Published on: 10 Jan , 2025
On this page
Every SaaS company begins its customer education journey with one goal: to make users self-sufficient. E-learning has been the go-to solution for scaling this effort. It’s efficient, and scalable, and ensures every customer has 24/7 access to resources. If your company has successfully implemented a robust e-learning platform, congratulations—you’ve achieved a significant milestone in customer education.
But is it enough?
Even with the perfect e-learning setup, there comes a point when scaling alone isn't the answer. You might notice that:
These aren’t signs that e-learning is failing; they’re signals that your customers are ready for something more.
This is where Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) can take your education efforts to the next level. A well-designed VILT program does more than just share knowledge—it creates confident, successful customers who truly understand your product's value.
In this comprehensive guide, we'll show you exactly how to build a VILT program that drives real business results. You'll discover practical strategies for designing, delivering, and measuring training that doesn't just teach, but empowers and engages your customers.
Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) is a real-time, interactive training method where a skilled instructor leads sessions in a virtual environment. Unlike traditional e-learning, VILT emphasizes human connection and engagement, combining live demonstrations, hands-on practice, and interactive discussions.
It's training that combines the best of both worlds: the convenience of virtual delivery with the power of human connection.
As Dan Braithwaite perfectly explains it in the Customer Educated Podcast by Trainn:
“VILT isn’t just about delivering information; it’s about creating a human experience. It lets you connect with participants, address their unique challenges, and guide them through hands-on learning tailored to their needs.”
- Dan Braithwaite,
Senior director of product training
In today's fast-paced digital world, effective customer education requires more than just information delivery—it demands engagement, personalization, and immediate value. Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) has emerged as a powerful solution among customer education teams by combining human connection and digital convenience. Here are some of VILT’s features which create lasting impact:
VILT transforms passive viewers into active participants through dynamic, two-way interaction. It creates live conversations between instructors and participants rather than recorded content.
Key challenge:
Modern customers’ attention span demands quick engagement, making it crucial to capture and maintain participant interest throughout the session through varied activities, interactive elements, and meaningful discussions.
Practical Learning
VILT bridges the gap between theory and application through:
This approach ensures customers don't just learn about features - they master them in real time.
Human-centric Approach
The human element is what sets VILT apart from other E-learning methods.
This approach creates:
VILT breaks down geographical barriers to deliver consistent education across borders. This accessibility ensures that organizations can provide standardized, high-quality training to teams worldwide without sacrificing the personal touch that makes learning effective.
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to whether Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) should be part of your customer education approach. It often depends on a few key factors: the complexity of your product, training/educational team size, and your training goals.
For example, in one of our podcast episodes, Monica Sindhwani shared how her organization decided to introduce VILT after noticing a significant number of customers requesting more in-depth training sessions—and showing a willingness to pay for them. This discovery led them to expand their offerings with VILT, enabling a richer learning experience and unlocking a new revenue stream.
One of the most compelling benefits of a well-designed VILT program is its direct impact on support ticket volume. When customers receive proper training, they become more self-sufficient and confident in using your product, leading to fewer support requests.
This is how VILT drives down support tickets:
A well-executed VILT program helps customers to extract the maximum value from your solutions. It bridges the gap between product capabilities and customer success through targeted instructions and hands-on practice.
How it drives product adoption:
VILT transforms traditional training into an engaging, community-driven experience that keeps customers connected to your product and each other.
How it enhances customer engagement:
The instructor is the cornerstone of successful VILT. The instructor’s expertise and delivery style significantly impact the session’s success.
Essential skills of a skilled instructor include:
Continuous improvement:
Instructors can grow through team-based skill-sharing and feedback sessions, which create space to share successes, discuss challenges, and learn from each other's experiences. This allows instructors to exchange tips and strategies. ( eg: handling disengaged participants or experimenting with new tools )
Effective VILT program depends heavily on having the right technological foundation for seamless delivery.
Tools for VILT include:
These platforms form the backbone of your VILT session, enabling real-time interaction.
It provides:
Examples: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet
2. Hands-on training platform
These platforms are designed to provide real-time, practical training experiences, particularly for software and technical tools.
It helps:
Examples: Hurdle, Strigo
3. Learning Management System
An LMS helps schedule, deliver, and track your VILT programs effectively.
