Incorporating customer service training videos that work into your eLearning

Everyone loves a video right? So is there a role for customer service training videos in your eLearning?

Of course, that would explain the popularity of sites like YouTube, and that popularity has led an increasing number of companies to ditch their live training demonstrations, and instead opt for videos. Videos are even easier to deliver through an eLearning system because they can be incorporated with a variety of other tools and techniques to provide a rich, comprehensive training system.

When you’re training your customer service team, videos allow you to provide a consistent message because everyone is seeing the same thing happen on their screen, and they’re also budget and time-friendly, particularly when compared to an in-person demonstration.

Along with the benefits, however, many companies question whether or not their customer service team is really going to absorb what’s presented in a video. After all, isn’t it easy to push play, zone out for a few minutes and then say you’ve completed the video?

So how do you make customer service training videos that are going to resonate with your employees?

Try following these tips:

1. Keep it short. This is something that we’re constantly discussing for nearly every component of eLearning. The shorter, the better, and this same concept applies to customer service training videos. You want to be concise with your video and really get to the core of the customer service concept you’re trying to demonstrate. When a video becomes too long, you’re going to lose the interest of your learner, and the message will become buried.
2. Lay the groundwork for what’s going to be seen in a video. When you’re creating your customer service eLearning training, it’s up to you to grab the attention of your learners and thereby create a sense of engagement and motivation for the information you’re presenting. What this means is that you need to prepare them to watch a video. Don’t simply include a video in your eLearning with no context. Make it relevant by letting your learner know what they’re about to see, and clearly define why it’s important to them. Get as detailed and as personal as possible. Make that particular video as relevant to their job and daily life as you can. Also, show them how the skills they learn in the video are going to be immediately applicable.
3. Make sure there are no technical difficulties. Let’s say you’ve laid the groundwork for a great video that’s really going to demonstrate how customer service works at your company, and your learner is completely engaged and excited about what they’re about to see and how they’ll be able to use it. Then they can’t download the video, or it’s incredibly slow. The result is a loss of engagement and an overall sense of frustration.When a learner is frustrated, they’re not going to be able to absorb information as effectively. It’s up to you to design eLearning videos that are easily downloaded or played smoothly across a variety of devices.
4. Draw the learner into the video. Take pauses in the video to pose a thought-provoking question or a pop quiz. The learner needs to feel like they’re a part of what’s happening in a customer service video for the material to really have an impact. For example, use a video to lay out a customer service situation, ask the learner what they would do, then show the rest of the video to have them see what the actor did to handle the situation. This allows them to put themselves in the situation, and think critically about the information they’re seeing on the screen, thereby improving comprehension and retention.
5. The learning from a video doesn’t stop after the video ends. You really need to work to reinforce the concepts in a video so that learners can see how they would apply the concepts in actual customer service situations. You can do this any number of ways, from having a discussion forum included in your eLearning, to having them take a quiz and asking them to evaluate their answers after they see the results of their quiz. You should also always try to summarize the main points of a video as it wraps up, to help your learners avoid confusion and ensure they received the salient points.

How do you use videos to train your customer service team more effectively?