eCommerce platforms always need an adequate number of well-trained support agents to manage large volumes of customer queries.

As business demands swing wildly, call volumes increase in rapid succession. Significant spike in call volumes during annual sales or product launches are perfect examples.

To manage such high call volumes, eCommerce companies usually hire a few hundred agents in-house and partner with third party call centers across multiple locations who manage a much bigger pool of support agents collectively.

Fluctuating business demands and the multi-partner set up puts tremendous pressure on the training team to:

• Conduct training for new hires and updated or new training programs for existing agents in quick time.
• Challenges in meeting the objective
• And track agent performances, conduct knowledge tests and certify agents across in-house and partner locations.

The go-to model of training at eCommerce contact centers is conducting instructor led training programs (ILT) in physical classrooms.

The reality is that contact center training teams are small (usually no more than five members) and hence are always stretched out and overworked, leading to inefficient training standards and undesirable training outcomes.

The above image represents the fluctuating nature of training demands at a contact center. The need for trainers goes in sync with this training demand.

Some eCommerce contact centers hope to meet erratic training demands by hiring more trainers to create and manage training programs.

But this quick fix is neither efficient nor scalable.

How eLearning enables an eCommerce contact center training team to conduct 4X more training

While the bet on eLearning is the right one in theory, we need to dig a little deeper to understand how eLearning can solve training challenges, and understand which type of eLearning system works best for eCommerce contact centers.

While Fig 1 encapsulates the erratic nature of training demand at contact centers, It is an aggregate representation of the overall training demand.

The image below (Fig 2) captures training demand by training type and frequency of delivery.

The image illustrates that training activities such as New Hire Training (NHTs) and refresher training needs to be carried out regularly.

Activities such as new product or process training need to be conducted every few weeks, and training programs to ramp up agent headcount temporarily are needed during the sales seasons .

On one hand the training team has to create new training content in a short time period for these training programs, while on the other, they need to ensure smooth execution of training. This involves keeping a close eye on how the training is progressing and how agents are assimilating the training topics.

eLearning provides the perfect opportunity to transform most, if not all training programs into online programs.

While some programs can be moved online completely, others can be a combination of online and instructor led - also known as blended training programs.

Here is a look at how different training programs lend themselves to online learning.

NHTs, bottom quartile training, refresher programs - can be moved to the blended training format

These are typically multi-session programs (sometimes spread over multiple days). These programs have a combination of process training, behavioural training and assessments.

While process training and assessments can all be transformed into self-learning online modules, behavioural training can be done through instructor-led in classroom or through virtual training.

The entire program can be modeled as a combination of online and instructor-led modules.

New product/process launch OR process updates - can be completely transformed into online learning

These training programs involve explaining processes or product features and benefits in detail. These can be transformed into online learning modules completely and do not require instructor facilitation.

Online simulations can be created as part of the online learning module that would enable agents to practice their process workflows, increasing knowledge retention.

Automated assessments help the training team understand agent performances across teams, and help the training team uncover weak areas that require re-training.

The below image (Fig 3) illustrates the outcome of moving most training programs online. The number of trainers required reduces significantly as compared to the erratic demand of conducting ILT programs for all training needs.

Which type of LMS suits eCommerce contact centers

Now that we know how eLearning can solve training challenges, we need to figure out which type of eLearning system (LMS) is an ideal fit for the multi-partner contact center set up for eCommerce businesses.

A perfect LMS is one that allows training teams to:

• Create a repository of training content and use it to create any number of training programs types.
• Create a large bank of questions that can be turned into knowledge tests in no time.
• Onboard partner trainers and give them access to up-to-date training content.
• Ensure standardized training processes are followed at all partner centers.
• Track agent performances and certification throughputs across partner locations in real-time.
• Set expiration dates to certifications and recertify agents through automatically triggered courses.
• And empower the training team to conduct 4x more training without increasing the team size.

That's why we built Nittio Learn LMS, a single eLearning system that solves all training bottlenecks for eCommerce contact centers. Click here to learn more.