ELEARNING
BRANCHING SCENARIOS
The training practice consist of interactions a sales associate could potentially encounter on the job.
The branching scenarios were designed for employees to use their retail knowledge and experience to address customer service needs. It allows employees to see how certain decisions could unfold in the real world.
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The goal is for training practice to be relevant as well as engaging through diverse interactions with potential customers.
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Audience: Experienced, and newly trained sales associates
Tools Used: Adobe Captivate, HTML
Analysis
Problem: There is a mandatory training that employees need to complete. The training is meant to help the store increase the number of returning customers, but employees want the training to be more interesting and relevant to their day-to-day tasks.
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Solution: I created a quick scenario-based training activity that asks sales associates to make decisions using prior knowledge/information that new employees have been learning. The situations range from comfortable to advanced so everyone in training feels challenged.
Design & Development
I used Adobe Captivate to create the module. There is no need for PDFs or guides because this is meant to be fast and on-the-go for sales participants to complete. Each slide has concise images, text, and audio. The audio reads each slide and allows time for participants to think through the presented problem. There are several interactions a sales associate could encounter on the job so I focused on four types of customers: the Buyer, the Browser, the Dissatisfied, and the Researcher.
Text-Based Storyboard
After I researched each customer type and drew on personal experience as a sales representative, I focused on developing a narrative with a new sales associate, Sam. She has gone through the training (which is the same as what the sales associates completed).
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In the story, it is Sam's first day on the job and she needs to use what she has learned in training to interact with each customer.
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Branching Scenario Flowchart
Along with the storyboard, I created a color-coded flowchart that showed what each choice was and the result connected to it. The colors were used to visualize what the choice was considered: good, needs work, or bad. If the sales associate chose a choice considered to be 'needs work' or 'bad' they would be asked to try again. Despite there being countless scenarios that could be created for the four most common customers, I created three scenarios to be quick and efficient.
Custom HTML Certificate
Although the module can be published onto an LMS, I wanted the training practice to be available to anyone who wanted to try it out in my network. So, I wrote a simple HTML code using Adobe Dreamweaver. The certificate would be available to fill out and print or send via email after finishing the practice as proof of completion.
Results &Takeaways
Once the storyboards and flowcharts were designed and enhanced with smooth transitions and clear audio, it was ready to be published. I shared the project with my network and received positive feedback about the diverse interactions included in the story and the relevancy of the training. As an extra detail, I created a simple HTML certificate for participants to
fill out and send to me. This certificate showed that they finished the course.
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There are several directions I would love to take with a training project like this and improvements I would make with more time and resources:
-Expanded Narratives Pathways
-Expanded Customer Interactions
-Increased Audio Elements