IMPROVING NEGOTIATION SKILLS WITH IMMERSIVE E-LEARNING

Our client is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of precision weighing instruments for use in laboratory, industrial, and food retailing applications. The company is a market leader for several analytical instruments, automated chemistry systems used in drug development, and metal detection systems used in production and packaging.

Their products are used by customers around the world for applications in research and development, quality control, production, logistics, and retail. They also offer a full range of support and service options for all their solutions, including flexible service packages, technical assistance, validation services, obsolescence advice, and instrument training. Their instruments are designed to gather valuable data and facilitate the processing and transfer of this data into customers’​ management information systems.

With a presence in 7 locations around the globe and more than 16500 employees globally, their revenues amounted to $3.0B in 2020.

The client wanted to train their 8000 strong global salesforce on ‘Winning in Negotiations’. The training was aimed at developing negotiation skills in their sales personnel so they would be able to enter negotiations with more confidence, demonstrate the value of their products, and strengthen their position with customers through collaboration.

How does a global leader in precision instruments improve the negotiation skills of their 8000 sales employees in an engaging way?

As the course was meant for on field sales personnel, efforts were taken to keep the look of the training visually appealing yet minimalistic, and to present the information as clearly and concisely as possible. The entire training was developed as a single eLearning course in Articulate Rise with short Synthesia videos integrated into the course. 

The course was divided into four chapters with a final quiz at the end. Each chapter started with a short and snappy introductory video developed in Synthesia. The topic was then dealt with in more detail through various interactivities and challenge questions to keep the learner engaged. A mix of illustrations and icons was used, with flowcharts added wherever relevant.

The team that worked on the project included a dedicated project manager, an instructional designer, a visual designer, and a course developer, all of them overseen by CommLab India’s Director, Learning Solutions.

Articlulate Rise and Synthesia were the tools chosen for course development. 

Articulate Rise is a web-based authoring tool that is offered as part of the Articulate 360 suite. It is one of the most mobile responsive and adaptive authoring tools that is available today. The tool allows the design and development of fully responsive eLearning courses directly in the browser without the need to download any software onto the device.

Because Rise is fully responsive, employees can access training from their smartphones, tablets, or laptops without the device’s screen size affecting the performance or quality of the eLearning. The tool is one of the easiest to use with a very short learning curve. Rise 360 can also be used to create a variety of digital resources, including process manuals, glossaries, etc.

Synthesia, rated the #1 AI video creation platform, is a time and cost-efficient alternative to complex and expensive traditional video creation processes. It has the ability to create videos in 65 languages, saving up to 80% of time and budget. AI avatars in Synthesia are digital twins of real actors. So, there’s no need to worry about real actors for your videos. The tool also allows the adding of professional voiceovers without expensive equipment or voice actors. It also enables to easily add and edit text, images, shapes, transitions, animations, and more.

We created the introductory videos in Synthesia and added audio scripts to generate audio for each scene. We then downloaded the output in mp4 format, and embedded the videos into the RISE template.