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E-Learning in Action

The Problem

Mary, the Director of Training for an insurance company, is launching a project to train customer service representatives in her company to use a new software application.

The new application replaces an older one used to track information about customers of the organization. Like the old application, the new one lets customer service representatives update contact information and beneficiaries. Under the old application, the company maintained separate records for each insurance policy. If a customer life, home, and auto insurance policies, the system kept three separate records. An address change required three separate updates. The new application maintains policies and customer information separately. It only keeps one set of customer record for the three policies.

In addition, the new policy prompts a customer service representative for outbound marketing during an update. For example, if a customer were to add a newborn child as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy, the system would prompt the customer service representative to ask the policy holder whether that person wanted to increase the policy value.

In the past, Mary's group would have developed a four-day training course to introduce the new system to employees. Under pressure to lower overall training costs, Lee, the Chief Information Officer, has asked Mary to consider e-learning for this project.

Mary's initial reaction was "no." Asking students to sit in front of a computer for four days seemed unfair: certainly not conducive to learning. Lee asked Mary whether she had taken any online courses. She admitted that she had not. Lee challenged Mary to learn the possibilities for e-learning before ruling it out as an option.

Like Mary, you, too, might have been asked to develop an online course. Also like Mary, you might assume that online courses are a one-to-one transfer of a course from the classroom or workbook to the computer. And like Mary, you might assume that e-learning is inferior to classroom learning.

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Suggested Solution

Although initially skeptical of the idea, Mary now sees the potential for using e-learning after learning how another business addressed a similar learning challenge. The highlights of the solution that the other company used are:

• Separated the two key tasks of the job into two distinct learning challenges. One is learning how to perform the old system tasks with the new system. The other is how to perform outbound marketing. The campaign would begin with the first challenge, because it is more likely to generate success.
• Because they are performed online, the systems skills are taught online. A preview demonstration is intended to generate interest in the system. An introductory tutorial explains how to perform the most basic of tasks. Exercises, performed in pairs with co-workers, are intended to reinforce the original tutorial and teach some additional skills. Weekly tips sent to learners' e-mail boxes explain how to perform less common tasks. When learners see a tip of interest, they can receive instructions and exercises for practicing it. They can ignore other tips, and return to them if the need arises.
• Only after mastering the first learning challenge will learners start on the second: outbound marketing. Because this involves interpersonal skills, it will be taught in the classroom. But because it also requires recognition of opportunity, the system is being designed to prompt people to take advantage of certain marketing opportunities. The prompts appear while learners actually use the "real" system.

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