Respond Faster to Business Challenges with E-Learning

With a hyper competitive marketplace and a relatively inexperienced workforce that is spread out across potentially large geographic areas Retailers have some of the biggest challenges with regard to training their team members.  Companies need to regularly update and train retail store personnel on

• New products and services
• Last minute promotions
• Updated processes or systems
• Company policies and procedures

Bringing personnel into classrooms or meeting rooms is expensive, time consuming, and impractical.  Webinars or conference calls can be set up quickly, but the retailer can’t ensure that the retail sales representatives are paying attention and cannot measure who has/has not absorbed the material.

The good news is that more and more companies are using e-learning, computer-based training and even mobile-learning technology to help them communicate their retail training and development messaged.  A recent survey of 600 companies has indicated that 77% of surveyed companies believe that learning technologies such as these will help them to respond faster to quickly changing business conditions.  That is an 11% year-over-year increase.

These learning technologies, particularly e-learning that is delivered via learning management systems as well as internal social networks and mobile phones have helped these companies to

• Reduce time to get team members competent on new products by 35%,
• Roll-out new IT systems faster by 33%
• Improve knowledge retention on products and processes by 33%

Additionally, the study found that 80% of businesses are using e-learning courses and 66% per cent are using video-based content to improve skills in workshops and training sessions.  This is because while classroom training is important for instilling deep knowledge and motivation it does not allow them to react fast enough in a fast changing environment.

Retail Training Services can assist your company with designing and implementing e-learning programs that can improve your associates retail skills and product knowledge.   Contact us for a free one-hour consultation!

–          David Goodwin is the Principal of the Retail Advocacy Group.  As a 30 year veteran of the retail industry he has hired, trained, and performance managed thousands of retail sales representatives and retail managers.  You can learn more about instructor-led, e-learning, and other training solutions for retailers at www.retailertrainingservices.com.