Shopping for an LMS? Five Questions You'll Want Answers to Before Choosing One

Dec 12, 2012

FAQs:

  1. Does my company really need an LMS?
  2. More than likely, at some point your company will need to train its employees. This is when you'll need an LMS the most.

    Any kind of eLearning practices and training in the workplace is easily done through an LMS of your choice.

  3. Do I need to choose an LMS specific to my industry?
  4. No. Many LMS solutions can be applied to several different industries. When shopping for an LMS, you'll want to look for not only the vendors who support your specific industry, but also have a wide variety of choices for any training need(s) that may come up. Should your industry introduce a new employee requirement (such as a specific certification), you won’t want to switch your LMS. The wider the audience of the LMS that you choose, the more safe you'll be in the future.

  5. How do I know my employees will be willing to use an LMS?
  6. Firstly, it’s great to consider your employees wants and needs. Sure, an LMS can greatly benefit a company, but if you’re employees dread using it, their morale will go down significantly. The LMS you choose should be easy for users to use and navigate through. Many solutions (such as our LMS, GyrusAIM) make it easy for users to track their progress and expiring courses or certifications, and make use of outside resources when necessary. If you choose an easy-to-use LMS, your users will be able to focus more on learning and improving their skills—and less time learning how to actually use the LMS itself.

  7. How will an LMS help my company?
  8. In more ways than one, you'll see a significant difference after adopting an LMS. Two words: training and development. They go hand in hand. If you’re employees don’t have the right skills to do their job—or if their skills are a little rusty since the last training they went through years ago—you’re company will fall behind too. A simple “refresher” course for employees never hurt anybody! Sure, you’re employees may have skills—but it’s important that they have the skills for their specific position or responsibilities. you'll rest easy knowing that your employees are the best of the best and freshly trained . . . and you'll be able to keep up with competitors too. In the workplace, you don’t want to just merely survive: you want to grow!

  9. But there are so many LMS vendors! How will I ever know which LMS to choose?!
  10. Well, it’s different all around. Each vendor is different, and each customer is different—there is no list of universal needs. Therefore, you'll want a vendor that works with you to learn about what it is you need out of an LMS (and provide it for you!). To start, you'll want to consider hosting (Do you need to host the LMS yourself or does the vendor provide a host?), language capabilities, (Can the LMS be translated to meet all of your international customer’s needs?), course catalog selection, customer service, and more. If you’re employees aren’t necessarily tech-savvy, you may want to find a software that is easy to use and navigate. If its customization and branding that you’re into, you'll want to make sure that feature is available. For example, GyrusAIM offers custom course creation so that users feel a sense of customization and can tailor courses specific to what they need.

    You will also want to consider the vendor itself. How long have they been in business? What is their retention rate? It’s fair to say that a business that’s been around for 25 or more years with a 95 percent retention rate has a great product and loyal customer base. Gyrus Systems has a commitment to their product, with constant updates and versions being released every year and focused customer support. Does the vendor ask for your feedback? If so, this proves that the vendor cares not only about customer satisfaction but also the product, constantly trying to improve it to better serve a customer base. When it comes to choosing an LMS, there are many things to consider—so the first step? Find out what you need and start shopping!