"How to" vs. "How to Apply"

We've recently seen an increase in demand for our electronic learning courses covering the "how to" as well  as the "how to apply" of various BroadSoft VoIP features and applications.

Our customers are saying "hey, we need better educational tools that help our customers understand how they can use their features in their business and when to apply them.  Plus, we need to show them how to use them." 

How do you do that?  Here a few steps you may want to take:

1. Take the engineering/configuring/provisioning/set-up out of the equation first. Focus on the APPLICATION.

2. Identify a few simple, real world examples of how this feature could be used.

3. Determine if this feature relates to other features included with the service offering.  Tying 1 or more services together will help connect the dots for your customers. 

4. Last - how do you enable/disable/configure/provision/set-up.

5. Once you have identified all of the content in #1-4 -- then start putting together your tutorials.  And don't forget to keep them SHORT and easy to access. 

#4 is the easy part.  If you really want to create valuable resources - help them understand WHAT they are enabling/disabling/configuring and HOW that impacts their productivity or business operation. Without that context - those tutorials are just a verbalized User Guide.

Start talking "how to apply" and let the "how to" come as a byproduct.