Customers are incredibly important in any industry and so understanding their needs is vital. Yet what a customer sees as important when choosing a learning and development provider is not always fully understood, says Righttrack.

In its recent annual satisfaction survey, Righttrack asked learning and development departments what they thought was important to ensure that an organisation’s development was being met and ideally exceeded.

Over the past five years, respondents have been asked to rank importance on a diverse range of criteria when considering selecting a training provider. The criteria range from price, to past industry experience, to a provider’s client list. The top five selection criteria have remained relatively constant over the past five years, and 2008 is no exception as the table below shows (last year's rankings are in brackets):

1. Proposal’s match to your requirements (1)
2. Quality of learning and development (2)
3. Capability of provider (3)
4. Price/value for money (5)
5. Degree of customisation (11)

"The top five aspects are not industry secrets as it is common knowledge that many organisations are favouring bespoke learning solutions from well-established external training providers and as such are choosing development solutions that match their learning requirements," said Gemma Middleton, marketing coordinator for Righttrack.

"Although price is still an important aspect when selecting an external provider, thankfully the days when training providers were selected based solely on price are long gone. This finding is supported with the importance respondents placed on the quality of the learning and development and the capability of the training provider. However, price is likely to play a slightly larger role while there is still business uncertainty."

As the table shows, one of the greatest movers in this year’s results is the increase in importance placed on the degree of customisation. "More and more organisations are demanding programmes that are relevant and focused around their organisation. Learning and development is becoming a popular way of showing loyalty and rewarding employees by investing in their skills and so ensuring that the development energises and motivates employees has become a top priority, hence the need for customisation," said Gemma.

The importance of investing in learning and development for organisations is constantly growing in the face of the looming skills gap. Organisations are increasingly recruiting candidates with perceived development potential, as candidates who directly possess both the skills and experience required are in short supply.

Understanding what customers want is a basic business principle and in an intangible service market, meeting customers’ needs is imperative for training providers to be successful, says Righttrack.

"Ensuring that learning needs are exceeded is not just beneficial to the individual and the organisation but to the UK economy as a whole – a skilled workforce is a successful one."