Can You Ace Your Customer Interactions?

Scenario-Based eLearning Training

This is a scenario-based eLearning concept project designed to help sales representatives interact efficiently with their customers. Sales representatives make choices that build positive customer relationships, ultimately improving customer retention and increasing business revenue.

Audience: Sales Representatives 

Responsibilities: Instructional Design, eLearning Development, Visual Design, Storyboard, and Mockups

Tools Used: Articulate Storyline, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Mindmeister

Overview

The client is a global company that provides uniform and linen services to a variety of  industries.  This project addresses performance issues exhibited by new sales representatives.

The client was concerned because new sales representatives were not following departmental protocol when interacting with their customers. Sales representatives weren’t executing important steps in the service process over the course of their 20-30 customer visits per day. This resulted in negative service experiences for the customer. 

Customers who didn’t feel valued by their sales representative often took their business to competing companies, leading to a decrease in customer retention and lost revenue for the business.

After analyzing the company’s customer service policy document and speaking to a member of the management team, I determined that the source of the sales representatives’ performance issues was a lack of skill and knowledge. For this reason, I proposed a scenario-based eLearning training.

Process

Creating this project was an ongoing process that required constant analysis and iteration.  With ongoing feedback and user testing, I was able to develop a polished final version of this product. 

I designed and developed this eLearning experience from start to finish. To accomplish this, I created an action map, wrote a text-based storyboard, designed visual mockups, developed an interactive prototype, and, finally, developed the final product.

Action Map

To identify the focus of the eLearning simulation, I worked with the company’s Director of Business Development, who acted as my SME throughout the project. I conducted several informational interviews to understand the sales representatives’ responsibilities, expectations, and common mistakes. With this information, I used Mindmeister to develop an action map.

The purpose of the action map was to clarify what sales representatives needed to do to improve their relationships with their customers. I was able to identify important actions that sales reps were missing on the job, which helped me create an immersive and real-world eLearning experience. 

We reviewed the action map on a deeper level and discovered a performance issue that could be resolved without eLearning. The performance issue was connected to improper labeling of the storage area, which could be quickly and efficiently resolved by the plant managers. 

By discovering this prior to eLearning development, I was able to avoid focusing on actions that the company could resolve without training. In the end, this simple action map saved the client time and money, because it allowed me to get to the root of the performance issue and focus the training on questions that were directly impactful to building positive customer relationships.

The action map revealed five high priority actions that were most crucial to acing customer interactions. These five actions became the foundation of the entire eLearning experience and helped guide the development of the text-based storyboard.

Text-based Storyboard

As I moved into development of the text-based storyboard, the five high priority actions from the action map served as the correct answer choices, while the common mistakes were used as distractors.  All other actions from the action map became contextual pieces for the scenario consequences. 

This context, along with discussions with my SME, helped me identify real-life consequences that sales reps would face depending on the choice they made. I found that most of the consequences included a response from the customer or the General Manager, so I developed a storyline that included these characters.

The majority of customer interactions take place in a warehouse where sales reps load, organize, and stock products for the customer. As this was the most frequent space utilized by the sales reps, I determined that the scenarios would be set in a warehouse. 

Within the warehouse, I analyzed where each of the five actions would be likely to occur. The first three questions address key steps that are crucial upon arrival to the customer’s location. In this case, the product storage area of the warehouse was the most appropriate for this setting. The last two questions focus on discussing the invoice with the customer, so an office setting for those scenarios was more fitting.

Throughout all five questions, I incorporated a mentor character that learners could choose to engage with when they needed help. This character is an experienced sales rep that has a history of successful interactions with customers. I chose to use this optional mentor character so learners could choose what they needed to review, rather than forcing them to read through material they already knew.

Visual Mockups

I received approval on the text-based storyboard and was able to move into the visual design phase. I used Adobe XD to create visual mockups to get a better sense of what the project would look like. This was a crucial part of creating the eLearning experience because it allowed me to quickly iterate and apply feedback to my slides before developing in Articulate Storyline 360. 

I selected a color theme that aligned with the company’s brand and chose a font type and weight for all headings and body text. I sourced graphics and used Adobe Illustrator to edit them to fit the color palette before importing them into the layouts I created in Adobe XD. 

I wanted to design custom buttons and a custom progress bar, so I also used Adobe XD to design these elements.

After applying feedback and developing several iterations, I received approval for the project’s visual design. The client was pleased with the clean, professional and visually appealing look I had developed in XD. This saved a lot of time, because I was able to quickly customize the design to the client’s preference instead of changing it directly in Storyline.

Visual Storyboard

Next, I developed a storyboard that helped the client understand how all the pieces of the eLearning would work as a whole. I used a layout that incorporated the slides, text, programming notes, and visuals in one document. I pulled the text from my text-based storyboard, added the programming notes, and imported screenshots of the slides I created in XD. This helped the client visualize the flow of the eLearning and understand how all the elements would interact on the screen.

Interactive Prototype

Next, I developed the interactive prototype in Articulate Storyline 360. I used my visual mockups, visual storyboard, and text-based storyboard to develop the introduction and the first two questions.

Creating a prototype helped me iterate on the functionality that I would include throughout the project.  I added simple “fade in” animations to speech bubbles and characters, and I also experimented with the custom button hover states. 

After getting feedback on the first draft of my prototype, I was challenged to add more complex animations and interactions to the project. I accepted the challenge and decided to work with exit animations, which helped me gain a deeper understanding of variables in Storyline. I also decided to add a pop-up tooltip for the mentor button on the first question slide of the project, which helped me learn how to work with layers. 

After much feedback and multiple revisions, I perfected the layout, animations, and interactions of the project and was able to move into full development of the five-question project.

Developing the prototype before development was a crucial step; if I had waited to get feedback on the full project, I would have had to redo all the animations on all five questions. By getting feedback on the first two questions in the beginning, the development process was much more productive and efficient.

Full Development

Full development of this project was challenging, but rewarding. I learned the complex functions of Articulate Storyline quickly and worked to apply them in a timely manner. I am most proud of the look of the final entrance and exit animations, because they give the project a smooth, streamlined feel as the user moves through the scenarios. This proved to be the most time-consuming piece of the project, because I learned how to create variables, adjust variables with triggers, and add conditions to triggers that are based on the choice that the user selects. Learning these functions was important because they allow the user to advance through a training that has smooth, consistent animations regardless of the answer choice.

Results & Takeaways

The product was well-received by the client and the larger instructional design community. The main feedback was that the project was clean, professional, and user-friendly. Users enjoyed the color choices and consistent use of character styles throughout the experience as well. 

This project helped me gain a stronger sense of the instructional design process from beginning to end. I learned how to design, develop, and refine a learning experience that was scenario-based and addressed real-life performance problems. I discovered how essential action mapping is, because it allowed me to focus the eLearning on performance problems that were best resolved through training. 

Discovering performance problems that could be resolved without eLearning was also an important step in this process; it provided a stronger understanding of what works/doesn’t work in eLearning and gave my client confidence that I was looking out for the best interests of the business.  

The development phase of this project was instrumental in gaining a deeper understanding of tools that help create professional and quality eLearning experiences. I’ve discovered just how much every detail counts in the learning experience - from buttons, spacing, text font and weight, and consistent animations - these details make a big difference between an experience that is mediocre and outstanding. 

Knowing the right tools - and becoming skilled and comfortable with them - helped me achieve a product that was clean, consistent, and vibrant. Although there is always room for growth and improvement, I have a solid grasp of the skills and tools needed to develop professional and high caliber eLearning.