Scenario-Based Learning
What is scenario based learning?
Scenario based learning is an approach to instructional design where an employee walks through real-life work scenarios they will encounter on the job. These ‘hands on’ simulations provide employees with the opportunity to practice their critical thinking, problem solving, and delivering a great customer experience. The most successful training programs focus 70% of their time on scenario-based learning because it improves both employee retention and performance.
Benefits of scenario-based learning
- Increases Learner Engagement. Storytelling simulations stimulate a learner's emotions. Once they become invested in the story, they are less likely to become distracted.
- Increases Knowledge Retention. Storytelling makes the content easier to understand and remember, and the simulations provide the learner the opportunity to practice. This combination of storytelling and practice increases knowledge retention.
- Allows Employees to Fail and Learn. Simulations provide a safe and risk-free learning environment. Enabling employees to learn and grow in this manner is both engaging and effective. Employees are able to make choices they think will work best for the customer without consequences, and are able to try again and again as needed.
- Builds Employee Confidence. Allowing employees to practice a new skill in a risk-free environment helps them build confidence before interacting with actual customers, which can be intimidating without the right experience.
- Speeds Up Time to Proficiency. With simulations that can be completed individually and in only minutes, learning takes place much faster than with real-time customer interactions.
- Improves Knowledge Application. Employees who have the opportunity to practice what they learn are more likely to apply that knowledge later on. Simulations show employees why the information they are learning is useful and how they should apply it in real life.
- Facilitates Cross-Functional Performance. Scenario based learning helps customer service teams better understand the importance of working cross-functionally, and enhances communication skills and trust between team members.
- Demonstrates How Offerings Meet Customer Needs. With product knowledge, it’s often easier to show employees what they need to know. Simulations provide product knowledge in context, which helps employees better understand customer needs and how your product offerings fulfill them.
- Improves ROI. Simulations help employees learn and retain information faster, develop the necessary social skills to handle difficult customer interactions, and gain valuable experience to build their confidence. When they put those skills to use in real life, both customer satisfaction and profits increase.
Combine scenario-based learning with ProcedureFlow to reduce your training time by up to 75%
- Create effective training scenarios that:
- understand the learners, their needs, expectations, and what skills they already have
- offer challenging, relevant, and real-life situations
- use informal, conversational language, and
- are both interactive and visual.
- Bring each customer scenario into ProcedureFlow as visual, step-by-step workflows that include a backstory, subject matter expert knowledge and experience, system work (including images and screenshots), and links to important documents and websites.
- Use those flows as the foundation for training and cross-training employees. Give them access to ProcedureFlow in the classroom, use the flows teach and guide them through each scenario and then give them time to practice, practice and practice! The flows will become your best training material and the lifeline employees will need post-training.
- Treat ProcedureFlow as your single source of information.
- Check in regularly with Tier 2, mentors and support team members to see if there are questions or additional topics that could be added to ProcedureFlow to improve First Call Resolution and further increase employee confidence.
- Adjust your flows on the fly! New employees are the best people to ask if the flows need more work, so make sure to ask them for feedback and to identify anything that needs further clarification or improvement(s).