Learning Comes of (Internet) Age

By Paul Stockford

Let's face it: A lot of what we hear about the Internet is overblown hype. If you don't believe me, just take a look at the headlines in The Wall Street Journal or The Financial Times. Nearly every day another dot-com explodes and a formerly well-financed, high-flying, high-profile e-business bites the dust.

So while we await the arrival of the new "new economy" and the next e-business fad, let's look at an "e-something" that is actually working, and working well.

E-learning is just beginning to impact the customer contact industry in the same way that the industry has been impacted by such technologies as skills-based routing and workforce management software. Only  e-learning is a product set that increases a center's efficiency by improving agent skills rather than replacing technology.  E-learning takes the best of what the Internet is supposed to be and combines it with efficient and innovative CSR training to forge a revolutionary way of sharpening agent skills.

There are several purveyors of elearning software. The best known are Witness Systems, Envision Telephony and Knowlagent. Each company offers products that combine Internet technology with proven training techniques, all the while keeping agents at their stations and available to answer calls when needed. Absolute efficiency.

Learning 'Breaks'

Remember the way agent training traditionally was carried out? Internal company trainers or outside training consultants come to the contact center and schedule classroom training for groups of agents who need to polish a certain set of skills. The training not only takes agents away from their desks, but is designed to meet the needs of the masses, not of individuals.

Compare that to the techniques behind e-learning. Knowlagent, for example, offers a pure-play training software package that integrates with the contact center's automatic call distributor (ACD) and monitoring system to ensure that coverage of customer contacts is always available based on parameters set by contact center management. Agents are then scheduled for "learning breaks" during periods of low call volume. Training courses are set by supervisors who have monitored and scored agents during normal transactions. Training packages are pushed to the agent's desktop via the Internet or the company's intranet, courtesy of Knowlagent's KnowDev software. Very efficient.

Witness Systems makes its e-learning packages a part of its overall monitoring solution. Following a coaching session in which the supervisor and agent typically review and evaluate a monitored customer transaction together, Witness Systems' software scans evaluations to detect performance scores below a minimum level, then pushes training packages to the agent's personalized e-learning page on the corporate intranet. The agent is notified via e-mail that he has been assigned to complete specific tasks which the software can evaluate upon completion. Very smooth.

Video Feedback

Envison Telephony offers its Click2Coach package that takes training another step by offering personalized clips that can include recordings of transactions the agent has conducted. These can be used to create a unique and personalized training video specific to the needs of the agent. The video clips also can be used for positive reinforcement if, for example, a supervisor monitors a particularly exemplary call and would like to share it with his team.

If follow-up training is required, Click2Coach provides links to training sites on the corporation's network. It also can create virtual tours through a company's Web site in preparation, for example, of a campaign that might generate calls for help from customers stuck in corporate cyberspace. Training videos of Web site navigation can help agents assist customers much more efficiently. This is personalized training at its best.

E-learning is a prime example of the effective use of the Internet, sans hype. E-learning vendors are teaching us that the Internet can be used efficiently for more than just e-mail and pornography.

Paul Stockford is president and chief analyst at Saddletree Research (www.saddletreeresearch.com). Readers may send comments to CIrespond@advanstar.com.