The risks of neglecting standardized dealer training

If you are a large manufacturing brand with a network of dealerships across the country or the globe, your customers expect a consistent positive experience when they step into any of your dealerships. To achieve a consistent positive customer experience, you need to be able to provide standardized training to all of your dealerships. However, achieving consistency in training efforts can be more challenging in a dealership/franchise model, where a majority of the stores may not be directly owned by you. Also factors such as multiple product lines, multiple roles and levels, and high turnover further complicate the process.

A Brandon Hall Group, Extended Enterprise Learning Study (2020) states—Left to their own devices, franchisees may adopt their own training methods, resulting in an inconsistent customer experience across locations. Failure to build a successful dealer training program could result in inconsistent quality, operational inefficiencies, and a loss of brand loyalty. (Source)

Introduction

In this case study, we will examine how a leading Japanese automobile manufacturer uses Adobe Learning Manager as their core learning platform to achieve efficiency and scale in dealer training and resolve inherent challenges in dealer training.

The automaker chose Learning Manager after a thorough review of several leading LMS providers.

The primary requirements/objectives were:

• Automate repetitive manual effort involved in learner enrollment and administration.
• An efficient way to schedule and conduct technical shop floor training.
• End-to-end branding of the learning platform, bespoke reporting, and custom features such as—a learning reward system for dealers, and continuity of learning records when employees switch jobs between dealerships.

Achieving automation in learner enrollment and administration

Learning Manager features used: Auto-enrollment using Learning Plan, User Groups, Waitlisting, Flexi Learning Plan, Learning Manager APIs

The learning platform is managed and administered by the automaker centrally. While Learning Manager supports various methods to enroll learners into training, the automaker takes advantage of ‘Learning Plans’ in conjunction with the ‘User Group’ feature to auto-enroll users into training based on criteria defined by the administrators.

Let’s take a deeper look at how this is done. A Learning Plan in Learning Manager is a set of customizable rules that allow an administrator to automatically assign courses, learning programs, or certifications based on certain triggers such as onboarding a new dealer staff member, change in designation, or change in work location. A User Group is a set of users with common attributes. There are two types of user groups in Learning Manager: auto-generated and custom. Learning Manager automatically creates a few user groups by analyzing the common attributes of the users ingested into the learning platform. Common attributes such as all users with the role ‘manager’ or the role ‘technician grade 1’, all users based out of location ‘Arizona’, all users reporting to the same manager, and so on. Custom user groups can be created by administrators based on desired criteria. User groups enable administrators to streamline the process of assigning training, assigning catalogs, and pull customized reports.

In the case of the automaker, using Learning Plans to automate training enrollment to specific users by using user groups reduces manual effort by learning admins, reduces chances of human error, and helps achieve efficiency.

Efficiency in scheduling and conducting technical shop floor training

Learning Manager features used: Flexi Learning Plan, Waitlisting

Shop floor training for dealers’ technicians is crucial to ensuring that they are adept with the most up-to-date skills for vehicle repair and maintenance. Such practical training requires enough ‘demo-vehicles’ for hands-on practice which means a particular session can only accommodate limited trainees. Also, such training is often mandatory for all technical staff at all dealers across the country and they have a limited period of time to complete training. Two features in Learning Manager help the automaker schedule and administer shop floor training efficiently – ‘Flexi Learning Plan’ and waitlist management for instructor-led training.

An overview of how this works—All eligible technicians are enrolled in a ‘Flexi Learning Plan’ in which admins or authors decide the courses to be included in the learning plan. These courses can be both self-paced online as well as instructor-led classroom or shop floor training. While the self-paced online training can be completed by the technicians on their own time, for the instructor-led shop floor training courses, several ‘instances’ or occurrences are created with variations in the date and/or location. A flexi learning plan provides technicians the flexibility to enroll for an instance of a course based on their preference—for example, a preferred date and location.

But what happens when there are a greater number of technicians enrolling for the same instance than the maximum capacity? This is when Learning Manager’s waitlist management helps. Let’s assume all of the 30 seats for a particular instance are booked within a week of opening self-enrolment. Any technician who enrolls after the seat limit has been reached is automatically waitlisted based on the order of their enrolment. When participants with confirmed seats cancel their enrolment, the administrator allots the seats to the waitlisted participants based on their waitlist order and then triggers email communication. Administrators also set enrolment and unenrolment deadlines to optimize attendance and reduce no-shows.

End-to-end branding, bespoke reporting, and a learning reward system

Learning Manager features used: Learning Manager APIs

The automaker uses the headless version of Learning Manager. Learning Manager is perhaps the only LMS that has the most comprehensive suite of APIs. Any functionality that is available in the native version of Learning Manager can be replicated through APIs in the headless version. This provides the automaker the ability to use their branding end-to-end and completely customize the look and feel of the learning platform. Also, by using APIs, learning manager components are integrated with their existing web presence, and custom reporting dashboards have been built by an implementation partner.

One such dashboard displays learning data to the dealer owners, and this becomes a key part of a dealer reward system implemented by the automaker. To encourage training compliance, the automaker has implemented a reward system in which the dealer with the maximum number of certified technicians evaluated per quarter becomes eligible for cash benefits. The dashboard helps dealer owners track their learning performance and eligibility for the reward.

For the technicians to be eligible for certification, they must complete training in Learning Manager and a minimum number of years with the organization. The automaker uses an xAPI module to bring in the tenure information from their HRMS. The two data points – training completion and tenure in the organization are combined in the learning platform to award certifications to eligible technicians.

Achieving continuity of learner records when they switch jobs between dealerships

Learning Manager features used: UUID-based enrollment.

Another feature that the automaker takes advantage of is the ability in Learner Manager to attach a UUID (Universally Unique ID) to each user enrolled in the learning platform, in addition to an email ID. This UUID is often based on a PII (Personally Identifiable Information) of the user. This enables them to keep the learner’s records intact even if there is a change in the email ID of the user in the future. For example, if Sam a ‘senior certified technician’ from the automaker’s dealership in Los Angeles exits the dealership and joins one of the automaker’s dealerships in San Diego, the learning records of Sam can be reinstated, and he doesn’t need to retake all of the training and re-certify himself in his new job.

Conclusion

The adoption of Learning Manager as the core learning platform has enabled the automaker to achieve efficiency, scalability, and standardization of its dealer training program. Delivering a high-quality training experience to its extensive dealer network has helped the automaker to ensure operational readiness, a consistently positive customer experience, and strong brand loyalty.

Learn more about how Learning Manager can help you achieve your dealer training goals.