It helps:
Examples: Trainn, TalentLMS
4. Engagement and Interaction tools
These tools help break the monotony of one-way presentations and create active learning experiences. it includes a whiteboard, feedback tools, and gamified tools.
It helps:
Examples: Mentimeter, Miro, Kahoot
Let's walk through how to design an effective VILT program that drives real results.
Choosing the right topic is fundamental to the success of your VILT program. This initial step requires more than just picking a subject. It's about choosing content that meets your customers’ immediate needs.
How to select high-impact topics:
Start by examining your support tickets to identify patterns.
Ways to analyze tickets easily
After understanding the most common issues that customers face, focus on your customers learning priorities. Customers attend VILT sessions with the expectation of solving problems or gaining skills they can immediately use.
For example: In project management software training, tasks like setting up team workflows and configuring basic dashboards are immediate priorities for those customers who have newly signed up. Tasks like advanced automation rules, and custom API integrations, can be saved for later training.
As Dan Braithwaite emphasizes, align your training using the 'jobs to be done' framework – what tasks will your customers need to perform right after the session ends and not after weeks or months?
The ideal length for a VILT session has evolved significantly from the traditional long-day workshops. Modern VILT demands a more focused approach that respects your customers' time and attention spans. Design your session duration to maximize learning while keeping participants energized and engaged, not overwhelmed.
Pro tip: Stick to 3-4 core topics per session to maintain high engagement and prevent information overload.
Once your targeted topics are selected, it's crucial to create a structure that maximizes learning effectiveness while keeping participants engaged in the virtual environment.
Consider answering these critical questions to structure your VILT sessions:
To make the session clear and effective, break down your topics using the framework: “Tell me, Show me, Let me try, Let me explore, Review, and Test me.” - Dan Braithwaite. This method not only improves understanding but also empowers customers to use your product confidently, which can help reduce support tickets.
Let's break it down:
Tell me :
Introduce the topic by establishing the foundation:
Show me:
Create clear, purposeful demonstrations:
Let me try:
Facilitate hands-on learning:
Let me explore:
Encourage customers to experiment with the task in a way that aligns with their unique use cases. This hands-on exploration fosters deeper understanding.
Review:
Create opportunities for participants to reflect on their experiences
Test me:
Verify your customers' understanding and build their confidence using your solutions:
Your challenge as an instructor is to transform what could be a passive webinar into an interactive learning experience that keeps customers leaning forward in their virtual seats.
The following are to be considered for active participation:
Some quick attention grabbers
Bonus tip: Turn on your camera during sessions to create a human connection. Your visible presence transforms a digital session into a personal learning experience.
Effective time management is crucial for virtual training success. Rather than letting segments run loose, carefully plan each block of time to maintain momentum and ensure comprehensive coverage.
Ways to allocate:
For example:
Introduction and ice-breakers (10-15 minutes)
Core content delivery (30-45 minute segments)
Interactive activities and discussions (15-20 minutes each)
Regular breaks (5-10 minutes every hour)
Wrap-up and action planning (15-20 minutes)
Pro tip: Place breaks just before exploration phases, typically around the one-hour mark. This timing maintains momentum when returning to hands-on activities.
Point to remember: Schedule your content for less than the full session time. This flexibility allows for rich discussions, troubleshooting, and those valuable "aha!" moments that shouldn't be rushed.
Before launching your VILT program, conducting mock sessions is crucial for identifying potential issues and refining your delivery.
Key objectives:
Measuring the impact of your VILT program is crucial for demonstrating value and driving continuous improvement.
As Dan Braithwaite suggested, ‘The Kirkpatrick model is a structured approach to measure training effectiveness at every level."
This model emphasizes measuring learning outcomes across four levels:
From surveys, you can question:
2. Learning
Assess customers’ actual learning from the session through assessment.
3. Behavioral
Measures the impact on participant behavior post-training.
4. Result
Quantify tangible business outcomes.
Pro tip: While scores provide quick metrics, the real gold lies in written feedback. Pay close attention to customers' comments and suggestions—they often reveal specific ways to enhance your VILT program.
Trainn, an all-in-one customer education platform, helps organizations maximize their VILT impact through seamless implementation and content management.
Here is how Trainn elevates your VILT program:
Upload your VILT or webinar recordings into Trainn, and let our AI do the heavy lifting:
With Trainn, you can quickly:
Set up a VILT landing page in your customer training academy using Trainn's LMS.