This week’s eLearning Heroes’ Challenge on the Articulate Forum (Challenge #47, for those of you who are counting) was to create a quick sample of a call center module. After all, sooner or later most customers have a need for some form of call center training. Thanks, moderator David Anderson, for another great challenge!
Since I believe that people learn best when they’re enjoying themselves, I decided to take a humorous route. I chose to leverage the nifty avatar characters that come packaged with Articulate Storyline (each character has some images on headset; invaluable for call center trainings–and something missing from their photo character images). And since I was going for a spirit of fun, I chose to use a great set of comic book layout templates that are also available to download from the Articulate Forum.
The result is brief–it’s only a sample, after all–but packs in four different scenarios and a whole bunch of good advice for the call center trainee. For a real training, lots of things could be expanded–for example, the feedback could be customized to each scenario. I could add a badge or point system based on the learner’s performance. Sound effects could heighten the experience. Background colors and settings could add another layer. You get the idea. Here I present only the all-important opening interaction with the call center rep and the customer, but for a real project I would build out a longer interaction, branching with each question with varying customer responses, based on how well the call center trainee handles the customer. And of course, the comic book approach is just one of many–but it would resonate particularly well with a population that enjoys comics and graphic novels.
If you have a couple of minutes to spare, check out my new sample. It may give you some good ideas. And it’ll almost certainly give you a chuckle. You can click here to view all my eLearning samples, or click the image to launch just this one demo.