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Sales Training
Practical Sales Training in a Demanding Environment: A Smooth Ride for Lexus
The Client: Lexus, A Division of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.
The Challenge: The first affordable luxury cars were on the market, and demand was huge. Customers expected top-of-the-line service, and Lexus made sure they got it, via highly trained sales consultants in its more than 180 dealerships.
Then came the challenge. Competing cars arrived on the market, and Lexus realized that consultants needed more tools—more sales aids and behavior models—to surpass the competition and guarantee customers high-quality service. Plus dealerships needed a self-paced program that was available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The Solution: EDT Learning designed and developed Lexus Labs, a multi-award-winning learning delivery system that's available on-site and on demand. It's engaging, challenging, informative, relevant, and incredibly realistic.
Instead of an electronic book, participants find a program with the look and feel of a video game. And instead of a lecture, they find full-motion video simulations of real-world situations. Participants decide how each sales conversation progresses and then see how their choices play out. Onscreen scores show the effects of their actions. Are they meeting the customer's needs? Moving toward closing the sale? Along the way, participants get tips on handling the situation. And if they're having technical problems, a EDT Learning customer service representative is just a toll-free phone call away.
Lexus Labs also includes an extensive performance-support component and many other features. How popular is it? What began as a 5-hour program now encompasses more than 40 hours of training and information that reaches more than 8,300 Lexus associates at 184 dealerships.
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Management Skills
One Curriculum, Many Ways to Learn: Like Money in the (Royal) Bank
The Client: Royal Bank Financial Group (RBFG)
The Challenge: Effective coaching is one of the largest contributors
to employee satisfaction. And because satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, and satisfied customers mean higher revenue,
an organization's coaching practices affect its bottom line.
When employee surveys stressed the need for better manager-employee relationships, Canada's Royal Bank Financial Group knew that it had a business opportunity—and a big challenge. Clearly, a coaching skills curriculum was needed. But managers were dispersed across Canada, their skills were varied, and they didn't consider coaching a priority.
The Solution: EDT Learning developed an online curriculum that helps managers build practical coaching skills. It also helps effect a significant cultural change: Managers prepare to act as advisers while employees (who also take parts of the program) ready themselves to take responsibility for self-development.
Sound dry? It could have been, but there's nothing we hate more than boring learning experiences. Ask any of the thousands of participants who have used the program: It's challenging and fun.
The five-hour multimedia program, delivered via RBFG's intranet, is filled with digital video simulations of real-world situations. At each decision point, participants choose the best course of action, and the scenario plays out according to their choice. Then a concise analysis examines the various options. And there are plenty of other useful online features as well as myriad offline small-group activities for practice.
A wide range of components in one flexible program—"multi" media at its finest.
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System Skills
Hands-On Training in a Risk-Free Setting: Just the Ticket for United Airlines
The Client: United Airlines
The Challenge: For two years, United had been issuing electronic tickets, but there were serious inconsistencies. A survey of 6,000 customer service representatives (CSRs) showed that CSRs were performing system tasks differently and taking longer than they needed to complete certain operations. United needed to do something.
Earlier electronic ticketing training had taught the basics. But United realized that CSRs needed more. Like best practices. And how to "work the system" to fill customer needs. And intensive hands-on practice.
The company had to train thousands of CSRs dispersed throughout the world, while spending less money. And United needed a product that could be used to effectively train new hires in the complexities of electronic tickets.
The Solution: EDT Learning developed 22 hours of simulation-based multimedia skill-development training. At its core is a sophisticated software engine that simulates the look, feel, and functionality of United's system.
CSRs learn best practices and build experience in a safe environment by working through realistic customer scenarios. They learn a task by watching and imitating, step by step. Next, they perform the task, aided by online coaching. Along the way they build system skills and customer service skills.
The benefits of the program? United projects a 60 percent decrease in training time and savings of millions of dollars a year in student costs. Plus:
- CSRs are trained and on the job sooner.
- Procedures are uniform across North America.
- More efficient CSRs provide better, faster customer service.
- Costly errors on the job are reduced.
How's that for a smooth landing?
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Customer Service
An Interactive Curriculum that Keeps Growing: For FedEx, Training that Delivers
The Client: Federal Express
The Challenge: In a service business, what's the difference between losing accounts and expanding them? Often, the quality of customer service. So when building customer loyalty emerged as a strategic imperative, FedEx asked how they could ensure that customers were serviced effectively the first time and that any problems were handled swiftly, appropriately, and authoritatively.
The Solution: Starting in 1994, EDT Learning developed an extensive interactive curriculum for customer service reps, managers, service agents, and other key groups. On-site and on demand, it offers plenty of awareness-, skill-, and attitude-building experiences—90 hours' worth!
Take Virtual Counter Outbound (VCO), a two-hour refresher course on processing outbound packages. Participants watch a model service agent process shipments, then they process five shipments on their own by helping virtual customers. And participants don't simply click to answer questions. They interact with various objects in their environment, just as they would on the job. Guide characters narrate the process and offer encouragement.
All courses operate within FedEx's existing courseware structure. The result? A consistent learning experience and great economies of scale.
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Dealer Certification
Real-World Learning in a Virtual Environment: A Bright Move for Sun
The Client: Sun Microsystems
The Challenge: Thousands of certified resellers around the world sell Sun products. How do they get and stay certified? In the past, by attending three-day training workshops. Food, lodging, travel...tracking attendance, tracking completion, mailing certificates…if you're thinking that the training cost a fortune, you're right.
And despite certification, resellers didn't have the expertise to match their customers' needs to Sun's computing solutions. Why not? Because what they needed was practice analyzing problems and trying different solutions. What Sun needed was a simpler, user-focused dealer certification program for a fraction of the cost.
The Solution: EDT Learning built Office Exploratorium, a sophisticated eight-hour, five-module multimedia course. Resellers work through sales challenges modeled on actual experiences with corporate customers. By configuring solutions for virtual customers and receiving detailed feedback, participants acquire detailed product knowledge and critical selling skills. That's the kind of hands-on experience they couldn't get in a workshop.
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Employee Orientation
Rich Mix of Media Engages Participants: Toyota Shifts Learning Into the Fast Lane
The Client: Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A.
The Challenge: Toyota had a dramatic story to tell. But engaging the company's 85,000 domestic associates wasn't going to be easy—the story the company wanted to relate was its own history.
Why bother? Because Toyota's traditions—its commitment to customers, quality, and its production system—are part of the company's present and future. And if associates are going to live those traditions, they have to understand them. Clearly, the course would have to grab and keep participants' attention.
The Solution: EDT Learning developed Toyota Traditions in three formats:
- A 90-minute multimedia program (perfect for associates wanting to learn at their convenience)
- A half-day workshop (just right for associates stimulated by a group setting)
- A self-study workbook (a fine choice for associates without computers)
Whatever format they choose, participants find lots to see, do, and consider. Active learning is the key throughout. In one section, participants explore the problems in a traditional production environment, then, based on what they've learned, try to come up with solutions.
Associate orientations like this one make a lasting impression on new hires, helping build awareness about their company's traditions, history, and successes.
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