This story-driven, scenario-based eLearning experience guides employees of an ice cream store franchise through behaviors that enhance the customer experience and keep them coming for more!
Audience: Employees in food service working to improve customer retention
Responsibilities: Instructional design, action-mapping, story-boarding, visual design, and development
Tools Used: Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, Articulate Storyline, Mind Meister, Google Docs
The Problem
After the opening of a new ice cream store across the street, the owners at The Ice Cream Stop franchise did not experience less sales as they thought they would. However, they noticed less repeat customers and correctly inferred that if they do not find a way to improve customer retention, they might be losing sales in the long run, and so they hired an instructional design company to help.
The Solution
To find a solution, I set out to conduct a needs analysis by monitoring employees on duty, interviewing the owners, as well as observing the rival company.
Although there were several possibilities, such as re-designing the store and marketing through social media, we found the best, most cost-effective place to start for improving customer retention would be to re-train the employees on how to offer a more memorable service for customers.
I proposed to convert the rather dry original training into a story-driven, scenario-based eLearning experience to help employees turn theory into practice and thereby create a more loyal customer base.
My Process
I based my scenario-based eLearning experience on the ADDIE model. First, I worked at the store myself for a few days to get a better idea of the environment - the good, bad, and the ugly. I then interviewed the owner and manager to identify the key issues and record her proposed solutions.
Finally, I organized the information, created a script, designed the project, and then put it all together into an engaging experience. In technical terms, this would be action-mapping, storyboarding, creating visual mock-ups, and developing the project in eLearning-specific software, respectively.
Action Map
One of the points the owner repeated multiple times is that the employees knew what to do in theory, but they weren’t motivated to do it, even with all the incentives given. I garnered that it was because their previous training was focused on information and not on action.
Therefore, I organized the map with the main goal, that is, to improve customer retention, in the center and the specific tasks to achieve that goal branching off from it. I used this map as a guide for the underlying story of this eLearning experience.
Text-based Storyboard
Next, I created the script for the story. The story starts off with an introduction to the environment and the employees role, as well as a mentor character to offer hints in case the employee gets stuck.
It then proceeds to illustrate five scenarios in the form of questions, and positive or negative consequences for each of the answer choices that leads the employees through their day at the shop. If the employees choose the wrong action, they continue with their day without any option to repeat the question. At the end, there’s an option to exit the course or restart it.
Visual Mockups
After writing the script, I worked on the visual design of the eLearning experience. First, I found characters and images from a graphics website and organized them in a mood board.
Next, I experimented with different colors, and set a color scheme using a color picker tool. I choose bright colors to match the graphics and lighten the mood.
Then, I created mockups on Adobe XD, iterating with different colors, fonts, images, and positioning on wireframes. In the process, I welcomed feedback from the instructional design community to help me find the best combination.
Visual Storyboard
As the last part of the design phase, I merged the text-based story-board and visual mockups into one document: the visual storyboard. Upon approval from the owner, I moved on to the development phase.
Interactive Prototype
The visual mockups were brought to life in Articulate Storyline. I created the opening slides and the first question along with answer consequences, and shared them with the instructional design community to collect feedback on the look and feel and functionality of the project.
Mentor Slide
Question Slide
Consequence Slide
Full Development
After collecting and applying feedback on the interactive prototype, I developed the rest of the project. I particularly enjoyed working with variables, which stored the information to determine whether the employee would be successful or not at the end of the day.
Results and Takeaways
I really enjoyed the creative aspects of this project, such as creating my own design, incorporating a bright color scheme, and writing my own script. In fact, when I was inventing scenarios for the employees to imagine themselves in, I had to hold back from including the bizarre stories I heard from the owner in order to keep the scenarios believable.
For future projects, I would work on timing complex animations in a more efficient way, using character packs to show different emotions instead of drawing them in myself, and perfecting a slide before using it as a template for other slides.
I am really glad I got to develop this first project, and am excited to explore Storyline’s many more capabilities, such as sound effects and video animation, in future projects.