Call centers have become a critical asset for businesses. As it has become more difficult to differentiate products and technologies, customers are increasingly relying on customer service–specifically exceptional customer service–to distinguish between products and companies and are using it as the basis for establishing and maintaining a business relationship.
Vendors, too, are seeing customer service as a competitive advantage, but one that takes attention and care to maintain.
That care and attention can be a challenge. The Internet has had a profound impact on call centers. The past few years have seen an explosion of applications and technologies to improve and automate customer service – especially in the realm of self-service.
But the fact is, customer empowerment and improving business-to-customer relationships requires personal, productive, and competent interactions. That means people effectively communicating with people and doing it efficiently. And, therein lies the challenge.
The cost of hiring and training enough good people to effectively accommodate the increasing support demands is high. Many companies report that the average call center representative requires 8-12 weeks of training before they are proficient. Now, couple that with the rate of change businesses are experiencing. New products are coming to market faster than ever; companies are merging at a tremendous rate; and globalization is a fact of life. All of these factors contribute to the challenge of how businesses maintain their pace, transfer knowledge and provide new skills to their call center representatives without dramatically increasing costs. E-learning is a potential answer to this challenge.
What is E-Learning?
At its simplest, e-learning is using the Web to learn. I prefer to define e-learning as the ability of learners or students to learn what they want, when they want, in the form that best suits them in the modules or “chunks” that they want. Let me give you an example. I am a call center rep for a software application company that is releasing a new version of a product in two months and it will run on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). So, I have to get up to speed on the new version and learn about PDAs. Fortunately, the company is an innovator and offers e-learning lessons. First, I go onto our corporate intranet and take a short test. The test assesses that I know our product line well and tells me that there are only three modules I need to take to learn about the new version. I can go to a class being held over the next few week or I can take the lessons online or do both. That test also recommends two different lessons I can take to learn about PDAs. I commute by train, so I opt to take the CD version of the PDA lesson while riding home. I don’t have time to travel to attend one of the classes, so I take the new version lessons online. I take a final test to certify my readiness to support the new version and earn a bonus, because I was one of the first five people in the department to do so.
By accommodating learner preferences, the learning experience is fundamentally enhanced and typically makes the learning more effective. Trained people are more confident, which makes them even more effective and productive.
E-learning can provide tremendous cost savings because people do not have to attend a class to learn, they take the class just-in-time – meaning when they want it, not when a class is held. With good e-learning, a student spends time learning only what they don’t know, and they can go back and review information at any time. Accessible training makes for more knowledgeable people. Increased skills can increase the number of calls a rep can handle by decreasing the amount of time spent researching solutions. Faster response times also make for happier customers.
Successful E-Learning
The benefits of e-learning are compelling. But, it is a relatively new paradigm and it often takes longer to do something new the first time. To minimize this pain, there are some steps companies can take to successfully implement e-learning.
Focus on the learner – While this sounds obvious, the reality is that traditional training has been delivered almost exclusively in a classroom setting with an instructor. Subsequently, the training materials to support that method are instructor-centric. With e-learning, an instructor is typically not involved. So, in order to capture the attention of the student and make the learning experience interesting, information delivery needs to be student-centric. Some key ways of being learner-centric are to profile the student and ask about preferences. By knowing the student is a sales rep, for example, the highly technical information that is actually targeted for an engineer is not delivered. Further, if a preference for audio has been expressed, the delivered lesson can have more audio segments than text.
Another key way to focus on the learner is by providing prescriptive learning. In my example about the call center rep, the student started his training efforts by first taking a short test. Based on the results of the test, the student was told what training would be most beneficial. That is prescriptive learning, assessing the student’s needs and based on the results, prescribing what learning is needed. This is a powerful method because the student only has to learn what they specifically need to. This saves time and makes for a very personal learning experience.
Walk before you run- Start by converting an existing, well-defined course or lesson. E-learning is a paradigm shift and change always takes some time to absorb and accommodate. By starting with known, quality materials, the focus can be on redesigning for e-learning, adding interactive elements and making it learner-centric instead of struggling with the core content itself. Also, by starting with something that exists, there’s a fallback position if a deadline looms or issues are encountered.
But think about the long-term – It is tempting to take short-cuts to get a feeling of accomplishment, but that usually results in a lesser quality learning experience. One might assume that taking the PowerPoint slides from an existing course and turning them into static HTML is e-learning. But, what kind of learning will it be? There is no instructor to add all that extra knowledge and, by the way, the information on the slide needs to change next month because of a new offering. Think of the content management challenge when you have hundreds of pages of HTML that must be reviewed and updated when products and services change.
Assemble a team that embraces change – When embarking on your first e-learning initiative, build a team that likes to try new thing. Remember to include all the different roles needed to develop and deploy great e-learning – course developers, media/graphic specialists, editors, subject matter experts and IT. All of these roles are important and by bringing the team together early and often you share ideas, continuously improve the process and create advocates for your mission.
Partner for success – Whom you decide to partner with for your e-learning efforts will have a major impact on your success. You want to work with a vendor that has the technology and services to meet your immediate and long-term needs. Understand and document your criteria. For example, is offering student-centric learning critical to your plans? Are you a global organization with enterprise-class scalability needs? How many different types of student profiles do you train? Do you want to be able to dynamically assemble a course to suit each student’s needs? Make sure you work with a vendor that meets your needs.
Imagine a world where:
We could shrink the training time.
We could do training just-in-time.
Each individual could do self assessment and understand his/her skill level.
Based on that assessment, a system prescribes the training roadmap that would increase their skills.
CSRs get trained during their down time or when they are in the learning mode.
E-learning can make that imaginary world a reality.
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About Massood Zarrabian
Massood joined OutStart as President and CEO in March of 2001 with more than twenty-five years of technology and management experience. During his short tenure with OutStart he has overseen three successful acquisitions, most recently of Trainersoft Corporation. Prior to OutStart, he was President of the eService Division of Broadbase Software, a provider of eCRM solutions. Before that, as President and CEO of Servicesoft Technologies, a provider of intelligent eService solutions, he directed the successful merger with Broadbase Software.
About OutStart
OutStart provides learning and knowledge-sharing software applications to mid-market, government, and Global 2000 organizations. OutStart is focused on helping customers build competitive advantage by making customers, employees, and partners more knowledgeable and better trained through content development, management, and delivery. The company’s approach is learner-focused and content-centric. Customers like AT&T Wireless, Kaiser Permanente, Steelcase, the US Navy, and Westland Helicopters rely on OutStart to increase individual and organizational performance, improve knowledge transfer, and lower operating costs.
