2011 Excellence in Social Learning

GOLD: LiveOps Inc.

LiveOps created a learning community for AAA Emergency Road Service that boosted customer service scores by nearly one quarter within a year.
When a motorist needs help, AAA Emergency Road Service (ERS) is often the first call made. To meet its customers’ needs, AAA relies on a network of independent agents to make sure its members are safe and they receive timely service. Agent loyalty and community is key to making sure AAA members are satisfied.

Given the geographically dispersed nature of AAA’s agents, creating a sense of community is a real challenge. Agents are typically in multiple locations and don’t have a central point of communication and information.

Working with LiveOps, AAA ERS created an online community, called MyWork Community, with gaming, reputation and rating features and awards to help agents interact with and learn from one another. Using points earned through the games and incentives, site participants can build and customize a personal avatar.

In addition to the online community, LiveOps rolled out a chat system to help agents talk with one another in real time as well as a blended learning program, featuring e-learning modules, scenario-based assessments, an LMS to deliver courses and virtual classroom sessions and self-guided practice scenarios, all with the goal to create a baseline of agent knowledge and build customer service skills.

The uptake among users was rapid, with more than 80 percent opted in within the first week of rollout. According to LiveOps figures, 75 percent return to the site on a bi-weekly basis. From the AAA ERS perspective, the MyWork Community portal reduced on-boarding time from four weeks to 14 hours, reduced time to proficiency and delivered an uptick in performance improvement. Agents trained through the MyWork portal outperformed their peers by 23 percent in average handle time and boosted customer satisfaction by 9 percent.

SILVER: Aptara

When Coldwell Banker Real Estate (CBRE) wanted to standardize its training initiatives, the real estate company created the Management Masters Series, a set of e-learning programs aimed at helping managers identify and develop market opportunities, conduct effective sales meetings and increase business.

The company turned to Aptara to create a program that was interactive, engaging and would actively involve managers in the learning process instead of traditional passive e-learning. In line with that goal, Aptara developed scenarios, gaming, simulations and demonstrations for CBRE, all within a dedicated social learning portal.

Key to the social learning development was CBRE’s desire to use real business cases within the learning content that would provide the context to the simulations, scenarios and games used within the courses. Initial data indicates that the new social, case-driven learning is driving results.

According to Coldwell Banker University data, 99 percent of students using the portal reported immediately applying what they learned to the job. Those who completed an additional online sales program showed a 20 percent increase in performance.

According to Budge Huskey, CBRE president and chief operating officer, the social learning portal gives managers a unique way to teach and coach today’s real estate agents while also managing their business for maximum profitability.

BRONZE: SuccessFactors

For a university with a strong online component, communication and collaboration are key to successful student-faculty relationships, and also among faculty and staff. Nebraska-based Bellevue University wanted to give students and faculty members access to the right knowledge quickly to support online learning and boost student and faculty productivity.

Bellevue turned to SuccessFactors to develop Knowledge Cafe, a Web 2.0 social learning platform that allows users to share content through a rich media platform. The SuccessFactors platform enables content creation, sharing and social networking with community management features that allowed Bellevue to build workplace communities.