VR Training Is Replacing Traditional Sales and Customer Service Training

Do you need to cut back worker coaching time, enhance coaching effectiveness, and assist staff acquire expertise and confidence? Whereas many firms nonetheless present conventional classroom coaching, more and more trainers and trainees have turned to digital actuality (VR) coaching due to its many advantages:

• VR coaching is scalable. Including new VR headsets or further coaching situations could be carried out rapidly and cost-effectively.
• VR coaching reduces the educational curve; staff like VR coaching and study extra. A latest PWC research discovered VR studying is 4 instances sooner than conventional studying, and VR learners have been 275 p.c extra assured of their skills versus learners who acquired information by way of extra conventional approaches.
• VR coaching delivers constructive monetary affect. VR coaching packages save firms lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} per yr by lowering attrition charges, shortening onboarding prices, and lowering journey prices to numerous coaching services.

This is how some firms have put this expertise to make use of onboarding their staff.

Three World-Class Firms Leverage VR Coaching

Walmart was an early adapter of VR coaching for onboarding and affiliate coaching. Trainees who take Walmart’s VR coaching programs to find out about methods to take care of difficult clients report a 30 p.c larger satisfaction score in contrast with trainees attending conventional coaching programs. The VR trainees rating larger on content material remembrance exams 70 p.c of the time. Additionally they display a ten p.c to fifteen p.c larger price of data retention in contrast with these in conventional coaching. The coaching additionally takes much less time: What would possibly require 90 minutes of classroom coaching could be accomplished in 20 minutes utilizing VR coaching. This interprets into larger worker loyalty, since their associates admire the funding Walmart is making of their coaching; larger worker confidence; happier staff; larger buyer satisfaction; and thousands and thousands of {dollars} in productiveness financial savings for Walmart.

Pfizer utilized VR coaching throughout the COVID pandemic to coach 1000’s of recent manufacturing employees rapidly inside Pfizer services that produce the COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer needed to scale VR coaching in an unprecedented technique to rapidly ramp up its vaccine manufacturing. A brand new manufacturing ground employee would possibly take a couple of yr to turn out to be absolutely operational with conventional coaching strategies; as well as, the extremely contagious COVID-19 solely magnified the constraints (and dangers) of conventional coaching strategies. Pfizer additionally utilized 3-D replicas, digital group coaching, and real-time suggestions to make sure wonderful coaching outcomes. The outcomes have been astounding:

• VR manufacturing coaching reworked 100-plus pages of ordinary working procedures into interactive coaching experiences, which drastically decreased the time to coach and minimized the area required for the coaching.
• VR behavioral coaching instructed customers on correct conduct/motion utilizing pace and haptic monitoring capabilities.
• The VR coaching setting eliminated accessibility points by taking 3-D scans or creating 3-D replicas inside the coaching.
• Pfizer’s VR coaching leads reported a 40 p.c discount in whole coaching time and a three-fold enhance in high quality.

Verizon has been utilizing VR coaching since 2021 to construct empathy and de-escalation abilities for his or her contact facilities’ customer support associates. Pre-VR coaching, Verizon placed on four-hour, in-person workshops that leaned on function taking part in to ship de-escalation instruction. However they discovered function taking part in fell brief as a result of it fails to copy the emotional elements of an escalating scenario. Now, as a substitute of function taking part in, customer support associates immerse themselves in a digital world, the place an avatar takes the place of the indignant buyer. Associates must de-escalate this buyer, who now has a “face” versus being only a voice. Associates see, hear, and really feel the shopper’s frustrations extra powerfully.

VR coaching helps Verizon associates acquire the dear expertise and confidence they need in a secure, digital setting. Many associates, anxious to enhance their abilities, discover the immersive elements of VR coaching to be rewarding particularly when complemented by a gamification element that makes studying extra enjoyable.

Will VR Coaching Grow to be the Dominant Technique to Prepare Gross sales, Advertising and marketing, and Service Personnel?

Verizon and lots of different firms have realized that one of the vital impactful functions of VR coaching is within the contact heart. Topping the priorities of most contact facilities is lowering agent turnover. Each time a contact heart loses an agent, operational prices soar; remaining brokers wrestle to maintain tempo with the elevated quantity; buyer satisfaction scores drop; and crew morale takes a success, as brokers query why their desk neighbors preserve leaving.

Firms leverage VR coaching to assist contact heart brokers grasp the corporate’s merchandise/companies and really feel more and more assured and cozy coping with even essentially the most demanding clients. These two VR coaching advantages meaningfully lower agent turnover, which could be financially staggering. Should you run a contact heart with 100 brokers and have an industry-standard 45 p.c agent attrition price, you’ll spend anyplace from $1.6 million to $4.8 million every year on turnover. Lowering turnover by solely 5 p.c can put anyplace from $176,000 to $600,000 again in your organization’s pockets. A 20 p.c discount in turnover can decrease operational prices by $704,000 to $2.1 million (supply: SharpenCX). Lowering agent turnover charges is the strongest cause VR coaching is changing into the dominant technique to prepare contact heart brokers. Whereas area doesn’t permit me to enter element, VR coaching’s affect on gross sales and advertising personnel is equally spectacular.

The writing is on the wall: Conventional coaching is dying. VR coaching will substitute all types of conventional coaching by 2028. Are you on board?

Barton Goldenberg (bgoldenberg@ismguide.com) is president of ISM, Inc. Since 1985, ISM has established itself as a premier strategic adviser leveraging modern applied sciences—together with CRM, digital communities, and the metaverse—to enhance gross sales, advertising, and customer support. His thought leadership contains co-creating the Business Success in a Virtual World podcast, co-creating the award profitable XR/Metaverse Resource Center, and writing three enterprise books, together with The Definitive Guide to Social CRM. He’s additionally in excessive demand as a keynote speaker (www.bartongoldenberg.com).