplace Culture – Bronze.

Institute of Customer Service 2020 Finalist.
Stevie Awards for Sales and Customer Service 2020 – Gold.
Deloitte Best Managed Companies – Gold Standard.
Gold Level Investors in People.
Gold for Community Commitment and Silver for Volunteering at the International CSR Awards.
Marketing and PR Brilliance Awards – Platinum for Best Marketing Team.

These endorsements would mean nothing to us without developing our team, our culture and our environment.

Appendix-3: https://learningpool.com/learning-pools-response-global-pandemic-covid-19/
Appendix-4 -Testimonials:
Through helping customers to make a success of implementation and delivering excellent customer support via coaching and regular meetings, we excel in customer satisfaction.

Some excerpts of the attached testimonials include:
“We couldn’t speak highly enough of Learning Pool and the level of support that we have received from them.”
“Working with Learning Pool has been a refreshing and positive experience.”
“One thing that makes Learning Pool distinctly different from other companies that we work with is having a single point of contact with a Learning Specialist.”

Explain why the customer service achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):

Unique service approach
Every LP customer receives the following uniquely tailored service:
-Dedicated learning consultant – regardless of size/spend.
-Unlimited email/phone support – handled in-house.
-Flexible coaching.
-Free setup/configuration.
-Tailored onsite inductions.
-LP Academy – training resource repository enabling customers to engage with us, and among themselves.

Continued support

While we’ve not yet addressed the unprecedented, ongoing situation, it’s worth noting that we achieved a lot of the above while Covid-19 was impacting our clients, potential customers and ourselves.

We’ve also remained a source of support, both internally and externally. For example, we’ve supported our partners with:
-A newsletter of tips for maximising existing products and services (rather than trying to sell more to them).
-Free, 90-day trials of useful ‘future of work’ modules, including mindfulness, working from home, mental health and more.
-Webinars of how-to guides for switching from face-to-face to digital sessions using existing tools.
-A rolling blog, providing support and ideas. (Appendix-3.)

Customer-based ROI

Anyone can earn plaudits for ‘big bang’ implementations. In contrast, our collaborative, relationship-based approach has enabled us to achieve outstanding long-term results and satisfaction, as evidenced by a 200+ increase in customers and a 32% boost in our overall revenues within our last fiscal year.

Our story proves it is possible to keep both customers and the business happy. Via a truly customer-centric strategy – proudly delivered by all our ever-developing colleagues – we offer affordable solutions, which achieve customer delight (Appendix-4) and ultimately produce rapid growth.