In this video, I talk about why people can hop on a bike and ride it even without having ridden one in a while. The same principles apply to agents who learn how to manage customer interactions with simulations first
See part one of my Cognitive Load Series
This video clip is a snippet from a recent webinar we presented on how Cognitive Load Can Impact Agent Effectiveness. Cognitive Load is the amount of “working memory” people have at any given time to perform a task or learn a new task. Content from this webinar came from two primary resources The Extended Mind and Thinking Fast and Slow
On Sunday, December 8th, the show 60 Minutes featured a story about how AI was being used in the classroom to help teachers and students learn with the help of AI tutors (via Open AI). The AI is used with the curriculum to help students move through a series of question-and-answer interactions that help them use critical thinking to solve math and science problems. The system developed by Sal Khan, and Open AI, provides a dashboard for the teachers to use to follow the flow of conversations with the student and their AI tutor. The teacher can focus on students’ identified trouble areas vs. trying to spread their attention and feedback with less data to tailor their feedback for more immediate impact and retention. 
This parallels with Dr. Benjamin Bloom’s 2 Sigma theory on the best way to teach a student a new skill/knowledge and retain it longer.
Similar to the AI Tutor in the classroom, Benjamin Bloom analyzed teacher-to-many, peer-to-peer, and tutor-to-student methods of learning. The results of the tutor-to-student had the highest results. At the time his study was done, there was no scalable and cost-effective way to provide this in the classroom.
AI has allowed these tutors to be deployed across a large population base and respond at lightning speed.
Our ACES simulator does the same thing. We use AI to play the role of the built-in tutor or coach. Managers have access to very detailed analytics, just like the teachers have, to focus on the tasks an employee may be struggling with in the simulator as a roadmap to use as a way to provide the most relevant coaching and feedback. This allows the manager or trainer to be more Proactive than Reactive.
The report on 60 Minutes also addresses the risks or negatives of using generative AI in the classroom. As with a lot of these systems, there needs to be some form of guardrails in place.
For this reason, our ACES platform uses a combination of rules-based AI and NLP. When using our simulator in a call center, you want to design the simulations based on best practices for any given interaction in that call center. When using generative tools to help you “build” the learning activity, this runs the risk of not having consistent learning for each agent that challenges them to perform the proper tasks following your best practices. Call centers know what type of calls they have and the types of situations employees will be tasked with. Simply pulling examples from the hours of recorded calls can be used to create the scenarios that agents will need to learn how to respond to.
We all know these new generative tools are very attractive and can reduce our workloads tremendously. We still need to be mindful of when we use them and how. I believe we still have a ways to go before we can blindly deploy LLM (large language models) at scale but there is no doubt they are a technology disrupter.
In the dynamic world of sales, the ability to engage in effective conversations is paramount. Whether you’re pitching a product, negotiating a deal, or building relationships with clients, your communication skills can make or break your success. One key principle that many successful salespeople swear by is the idea of practicing conversations at least fifty times to become proficient. But why is this so important?
1. **Confidence Building**: Practice instills confidence. When you’ve rehearsed a conversation multiple times, you’ll feel more self-assured when facing real clients or prospects. Confidence is contagious and can significantly impact the way potential clients perceive you and your product.
2. **Refinement of Pitch**: Repetition allows you to fine-tune your pitch. Each practice round enables you to identify what works and what doesn’t. You can adjust your tone, language, and key points to create a compelling and persuasive message.
3. **Adaptability**: Through practice, you become more adaptable. You’ll learn to adjust your approach depending on the person you’re speaking to. This flexibility is crucial when dealing with a diverse range of clients, each with their own unique needs and preferences.
4. **Overcoming Objections**: Sales conversations often involve objections and pushback. By practicing these scenarios repeatedly, you can develop effective strategies to handle objections with finesse, turning potential obstacles into opportunities.
5. **Memorization**: Repeated practice helps you internalize key information and details about your product or service. This means you can speak confidently and authoritatively without relying on scripts or notes.
6. **Improved Listening Skills**: Effective communication is a two-way street. Practicing conversations allows you to develop your listening skills, helping you better understand client needs and tailor your responses accordingly.
7. **Consistency**: Consistency in your messaging is vital for brand integrity. Practicing conversations ensures that your team conveys a consistent and coherent message, reinforcing your brand’s identity.
In conclusion, the adage “practice makes perfect” holds true for sales reps. Repetition is a powerful tool that can transform a good salesperson into a great one. By practicing conversations at least fifty times, sales reps can build confidence, refine their pitch, become more adaptable, and consistently deliver outstanding results. In the competitive world of sales, mastering this art can be the key to achieving and surpassing your targets.
