How AAA Food Handler Scaled to 400 New Customers Daily

Scaling a Small Business

AAA Food Handler started as a small business with big dreams. They offer online food handler training and food manager certifications for small businesses in the food and hospitality industries, and their team has a combined 35 years of experience in the industry. The owner, Jean, knew she needed to streamline their workflows in order to scale. She hired freelancers to build a custom learning management system, but it rapidly became too complex to manage on her own.

Here's what Jean was dealing with:

• A growing customer base that was outpacing their current systems
• A desire to scale revenue and users without sacrificing quality or hiring technical team members
• The need for a customizable LMS that could handle the unique requirements that come with compliance training

Finding a Flexible LMS

Jean knew she needed a partner to grow AAA, but finding the right one was tough. She needed a solution that would grow with the business and a team that understood the unique needs of a business offering compliance training. After investigating a few vendors, she discovered Academy of Mine and was impressed by our focus on customer service and customization.

“We were evaluating many different options. Academy of Mine offered something that was very customizable, and that was something we were looking for. Our business demands or needs are constantly changing, so we wanted to have that flexibility to have not just a solution, but something where we could keep customizing.” – Jean C.

A large focus for Jean when evaluating LMS platforms was eCommerce functionality. While researching options, she found many that were geared towards internal training and would have to be heavily modified for training customers, instead of training employees.

“That was one of the biggest things that set them apart and helped me narrow down my search, because there weren’t many companies who were offering an eCommerce aspect to their solution. We needed to be able to accept payments from customers outside of our organization.” – Jean C.

Over the years, that flexibility that AAA was searching for has been key in helping their team as the business has grown and regulations have changed. Now, they have their entire team and thousands of customers using the LMS daily.

Prioritizing Service and Support

High-touch support and open lines of communication were also a high priority for Jean and her team. They had noticed a lack of transparent communication when talking to other vendors, and absolutely wanted to avoid that in their long-term LMS partner.

Support for the technical implementation and troubleshooting side of things was key. As a small business, hiring a full-time technical team member to manage their LMS was out of the question. Having an always-on technical support staff available to answer questions and tweak customizations as needed has been a boon for the business.

Because I worked closely with all of the customizations, I could tell right away that their level of service was meeting our expectations. They replace having somebody technical on my team and that’s priceless. Having an LMS where I can rely on their team meeting our technical needs, that's critical to what we do. – Jean C.

The onboarding support was also helpful in getting things up and running quickly, with Jean highlighting the availability and responsiveness of her assigned onboarding specialist and how helpful our tutorials and API documentation were.

Customization for Compliance

One of the biggest challenges for AAA Food Handler was finding a platform that could be heavily customized to meet their needs. They weren't looking for a one-size-fits-all solution. They needed something that could be tailored to the specific needs of compliance training, including flexibility around how groups are onboarded into courses and tools that managers can use to ensure their employees are engaging with the training.

With Academy of Mine, their LMS now has:

• Custom certification logic based on learner engagement, test results, and time spent on course materials
• Automatic certificate generation and download access after students complete their courses
• The ability to display courses and content based on learner state
• Integrated e-commerce functionality for seamless sales
• Comprehensive learner reports that let portal admins (in this case, business owners and managers) view detailed analytics about their employee training
• A white-labeled platform that fully matches their branding

This level of customization allows AAA Food Handler to create a high-quality user experience that’s uniquely theirs, and make adjustments to their LMS over time as their business needs (and compliance requirements/regulations) change.

A One-Stop Shop for Their LMS Needs

With Academy of Mine, AAA Food Handler has been able to scale efficiently without sacrificing user experience, to the tune of 400 new customers a day on average.

“We’re able to, of course, upload and manage all our online trainings and sell our services through Academy of Mine. We’re able to run reports. We’re able to manage customer feedback through the backend, and some of our customer communications. It's pretty much a one-stop shop for our business needs.” — Jean C.

Their story is a testament to what's possible when you find the right tools and partners. By leveraging Academy of Mine's customizable LMS, they were able to meet their customer’s needs without sacrificing efficiency or hiring in-house technical support. The key takeaway? Don't settle for off-the-shelf solutions when scaling your business. Look for partners who understand your unique needs and can provide tailored solutions.

Are you facing similar challenges in your business? Maybe it's time to consider Academy of Mine. Whether you’re looking for B2B portals or custom LMS development, we've helped hundreds of businesses like AAA Food Handler scale their operations and achieve remarkable growth. Get started by requesting a demo today.