6 Microlearning Ideas to Train CS Agents and Boost CSAT

Quick solutions to reduce onboarding times and boost CSAT scores

Delivering a great customer experience—which 53 percent of consumers agree is just as important as the product—starts with efficient and effective training for their customer service agents. But finding simple, easy-to-use training tools to help onboard agents while keeping costs down can be difficult. On top of that, it’s also important to prioritize performance, all while keeping everyone updated in a landscape that’s constantly changing.

You know that customers won’t wait to contact your agents until it’s convenient. Agents benefit from continuous learning that gives them the skills and knowledge they need, exactly when they need it. So, how do organizations improve agent readiness to provide excellent customer service, increase CSAT scores, and move the dial on critical KPIs?

Quick solutions for onboarding and product updates depend on customer service training that scales—without taking too much time away from daily operations. Accelerating speed-to-value for both your agents and your customers is a must, necessitating a microlearning approach that breaks down complex learning into bite-sized, focused training modules.

In this post, discover the benefits of using e-learning to get agents up to speed faster, and learn microlearning ideas to reduce agent onboarding time, boost customer loyalty, improve CSAT scores, and reduce average handling time with customer service training that scales.

Why microlearning? The benefits of just-in-time training

If you’re feeling the pressure of speed-to-productivity and customer satisfaction, you know it can feel like a constant battle between improving team performance and leaving time for helping customers. Proven increased onboarding efficiency depends on quick, relevant, and personalized course creation that’s easily maintained and updated once delivered.

That’s where microlearning comes in, providing concise, focused training experiences built for the modern, on-the-go workplace. Here are six organizational benefits to implementing microlearning modules for onboarding employees:

Accelerated time to productivity

Traditional training methods would have new hires locked away in fluorescent-lit, windowless conference rooms for hours on end, taking in more information than anyone can possibly remember. Key concepts of exceptional customer service get lost in the mud.

With microlearning, essential information is delivered in bite-sized modules, enabling new hires to reach full productivity sooner.

Increased knowledge retention

Combating the forgetting curve—the psychological model that highlights the exponential rate at which we forget new information—is a constant struggle. Without consistent reinforcement of essential information, your CS agents will find themselves in difficult situations without the proper solutions.

The short, focused formatting of microlearning helps prevent cognitive overload, and allows for quick, easily distributable refresher courses that agents can access anytime, anywhere.

Increased engagement and motivation

Another advantage of using microlearning as an onboarding tool is the variety of ways you can engage your CS agents. Key concepts like the five rules for effective customer communication—be friendly, quick, accurate, proactive, and clear—can be presented in many different formats.

Engaging microlearning modules like interactive checklists, interactive flashcards, drag-and-drop quizzes, short videos, and more can all be used to present the same key concepts. As employees refresh their knowledge, their motivation will increase, creating better customer interactions, improving CSAT scores, and boosting your brand reputation.

Personalized learning experiences

Not everyone prefers the same learning experience. Every time I see flashcard activities, I’m reminded of my middle school math struggles, forced to run through decks of multiplication flashcards in the living room for hours.

Microlearning allows learners to select their learning path based on their needs, preferences, and pace. Quick course creation means employees will have access to a large content library with not only a range of topics, but a range of learning formats—from short podcasts to gamified learning—within each topic.

Flexibility and mobility

Customer service teams are increasingly spread out geographically. Your organization might even have agents across the globe, both remote and hybrid. For this reason, having a training program that’s built for mobile learning is imperative, and microlearning modules are the best vehicle for it.

Adaptable to any screen or device, microlearning courses can reach your CS agents wherever they are, right when they need it.

Cost-effective and scalable training

Traditional training methods would have your learning and development team spending time updating and re-working massive PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, and stale old training manuals.

Updating and distributing microlearning modules is cost-effective and scalable without significant investment, making it easier to keep your customer service representatives up to speed with relevant training materials.

Now that you’ve learned the benefits of implementing microlearning modules into your onboarding process, let’s take a look at 6 microlearning course ideas to engage employees and enhance the customer experience.

6 microlearning ideas to onboard customer service agents faster

1. Drag-and-drop activities

Drag-and-drop activities present learners with two or more landing zones to which they can drag—click and pull—relevant information or objects. For example, it might have math students drag and drop the appropriate amount of money into a cash register to buy a candy bar. Or, it could have first-time fliers drag and drop acceptable items through a security line, and unacceptable items into a trash bin.

For your CS agents, set up a do’s and dont’s of effective customer service microlearning. Present them with a variety of good and bad customer service behaviors, and have them drag them to the appropriate bucket. You could use a basketball hoop with a slam-dunk animation for the good/do side and a garbage can with a wavy, green smell animation for the bad/don’t side.

2. Infographics with hotspots

While infographics are often seen sitting static on walls or buried in onboarding manuals, microlearning allows for digital, interactive infographics. Users can hover over different multimedia assets that reveal more information called hotspots in no particular order, allowing for freedom of exploration.

Environmental scientists could hover over parts of a butterfly, learning anatomical characteristics as they go. Sports enthusiasts can click on parts of a digital golf course to learn interesting bits of history about the game.

For your CS agents, set up a growth mindset infographic with hotspots they can hover over to learn more about strategies to build a positive mindset. The graphic itself could be a brain, a work desk with different tools to hover over, or a phone screen with different growth mindset values in the form of apps are the hotspots.

3. Interactive checklists

Checklists are part of my everyday life. I keep running checklists through an app that I use frequently like grocery shopping lists, restaurants I want to try, daily to-do lists, and others I use less frequently: must-try state fair foods, travel accessories checklists, and a dream vinyl list.

