Bianca Baumann
I recently switched to a different internet provider and was really impressed by the entire experience. Once I had decided on the plan, I received an email informing me about my purchase and my upcoming appointment for a technician to come in. The time and date wasn’t the same than originally mentioned to me on the phone, but that wasn’t a problem. A link allowed me to change the appointment to my desired time and day, which I did, and again, received an email confirmation with the updates. Then, 24 hours before the appointment, I received a text message asking me to confirm, and someone from the company called as well leaving a voicemail. That was the first time that I was a bit taken aback. I had the hardest time understanding what the person was trying to tell me. If it hadn’t been for the text message, I would have not known what the call was about. It was loud in the background, the person didn’t start talking until about 5 seconds in, and I could clearly tell he was reading a script, way too fast and in broken English (English isn’t my first language either so I can say things like that!). Anyway, the next day, the technician comes in, I get my internet, and I receive a text message and email after, informing me that the job was done and asking me for some quick feedback. Two days after that, I received another phone call from the company. I missed the call and they didn’t leave a voicemail (right away, I checked my connection to make sure it still worked….I mean, I don’t know why they called!). Two days after that, they call again, I pick up and I could swear it was the same person who called me the first time! Again, I didn’t understand a word. After some back and forth, I figured he just wanted to know if I had questions, and of course, if I was interested in buying more stuff. Fair enough.
Why am I telling you this long story? Well, the company did an excellent job mapping out the user journey, figuring out different toucpoints where they should engage with me, managing my expectations, providing the service, getting feedback, and even adding an upselling opportunity. But they dropped the ball with the phone calls. Clearly, the person calling is makes minimum wage, follows a script, works in a call centre, and he simply doesn’t like his job. I get it, but I heard it in his voice and it changed how I felt about the entire experience, and the company.
All that to say, there is lots of talk in L&D about learner journey mapping, and the learner experience (which I’m a big fan of as well), but it’s not enough to identify all the different touch points at which we interact with our learners. We also need to take a close look at what we are actually delivering at these touch points. And I feel that we aren’t doing a good job at that right now. We are so happy that we came up with a great learner journey, that the content becomes secondary. But we can’t put lipstick on a pig. If your content, and content delivery to make the connection to my internet story, isn’t up to par, our learners won’t really be engaged. Maybe we even push them to the other side and they are more turned off than ever!
So next time you plan out a learner journey, think about how learners will perceive your content, how they will interact with it, how it will make them feel, and how it impacts the overall experience. You can have the greatest learner journey, but if you break that trust at one step during the process, if you miss the mark, if you don’t deliver what they really need and expect, it can negatively impact your entire training program. Focus on the learner and remember that creating the experience isn’t enough, you have to fill in the gaps with engaging content that resonates with your learners.
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