CASE STUDY - VW CREDIT
"In ten minutes, I created a significant sample portion of a web-based training (WBT) course. It seemed too good to be true!"
Learning Consultant | VW Credit, Inc.
About VW Credit, Inc.
VW Credit, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen of America, Inc., is a captive finance company that provides competitive financial products and services to Volkswagen, Audi, and Bentley dealers and consumer customers throughout the United States and Canada. In addition to its sales and support teams, VW Credit, Inc. and its subsidiary VW Credit Canada, Inc., have 145 regionally-based customer service representatives in both countries.
VW Credit's Knowledge Enhancement Team (KET) provides learning opportunities targeted to a full range of business functions including customer service, product knowledge, retail finance, and employee career development. Team members serve multiple roles including curriculum design, content development, and workshop facilitation.
Challenge
Like many brand-based learning organizations, the KET must create customized courses and assessments that meet the company's specialized learning objectives and needs. The team must rapidly design, develop, and deliver high quality courses to meet time-critical demands.
Until 2006, the team had few options for internally-produced e-learning. The company's proprietary authoring tool was difficult to master and made routine updates difficult and time-consuming. The tool itself proved expensive to maintain. Finally, the company's learning management system (LMS) displayed problems tracking the courses and assessments created with this tool.
When Nathalie Zemke, a learning consultant, joined the KET in late 2005, she knew there had to be a more efficient, flexible way to address the need for customized courses and assessments, while providing easier integration with the LMS.
Solution
At the beginning of 2006, Zemke read about Articulate's Rapid E-Learning Studio and downloaded a free trial version of the product. "In ten minutes, I created a significant sample portion of a web-based training (WBT) course," she said. "It seemed too good to be true!"
In addition to its ease of use, Zemke was impressed by Presenter's power. "I'd just taken a Flash 8 course to learn how to use it in conjunction with our authoring tool. Flash was very time-consuming, but with Presenter, I could take advantage of Flash without special knowledge," said Zemke.
She also found Quizmaker's capabilities very impressive. The KET relies on a range of measurements for the evaluation of learning effectiveness and regularly reports those to management. Quizmaker produces virtually any type of knowledge assessment and easily integrates with the company's LMS. For learning analytics, the KET utilizes Metrics that Matter (MTM), a product of Knowledge Advisors. MTM survey links can be embedded at the end of the course — another welcome point of integration with Articulate!
In February 2006, the team purchased multiple user licenses of Articulate Rapid E-Learning Studio — putting strong authoring capabilities into the hands of each team member. "We were all very PowerPoint proficient, so no special preparation was needed. We began experimenting with Presenter and Quizmaker, quickly realizing that we could now develop e-learning in ways that were never possible with our proprietary tool," Zemke explained.
Very quickly after the KET pilot experience, Articulate was designated as the enterprise's standard internal e-learning platform. Within the last year, VW Credit, Inc. has used Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage for a variety of projects, including assessments for instructor-led workshops and WBTs covering topics from financial product knowledge to company history. Recently, the KET produced the Superfan Challenge — a series of seven weekly quizzes, designed to measure an employee's knowledge of various vehicle models, in a short, very targeted format. Weekly winners took away some very attractive branded merchandise.
In 2006, VW Credit, Inc. partnered with the Volkswagen Academy, which provides learning opportunities for dealership teams. Through this synergy, they developed a new certification for finance managers, using Articulate software to create several program components. This initiative has expanded, with even greater use of Articulate software.
During the Academy partnership, use of streaming video proved to be an excellent experience for participants. An unexpected benefit also emerged. The company's extensive video learning library could not be delivered and tracked within the LMS. In less than a week, the team integrated these courses into the LMS using Presenter and also created learning assessments with Quizmaker, bringing the video resources back to life.
Results
- By purchasing licenses for Articulate Presenter, Quizmaker, and Engage, KET saves a significant amount of budget dollars, while providing course development capabilities to all team members.
- SCORM-compliant courses integrate well with the LMS and make tracking easy and error-free.
- VW Credit, Inc.'s need for comprehensive measurement is further supported by Quizmaker, which is used to create assessments and integrates with a third-party analytic tool.
- New courses and assessments can be rapidly created without extensive tools training.
- The team revived an extensive video learning library and added knowledge assessments to measure results.
- Routine course updates are easier to make, requiring less time and budget.
- French language courses can be rapidly created for VW Credit's Canadian affiliate, VW Credit Canada, Inc., for use at its Montréal Service Centre and dealerships within the province of Québec.