It’s a well-known fact that many call centers are challenged with getting agents up to speed as quickly as possible with a high degree of proficiency. The chart below shows the average time it takes for agents to become proficient. But we want to encourage you to start using simulations – like our ACES simulator
When we work with our customer’s call centers the #1 reason they use us is to get their agents up to speed faster.
Click here to see some examples
There are some pretty strong arguments that the use of Smart Phones has reduced our attention spans. In fact, I bet some of you won’t be able to read this entire article without checking your phone or toggling over to check your email.
Publications like “Are Smartphones Making Us Dumber” and “Is Your Smartphone Making You Fat and Lazy” provide evidence that smartphones are creating a negative impact on our cognitive abilities.
For example, how many people under the age of 30 could use a map to navigate their way to some unknown destination? Don’t get me wrong, I have a very close affection for my GPS “lady” in helping navigate my way through some tricky destinations. But, she has led me astray on occasion to a route that seems to pass by a lot of Dunkin Donut Shops.
This leads me to think about the amount of time allowed for a single training program has gone from an average of 1 hour down to 15 minutes. Is this because we know the end-user attention span is short or is this the only amount of time the organization will allow the learner to be pulled away from their job?
Knowing that a training unit seems to be 15 minutes or less, it’s surprising to find that from 2017 to 2020, large corporations have dedicated more than twice as much time into total hours of training
(Chart from this article)
So, if companies are allowing for more training time per employee but less time for each training activity what was the catalyst that caused this dramatic leap?
My hypothesis is that more content is being digitized and accessible via online courseware/video content and knowledge management but are the employees becoming more skilled just because their employer is providing more content and easier access?
According to a study conducted by Professor Mark Williams University of Sydney Australia, shows that something that is read on a screen will be retained 10-30 percent less than something read on paper.
He also states “Our brains can’t multi-task, we have to switch our attention from one thing to another “
How many apps on your phone send an audible or buzzing signal to you throughout the day? These disruptions take our focus away each time we hear them.
I think we are fooling ourselves that by providing more resources to our employees they will automatically consume them to increase their capacity to do their job. I think organizations are taking the “just Google it” approach to providing resources and information to employees. Why not — I can’t tell you how many things I’ve Googled to bring knowledge to me in the moment I need it.
Does that mean I’ve had become an expert on this –no but it got the job done. I think this has become the attitude of many organizations, by providing enough access to on-demand knowledge, we are doing our jobs.
I hope some of you reading this (if you got this far) can prove me wrong. Time, money and chaos are always going to be a driving force in building an educated workforce. Wouldn’t it be great if your company could bring an industry expert to the table when trying to acquire a new client or present the best trouble-shooting team when malicious hackers break into your network. Companies can have this type of human capital without paying higher prices to recruit top talent from the start.
In closing, it would be great to see examples of companies that spend time on training beyond the 15-minute chunks or treat training as a one-time event. It takes time, practice and feedback to gain long-term knowledge and expertise. I’m a huge fan of technology and the benefits it can provide but let’s find ways to leverage technology in a way that enable employees to build long-term knowledge and build internal experts to become more competitive and more “Smart” without relying on our mobile devices.
How Simulations Can Ensure Remote Workers Are Job Ready
Well, it’s now August and many of us optimistically thought in March that Covid-19 would be a fading memory. How naive we were. But here we are and every company is trying to figure out what the “long-game” is in regard to changing the way business is done.
Two years ago when I launched Verbal Transactions our small team was able to quickly land some well-known clients who saw the value of using our simulator as a way to augment their existing training programs. One key reason was that it gave them the reassurance that employees would get more “hands-on” practice.
Now with the majority of employees working remotely, tools like ours are even more imperative. Why you ask? Here are the top 5 reasons.
- Simulation training has been proven to produce better results compared to instructor-led, video, or eLearning. By giving users the ability to practice in realistic situations exposes them to a more tactile and true-life experience.
- Due to the fact employees are not sitting in a classroom or placed in a pod to where they can tap someone on the shoulder to answer quick questions, using our built-in “bot” simulations can be built to allow for users to verbally interact with the simulator to feel they have a guide or mentor to help them along the way
- A well-built simulation will allow users to make mistakes with some form of immediate feedback. We all learn from our mistakes. Using simulations to allow you to fail in a safe environment allows you to actually succeed faster.
- Because managers can’t physically observe employees doing their job, using analytics like that built into our ACES software removes any mystery around how well the employee can perform their job. Each behavior you want the simulator to observe can be tied into the scoring and reporting functionality. No need to watch a video or listen to a recording of the user completing this task, the real-time reporting gives you complete transparency to how well they did.
- Most importantly, users appreciate more hands-on practice and feel more confident about how to do their job. Many employees have a variety of anxiety in these uncertain times. Losing their job is one of them. By arming them with tools to ensure you are helping them to learn how to do their job well, ensures, you want them to succeed and to ensure they are well equipped to contribute to helping the company do their best.
