In Brief
Cin7, an inventory management software provider, was looking to upgrade their education platform with better UI, more automation, and customized learning paths for their three main user segments: customers, employees, and partners. Using the learning management system (LMS) from Gainsight CE, they built two new Academies that boosted engagement among all user groups while making training more efficient through automation and integration with Salesforce.
Challenge
Clunky UI, No Automation, and Zero Flexibility
Cin7’s cloud-based inventory management software gives product businesses an automated, real-time view of the inventory lifecycle, helping them consolidate, streamline, automate, and scale their inventory operations. With powerful, business-critical software, product education has always been important to Cin7’s business.
The challenge was that they were saddled with two legacy education platforms that weren’t meeting their needs. Poor UI, a lack of automation, no integration with Salesforce, and an inability to create tailored user experiences for different user segments were holding them back from achieving their goals.
Courtney O’Reilly, Director of Product Enablement and Education at Cin7, explained the situation: “We didn’t have any differentiation of the experience for an employee, a partner, or a customer—everybody got the exact same thing. And we desperately needed automation, which would give us the ability to manage education without person-to-person training.”
The decision was made to transition to a fresh LMS solution rather than reconfiguring the existing systems.
“We might have been able to reconfigure one of the existing systems with a lot of time and money. But at that point it was better to make a fresh start,” O’Reilly explained.
After demoing many different LMS platforms, they went with Gainsight CE.
Solution
Automated Everboarding with Tailored Learning Paths for User Types
Gainsight CE was chosen due to its intuitive admin UI and ability to integrate seamlessly with other systems like their CRM. They started with creating a customer-focused learning path.
“The way we explain something to a customer is how we should explain it to an employee so they can sell better or help customers better—so that it puts everyone on the same page,” said O’Reilly.
One of their primary goals was to create an Academy that would encourage customers to remain engaged long term. Previously, most customers would spend 30 minutes in one of the former LMS platforms and never return.
O’Reilly explained: “We really wanted to implement an everboarding model that would keep customers, employees, and partners coming back. That way they can learn at their own pace, rather than having everything dumped on them all at once.”
Using Gainsight CE, they overhauled the entire experience, with a light, fresh design, well-defined learning paths, and an easy course and catalog search.
Seamless integration with Salesforce and automated processes were also a big part of the reboot. Now, whenever someone becomes a customer in Salesforce, it automatically triggers an Academy invite. This automation makes education a naturally aligned extension of the customer journey, ensuring users receive timely and relevant training as they engage with the product over time.
“Gainsight CE reduced a lot of the barriers to setting up that automation, compared with our previous LMS. Now customer education is fully integrated with our customer journey,” O’Reilly said.
For employees, they installed a dedicated instance of Gainsight CE that was connected via single sign-on in Bamboo. Employees automatically have an account provisioned in the LMS on their first day at work.
To encourage employee engagement, they introduced a Product Awareness Month with fun Olympics-themed events, with everything filtered through the LMS. The result was more than 430 activities logged from employees, including many logging in for the first time.
O’Reilly loved the results: “Employees needed something fun to latch onto, and it went really well—it increased Academy adoption exponentially.”
Partners are a hugely important part of Cin7’s business, but educating them can be challenging due to their varied levels of experience and different time zones. Always-on access to learning modules within Gainsight CE allowed Cin7 to scale education across any audience while also tracking partner progress using rich data within the LMS. Additionally, custom enrollment and completion emails guide partners seamlessly to each next step in their program, streamlining their journey to success and ensuring a more structured learning experience.
Impact
Usage Booms 11X, Increasing Retention and Saving Costs
Since launching their new LMS, usage of Cin7 Academy has increased more than 11X, going from fewer than 3000 users in 2022 to more than 34,000 in 2024.
Automation and improved accessibility led to a significant increase in Academy enrollments across all user groups. For example, partner users increased from 30 to 300 within six months post-implementation, and course completion rates rose from 20% to over 50%.
Even better, the increased usage has helped achieve business outcomes. Customers who enrolled in at least one course experienced a 7% higher end-of-year retention rate compared to those who did not enroll.
The automation capabilities of the new LMS have also made them more efficient and opened up capacity. They have gone from four full-time trainers to just one, who manages more than five different training programs by himself. One Partner Enablement Manager has reduced 60% of their live training time by running certain courses through Gainsight CE.
What’s Next
Going forward, O’Reilly plans to keep expanding their Academy with the LMS. They are going to allocate more time to product release content and expand everboarding capabilities. As part of that effort, they are going to work closely with their Customer Success team to monitor customer progress with adoption—and now they actually have data to prove the impact of education programs.
They are also planning another global company-wide event to boost internal usage, and transform their new employee experience. They are going to finish upgrading their entire Partner enablement program, and continue building out their employee curriculum journey.
“We can show customers, partners, and employees a path to be successful, and it’s all coming out of the LMS,” said O’Reilly.
