Should You Change Your LMS?
Are you truly happy with your Learning Management System or should you change your LMS? LearnUpon's business development representatives are busy fielding inquiries from individuals who are certainly not, and are seeking to change their Learning Management System. A common response from those requesting information and demonstrations of our product is:
“We should have done this a long time ago!”
In this article, I look at some of the more common motivators for changing your LMS and why people are happy they reached out to us!
Why Is Your LMS Making You Unhappy?
There is a myriad of reasons for an organisation to want to change the LMS they use. While not exhaustive, here is a list of common offenders:
- Poor features.
- Difficult to use.
- Poor customer support.
- Ugly appearance/Poor user experience.
- Too expensive.
- Lack of mobile features.
- Poor reporting.
It is when there is a combination of these factors that there is a real push for someone to change. Some outgrow their LMS and some just grow weary!
Making The Leap
So you have decided that you need to change your LMS, perhaps because of one or more of the reasons I listed above. Changing your Learning Management System was at one time a huge commitment. It is not as difficult as it once was despite the huge numbers of vendors to choose from. Cloud-based Learning Management Systems are eliminating some of the bad habits that more traditional vendors introduced, such as being overly expensive, complicated to use, and having stagnant product roadmaps.
Before you start your search, I would suggest that you list the absolute ‘must have’ features or characteristics prior to even beginning your search. Then, build the list of ‘nice to have’ features. Build the description of your use case to see how these features come into play. It may be that a ‘nice to have’ is actually a ‘must have’ or vice versa. Sometimes listing pain points is a better way to begin. It makes it easier to identify where your current Learning Management System is letting you down and focuses you on what you need.
A 15 Minute Conversation Saves A Lot Of Research
One of our business development representatives, informed me recently about an individual who called into our office with the following use case:
“I work for a mid-sized company and I need a cloud-based LMS that my employees can access on any device (some of them travel frequently). I want them to see the company branding only, so that it looks like ‘our’ LMS. We have some courses that were built with an authoring tool, published in SCORM, so it needs to be SCORM compliant. I want the employees to take their training quarterly and gain a certificate to prove that they have completed the training. I want to run reports on progress, completion, and even how questions were answered. Our current vendor doesn’t really support my organisation that well, and sometimes we have to wait days for a response to a question we have. I’d love to be able to link our HR system so that I don’t have to manually add and remove users. I’d love to be able to allow managers to look after their own employees so I don’t have to do everything. Oh, and I also want to automate the reporting process to save myself time.”
Our BDR could then boil down this preliminary use case to:
- Cloud-based Learning Management System, that has a responsive design for all devices.
- The ability to tailor branding to match corporate colors and logos, with white-labeling to make it appear like your own Learning Management System (remove our company name from URL etc.).
- SCORM compliant (and xAPI to future proof).
- Courses can be released at specific times, with notifications for users, due dates, and reminders.
- Automatic certification process using your own templates.
- High Quality, 24/7 support.
- API/SSO options to integrate your Learning Management System with HR/CRM etc.
- Set up groups for managers to oversee.
- Schedule automated reports to go to whomever you want.
At this point in the conversation the inquirer can dig deeper, ask questions or seek guidance. The BDR can add to your process by informing you of features or workflows you may not even be aware of. The company in question were happy to schedule a demonstration for later in the week and we look forward to them seeing how their workflows can be achieved with our Learning Management System.
Why Choose LearnUpon?
LearnUpon is the choice of more and more companies because of the quality of the software and the transparency of our approach.
- We have great features.
- We are always adding and improving the product.
- A beautiful interface perfect for use on any device.
- It is incredibly easy to use as it is designed with user experience at it’s core.
- We have great customer and technical support available to our customers 24/7.
- A customer success team to ensure you achieve your training goals.
- Transparent, predictable and reasonable pricing.
- Insightful and actionable suite of reports.
A 15-minute investment of time could save you hours of research and hours of wasted administration time in a clunky Learning Management System. For more information why not take a look at our blog on how to select an LMS.
