Customer Care 101
The audience for this eLearning solution is pharmacists at a regional/national chain. My responsibilities included analysis of problems related to customer dissatisfaction, designing a solution that focuses on behaviors rather than knowledge delivery, storyboarding, and building the scenario-based project. I used Articulate Storyline 360, Vyond animation software, WellSaid Labs text-to-voice AI, and Adobe Illustrator to create this eLearning deliverable.
Problem:Â
In this concept project, I envisioned a large retail pharmacy chain that would like to have a uniform stance on customer problem-solving and interaction. I reached out to a pharmacy manager at a store similar to my concept client’s and asked about customer feedback. I wanted to know the specific areas that customers indicated help from pharmacists was lacking. This is when I discovered that customers routinely expressed concern about notifications that the pharmacy sent out to alert them when their prescriptions were ready to be picked up. I asked how the notifications went out and learned about their automated system that keeps track of customer information and notifications. It became clear that when a system error or user error resulted in a missed notification, customers would become frustrated and distrustful of the pharmacy.
Solution:Â
The main behavior that I identified was lack of anticipation for failure of notification and too much reliance on the automated system to notify customers. Using real-life scenarios that could play out in customer interactions, I designed correct and incorrect behaviors associated with each of the three customers to reinforce anticipation of automated notification errors. When the user selects an option in which they did not behave proactively in order to prompt the system to send the correct notification to the customer, the scenario showed how the negative consequence could impact the customer and the pharmacy. The solution is scalable. I can add scenarios and have the learner complete new sets of questions every few days. The repetition ensures that learning is authentic and long-term.
My Process:Â
The process included an Action Map that I used to narrow down the problems and solutions. I followed the action map with a detailed storyboard that would steer the overall planning and execution of the project. Next, I worked on the visualization of the project using style guides created in Figma and wireframes created in PowerPoint to solidify the look and feel of the project.
Action Map:Â
Using the mental mapping software MindMeister, I began with a simplified goal: Increase the rate of customer satisfaction by 20%. I kept the ‘Map It’ rule in mind when coming up with steps that pharmacists could take to reach this goal: Every solution to the problem must be an observable action (Moore, 2017). I led with the strongest action pharmacists could take and decided to include the top three actions in my training project. The SME and I decided to discard the fourth action as it did not contribute as strongly to the overall goal.
Text-Based Storyboard:
The storyboard was the foundation of the project. Not only did it establish the story of my scenario-based project, it organized the visual information and the programming for the overall project into one reference document that I used to guide its design and construction. I wrote an immersive story in which the learner is placed in the position of a pharmacist who is new to customer interaction. I included two to three consequences for each customer interaction, designating a positive outcome to correct interactions. Incorrect interactions led to instances of unhappy customers and an opportunity to restart the interaction. The scenarios emphasize choices and behaviors, rather than knowledge. I included a mentor character that the learner could access at any time in order to help them make the correct behavioral choice.
Visual Mockups:Â
My visual concept began with character and scenery choices in Vyond’s animation software. From there, I selected complimentary colors, text, and buttons to create a style guide for visual consistency throughout the project. Next, I completed some wireframes in PowerPoint to create a layout for headings and question text that I could import into Storyline 360 to streamline slide production. I pulled two prop medication bottles from the Vyond animation scenery and replicated them in Adobe Illustrator in order to achieve a gamification effect for correct and incorrect responses. The bottles will fill or spill depending on the learner’s actions and choices.
Interactive Prototype:Â
Once I’d animated scenes one through three and developed the slide interactions in Storyline 360, I published my prototype to an Instructional Design peer forum that I am a member of. I received valuable feedback on the user interface and experience and used it to guide my final iteration of the project.
Full Development:Â
After collecting and applying the feedback I received on my prototype, I completed the fully developed scenario-based eLearning project. I used Vyond to animate all pharmacist and customer interactions and included text-to-voice AI from WellSaid Labs in order to mimic five distinct voiceovers. Using the pill bottle illustrations that I completed in Adobe Illustrator, I manipulated the states, triggers, and timeline in Storyline 360 to animate the actions of the bottles filling or spilling depending on the learner’s choices.
Takeaways:Â
The most valuable result of the project for me was how much I applied from my classroom experience. Having the learner forefront in my mind and imagining how they might interact with the scenario reinforced for me the idea that actions solve problems, not information. There was also one feature that seemed counterintuitive to my time spent teaching: self-pacing for the adult learner. Originally, I wanted to keep the seekbar and the menu invisible to the user. I had an idea of how I wanted the learner to move about in the scenario. I wanted them to listen to all of the narration and proceed linearly. But as I researched more about adult learning, I realized that taking the controls, and consequently the choice, away from learners could frustrate them and inhibit their ability to absorb the behaviors I was trying to reinforce.