Problem:

Our contact center supported hundreds of product launches each year with roughly a dozen of them being completely new products. I needed a way to regularly convey new product launch information to agents in a way that was easy to digest, easy to reference down the line, consistent with brand messaging, and provided minimal disruption to our operational support.

Approach:

I generally follow a blended learning approach when it comes to training and did so for this course. I created an eLearning course in Articulate Storyline 360 which served as a prerequisite for an instructor-led workshop. The eLearning covered features and benefits and a high level overview of the machine, its use, and troubleshooting. Once they completed that, the instructor-led workshop included scenario-based practice sessions.

eLearning Creation:

I met with Subject Matter Experts from our Sales and Marketing teams to get a better understanding of the machine and its marketing claims. I helped revise usage and troubleshooting video scripts and attended the video shoots with the marketing team. The information from the marketer’s sales deck provided the foundation for the features & benefits portion of the training and the videos were added for the usage and troubleshooting sections. I ended the eLearning with a knowledge check to confirm basic knowledge transfer ahead of the instructor-led workshop (Level 2 of the Kirkpatrick evaluation model).

Instructor-led Workshop:

The instructor-led workshop was held in person. I began by covering questions the agents had coming out of the eLearning. Then, I created messes on the floor with various materials (cheerios, ketchup, chocolate syrup, eggs, etc). They each had the opportunity to use the machine to clean the messes. They took turns pairing the machine with their smartphones so they understood the pairing process. Then, I sabotaged the machines and had them go through troubleshooting procedures. They were given copies of the knowledgebase articles they have access to while on the phone and used those to perform the troubleshooting steps.

Note: I did not remove the branding from this course, however, only publicly available information has been left in. All internal policies/procedures/etc have been redacted.