There’s no doubt it’s satisfying to check things off, and it works just as well for employees. Interactive checklists have a range of workplace use cases, from daily workflow checklists to data privacy best practices.

For your CS agents, prepare an interactive checklist of the 5 rules of effective customer communication—be friendly, quick, accurate, proactive, and clear—and combine it with a few short videos of customer-agent interactions. As they watch and listen, agents can check off the five rules, providing them with okay, good, and exceptional examples of customer service interactions.

4. Interactive flashcards

Like the flashcards you likely used to learn multiplication tables, the alphabet, and vocab definitions as a kid, flashcard activities can be useful for workplace learning as well. The simple click-and-reveal nature of interactive flashcards easily breaks down complex material into bite-sized learning objectives.

Especially useful for onboarding information, flashcards can be used to click-and-reveal departmental responsibilities overlaid on a birds-eye-view of the office. Or it can be as fun as a “what dog breed are you most like” get-to-know-you activity with pictures of dogs on the front of the card and characteristics on the back.

For your CS agents, set up a microlearning flashcards module that has “good” customer service methods on the front and “great” customer service methods on the back. For example, the good/front side might read “Good customer service answers the customer’s questions”, and the great/back side might read “Great customer service anticipates customer questions”.

5. Steps and tabs interactions

Steps and tabs interactions feature vertical or horizontal tabs for users to click through to reveal hidden content. Much like clicking through a website menu, learners can navigate to topics that interest them, then engage in even more focused tabbed interactions within them.

While the concept of tabs interactions is simple, it’s easy to get creative with it as well. Tabs can simply be words like “Habitat”, “Characteristics”, “Prey”, and “Diet” on a tabbed interaction about specific animals. Or the tabs can be pictures of different animals that then reveal information about them as the user clicks on them.

For your CS agents, set up a tabs interaction that houses several different customer personas that, when clicked on, reveal a picture, their demographic details, challenges they face that you can solve, and a summary of their values.

6. Dials and knobs interactions

As a kid I was—and still am—fascinated by space and racecar driving. I’d pretend to be in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca in the co-pilot seat, flipping switches and pulling levers to go into hyperspace. Formula One racecar drivers punch buttons and turn dials on their steering wheels as they fly around tracks at upwards of 225 mph.

While the adrenaline levels associated with the above scenarios might not be reached during onboarding or compliance training, dials and knobs interactions are still engaging for learners. Much like an actual knob or dial, users can click and pull digital dials to reveal content like equipment safety procedures,  slide through stages of evolution, or spin a dial to land on a random country’s flag, revealing hidden information.

For your CS agents, create an “empathy dial” as part of soft skills training that they can turn to reveal active listening techniques. Each example could be a great example, or, as the knob turns clockwise—like a volume control knob—the examples go from worst to best!

Beyond the above six ideas, short videos and audio segments are useful as well, but best used alongside more interactive techniques to enhance learner engagement.

Onboarding customer service best practices

Interactive and engaging microlearning modules serve as the best format for content when it comes to training customer service teams, but mismanaging that content can render it ineffective.

Here are four best practices to keep in mind when putting together microlearning content.

Spaced repetition

While microlearning courses on their own are great for knowledge retention, fighting the forgetting curve is a constant battle, necessitating reinforcement. Spaced repetition is a research-backed learning technique that involves reviewing content at increasing intervals to increase knowledge retention.

For example, after your customer service reps finish an emotional intelligence learning module, set up refresher courses to show up on their learning dashboard at increasing intervals—one day, three days, one week, three weeks, and two months. While focused on the same topic, courses should be built in a variety of formats.

Robust content library

Just as important to knowledge retention as spaced repetition, it’s important to build and maintain a robust content library. Agents should have access to this at all times to allow for just-in-time or on-the-job learning. You may have scheduled course refreshers on growth mindset, but if a CS rep needs a quick reminder about product features while on a customer call, that information should be easily found.

Content libraries can be filled with simple glossary definitions, technical training modules, recorded webinars, product tutorials, and anything else your agents need to create a satisfying customer experience.

Mobile and accessibile

Prioritize making your customer service skills content adaptable to any device for mobile learning and accessible to any learner, regardless of skill level or ability. Follow the most current Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to make sure learning opportunities aren’t hidden behind accessibility barriers for those with visual, auditory, physical, or mental disabilities.

Add assistive technologies like screen readers, text-to-speech apps, zoom tools, voice control, adjustable pacing, and high contrast design to ensure learning for all. To make inclusion even easier, use a course creation tool with accessibility features built in.

Recognition and progress tracking

With a learning management system that tracks individual and group learner progress, it’s easier than ever to recognize employee accomplishments. Those that commit to the cultivation of a continuous learning culture are more motivated, efficient, and productive.

You can even track progress by content, uncovering pain points within training modules to update, improve, or scrap entirely. Every L&D pro knows that keeping employees engaged in their learning is constant work, but using data to your advantage can make operations run more seamlessly.

Exceptional customer service begins with training

Implementing scalable, cost-effective solutions for your customer service training program doesn’t need to be a struggle. Move beyond old training manuals and integrate microlearning modules to personalize learning, increase learner engagement, and accelerate time-to-productivity.

Utilize research-backed learning techniques like spaced repetition, and build a robust content library that gets your agents up to speed faster. Use progress tracking to help improve training modules, increase customer satisfaction scores, and remember to keep learning accessible for everyone.

Excited to learn more about how to create satisfied customers through training? Discover how Granite Telecommunications’ switch to e-learning helps get their customer service reps up to speed with customized courses that mimic real-life interactions.