Here we look at leveraging e-learning for retail companies, in order to make training faster, more engaging, and more effective.
The retail sector is fast-paced – product ranges change constantly, promotional campaigns need refreshing, new staff need onboarding and training etc etc.
Add to this an environment where cost savings are always demanded – regardless of the economic climate – how do you ensure that staff learning and development does not suffer? This is where e-learning for retail can help you on multiple counts in 2024 and beyond.
Online training for the retail sector is ideal, because it allows sales, management, logistics, production or support staff to all be trained with minimal disruption to their daily workload. As new policies or legislation come in, retail e-learning can enable this new knowledge to be gained during or outside working hours on a work or home computer – or even on tablets or mobile phones.
1. There is no need for trips away, which are expensive in terms of time, money and opportunity cost.
2. There is no need to engage trainers for face to face group sessions, which can be expensive and awkward to organise for multiple staff.
Take point 2. When you are paying for an expensive trainer, plus the hassle of an on-site visit or even more so – a trip away – you will naturally want to get as many relevant staff there as possible to maximise the training per hour spent on that trainer. You will naturally also want to cram in as much information gathering as possible during that session so that you dont need to do all this so frequently.
The end result of this is that you have maximum disruption to your retail operation, while not letting people learn in the most effective manner, which is in short sharp chunks that give learners the chance to digest and ideally, to act on what they have just learned as quickly as possible.
Long-Term Cost Savings
What happens when staff leave and all that expensive training leaves with them and you are left with the need to train their replacement? With e-learning, once you have paid for the content and its mode of delivery, it is there for current and new staff to use – usually with very little additional cost per extra user.
It is a fact of life that the retail sector has a higher staff turnover than many others, so by integrating e-learning as a key part of your staff induction and training process, you can hire without this being such a concern.
Top Retail e-Learning Companies
Below are some of the top retail e-learning companies that have demonstrated the ability to save time, reduce costs, and improve training outcomes for their clients.
Day One Technologies
One of the most well-established e-learning providers in the UK, Day One have been creating bespoke e-learning solutions to support major brands for over 25 years.
With an approach based on Learning By Doing, their e-learning content and LMS for retailers have also supported their clients’ entire distribution and supply chain network, creating a powerful extended enterprise solution.
For hair styling product retailer, ghd, they created a product and sales training solution to improve product knowledge for over 50,000 distributors worldwide. This included social learning elements to make training more accessible and more engaging.
Day One have worked with some of the world’s best known brands in retail, incuding Mercedes-Benz, Molson Coors and Amazon.
Kineo
Kineo in the UK have developed retail e-learning for the likes of Halfords, Vodafone, Samsung, McDonalds and Rolls Royce.
In this example of customer experience training for M&S, they created e-learning modules to guide their in-house cafe teams.
As well as working with leading open source learning platforms, such as Totara LMS, they are experts in creating engaging e-learning content.
Walkgrove
Some skills, such as sales and customer service techniques, can be enhanced with quick and low-cost online courses.
Such training can be better than traditional, classroom instruction where the emphasis on developing knowledge, such as an understanding of consumer rights legislation, because staff can learn at a time and in an environment that suits them, and without distraction from their peers.
Established in 1994, Walkgrove is one of the leading online training providers.
Also providing bespoke e-learning development, they have helped major retail brands such as ASOS, Avis and Tesco with customised training for their teams.
Combining Your Subject Matter Knowledge with e-Learning Expertise
Most of the world’s largest companies now use e-learning as a key aspect of their staff training and development processes. Some will have in-house teams that can work with the latest learning technologies and create content to work on these platforms. However, many find it faster and more cost effective to engage the services of specialist e-learning companies.
Are you involved in the delivery of retail training for your employees or external partners, and looking to deliver cost savings, improved learning outcomes, scalability or speed of implementation? One of the expert retail e-learning companies above could be a great extension of your L&D team in 2024 and beyond.
