E-Learning Council

 

By Kevin Gumienny

After implementing video training, BigCommerce’s trial-to-paid conversion rate went to 15% from 10%. The company was more successful in educating their customers. Employees spent more time learning, and less time in the classroom.

What techniques did the training team use when creating these videos?

One, they decided to host all of their videos on Wistia. That way, they didn’t have to mess with video hosting or bandwidth issues. Wistia is like YouTube without the social aspect. And it provides great metrics.

They also developed a guide on producing video. Some of their best practices:

Take the time to write a script. Get down on paper exactly what you want to say. That way, you won’t waste time recording and rerecording.

Do a table read. It’s here that you’ll find out whether or not the script you thought sounded so natural really does. This will allow you to make your video time most effective.

Don’t be perfect when shooting. Use a teleprompter if you can. Alex points out that cheap ones are available on eBay. If you can’t use a teleprompter, memorize short chunks of text and get creative in editing to link segments together. If you can, shoot someone who is natural on camera. Light your shoot properly. And remember that Camtasia is a lifesaver. Shoot your video while planning to edit out the imperfections.

Spend time on editing. A good, professional video editor is worth investing in.

In all, Alex stressed that success rested on going with the MVP—the minimal viable product. Simple, short videos allowed BigCommerce to develop their craft and brand, educate their users, train their staff, and scale to meet growing number of customers. Why video? Because it worked.

 

By Kevin Gumienny

When the training team at BigCommerce turned to internal training, they determined that sales and other agents needed to share the same understanding of the user experience.

BigCommerce has three distinct internal audiences. Technical support personnel, who needed to manage the phone queue and have a handle on the technical details of the product; sales, where time is money; and engineers, who preferred self-paced training and bite-sized sessions.

They decided on a structure that had video-focused online training as a prerequisite, followed by a quick quiz, and then internal relevant information—webpages and videos.

This was followed by an in-class session, where employees participated in labs doing simulations, role playing, and mock calls.

In the end, using videos as the foundation for their curriculum increased instructional time while decreasing classroom time. The team spent more time was creating content than delivering instructor-led training.

BigCommerce was able to leverage video to educate their customers, increase their trial-to-paid conversion rate, and allow their employees to spend more time learning and less time in the classroom. What kind of techniques did they use to create these videos? We’ll talk about those in the next blog post.

 

By Mary Word

The third part of David’s talk discussed branching choices. User control. The user wants to see what is there, and is in control of how to get there. David showed us several examples, two of which I will share.

One scenario shows a man at his desk in the office, almost finished with an email that had to be sent out within a few minutes in order to get a big commission. The fire alarm rings and an announcement instructs all personnel to evacuate. The video stops and choices are put up on the screen to determine what he will do—evacuate as instructed, wait to finish his email? At this and succeeding branch points, you make a choice and another section of video shows the results of that choice. Oops! The hall is on fire and you can’t get out. I guess you should not have waited to send that email after all. Branching choices allow for multiple scenarios to explore and find the way to the best solution.

For a really stellar example of branching video, check out the lan McKellan video interview. It has a very creative use of video and clips, with branching choices.

http://www.stagework.org.uk/mckellen/

It is done in an effective interactive way. Part of this is planning. The structure has to be designed and scripted to make all the parts work. The introductory sequence shows the actor encouraging you to choose a question. If no choice is made in a few seconds he says come on, don’t just sit there, this isn’t TV. Choose a question, please. Then there is a short repeating loop. After a few more seconds he says oh, come on, it isn’t that hard to make a choice, is it? After this second interaction the loop gets very small, indicating that any further action is up to you. It pulls you in very nicely.

If you choose to use video in your projects, don’t just throw in something without considering how you can make it truly engaging. Video can interact with your user and go beyond a passive element on the page. Think about these examples and see how far your imagination can take you.