Training employees regularly shifts to online training. The advantage of chatbots: they bring interaction, personalization and instant feedback to e-learning.
The discussion around and innovations in education normally focus on educational institutions such as schools or universities. Learning in business is usually just brushed aside as a rag. We at Helpr are no exception. I sometimes catch myself explaining how ‘chatbots can help students’ when I’m actually talking about employees, oops!
The new age corporate world
And this is crazy. Precisely because educating employees is becoming more important than ever. Digital skills, personal competencies and lifelong learning are becoming core aspects of careers. You can see this in the size of the market for global employee training: An estimated $440 billion. And this will increase rapidly in the future. However, companies are struggling to keep up with current trends. Employee training is shifting from face to face education to online training. E-learning is becoming widespread and the need for personalized training is increasing. Before the crisis, it is estimated that about 7 in 10 adults needed basic ICT skills. However, about 33% are at risk of not being able to keep up with the digital revolution.
The problem with old-school E-learning
But E-learning has a problem. Okay, it’s a quick way to train staff and it can be distributed without limit. It’s just that it was conceived from a classical educational perspective. A perspective used in schools. E-learning is thus often standardized and static. Good for students, not so good for staff.
When we train employees, the “equal opportunity” mindset of standardization is detrimental to individual learning outcomes. We need to train the best employees, but not every employee needs the same thing to do so. This means we need to personalize the content and provide immediate feedback. Something most E-learning cannot do.
The case for chatbots
And so we come to educational chatbots again. Because chatbots can jump in where ‘regular’ E-learning can’t handle it. They have already been hailed as the ‘future of eLearning’ and for good reason. Chatbots can bring interaction, personalization and direct feedback to existing online learning. They can be integrated into any platform or LMS. So they do not replace e-learning. On the contrary, they enhance it. Chatbots can respond directly to answers that employees give them. This increases self-efficacy, which has already proven to be an effective means of engaging users and achieving positive results. If a chatbot can increase university retention rates by 4-6% just by talking to users, imagine what it can do when used for a specific purpose in a specific group.
Existing bots and their practical applications
So how can we use these bots in practice? What are use cases for these bots? Here’s some inspiration:
- Jesse & Avi the corporate training bots, by MobileCoach. These chatbots weave exercises into an employee’s day to seamlessly provide mini training and coaching in the form of dialogue.
- Learning a new language? Duolingo offers chatbots to train you to speak your target language.
- Our very own Helpr chatbots that can learn, coach, mentor, engage and more!
Want to know more about Chatbots and their potential for corporate training? Then get in touch with us! We’d love to help(r) you find the perfect solution.
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