7 Ways to Create Engaging Learning Experiences
By John Blackmon
In today’s incredibly digital world, there’s still no substitute for the personal touch that great customer service can offer — whether in person or online. However, companies and brands need to bring their A-game these days.
According to Hubspot’s 2020 State of Customer Service report, 93% of customer service professionals agree that customers today have higher expectations than ever before. This is up from 88% in 2020. If you don’t provide a good customer experience … well, we have all seen those bad Yelp reviews from disgruntled customers. What’s more? Nearly 100% of consumers say that customer service influences their choice of brand and ongoing loyalty.
Clearly, having customer service that stands out from the crowd is a huge competitive advantage in today’s market. When it comes to convenience, resolution times, and agent expertise, if you make a good impression, you can increase your revenue.
The Key to Providing Amazing Customer Service? Training.
Failing to invest in customer service training carries a large risk. Investing in the wrong type of training can be just as risky. So, how can you better train customer service representatives? Today’s modern learners expect mobile-friendly, video learning experiences. To increase retention, more and more organizations are turning to interactive, immersive videos or artificial intelligence (AI)-powered video coaching.
Failing to invest in customer service training carries a large risk.
Using VR Videos to Train Customer Service Reps
Retail sales associates and other sales reps working in the field don’t have time to take long training courses, but they can easily complete microlearning modules on their phones while on a break or when no customers are present.
Using 360-degree photos or videos, organizations can create interactive training modules that train sales associates on how to organize a store, create appealing sales displays, or identify theft risk factors.
Filming in-store whenever possible ensures the content is relevant and the learning environment completely authentic. This provides a much more immersive and realistic training experience, allowing learners to see around a store that looks just like theirs. In this simulated environment, they can learn how to identify risk factors or displays that aren’t up to brand standards.
In the case of interactive videos, there’s no need to follow up with a quiz. The sales associates’ answers to the interactions in the video demonstrate their level of understanding. To get the most out of these immersive videos, make sure your VR authoring tool publishes to experience API (xAPI) to track all learner activity.
Using AI-powered Video Coaching Can Improve Customer Service Interactions
Video-based practice and coaching is an excellent way to help customer service representatives develop strong interpersonal skills — which are essential when working in customer service roles.
Workers can be assigned video-based prompts. For example, a prompt might read, “A customer is upset their package has been lost in transit. How should you address their complaint?” The worker would film themselves practicing a possible response and submit it for review by either their manager or to a platform that offers AI-driven assessments and feedback. In the case of AI-powered video coaching, the system would listen for certain pre-programmed keywords and phrases.
By configuring an assignment to automatically evaluate worker responses, workers get both immediate feedback and the ability to control their progress. Based on their score, the workers might have the option to review additional training content or try again.
Using AI also saves managers some time. Instead of meeting with each customer service representative, they can quickly review the scores to know which reps hit the mark and which may need to schedule a one-on-one with for more guidance.
Finally, using AI to score videos ensures consistency. Every manager trains a little differently and focuses on certain areas they find more important. With AI-powered feedback, reps can see — without bias — their performance metrics and train to the same standard, no matter which office or store they are working in across the organization. With today’s video coaching tools, practice really does make perfect.
Lights, Camera, Customer Service!
Implementing these two video training techniques can make all the difference in delivering a great customer experience and watching the positive reviews roll in. And thanks to today’s technology, both immersive video and AI-video scoring are more affordable than you might think.
With today’s video coaching tools, practice really does make perfect.