If you work in learning and development, you’ve no doubt found yourself deliberating over purchasing off-the-shelf training courses or creating your own custom content from scratch.

Last week, we looked at the benefits of off-the-shelf training and how it can help your business provide effective professional development training for your staff.

However, there are also certain benefits to building your own custom content for eLearning courses. So it’s best to know the benefits of both types of training solutions, before making your decision.

Both buying and building have their own particular advantages and disadvantages. So why not consider the option of combining the two solutions – with a combination of both off-the shelf and custom?

When Off-the-Shelf Training is the Best Option

With ready-made off-the-shelf training courses, you can keep your spending costs down, delivering informative and engaging training content for your employees at a lower price than most customised training programs. In using off-the-shelf products, you also have no need of hiring consultants, designers or experts to create a course – you simply download the program and add it to your LMS, rolling it out to employees in less than 24 hours.

Off-the-shelf training is perfect for providing training on particular systems and programs, like Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, Adobe Creative Suite, and so forth. They are also great for courses that cover generic topics such as team building, compliance training, change management, negotiation skills, and customer service. These skill-based courses contain content that can be successfully applied across various organisations.

Usually the content will have been written by subject matter experts who are trusted and authorised content creators in that area or field. By using these products, you won't have to spend time or money building your own customised courses on those topics.

When Custom Content is the Best Option for Learners

There are some cases and scenarios where you’ll want to be using custom content that you’ve created yourself, to provide your staff with tailored learning materials specific to your organisation.

Dr. Ayesha Habeeb Omer, co-founder of custom learning solutions provider CommLab India, explains why custom eLearning is often the best choice for certain product training and software systems training.

“ERP end-user training, for example, is something off-the-shelf eLearning courses are not suitable for: it is completely tied to an organization’s internal processes and working,” she says.

Every company or organisation has unique training needs that relate directly to its culture, processes, systems and goals. There may be times when you simply can’t source relevant content from external sources for these unique requirements.

You may also want your eLearning courses to reflect your company’s brand, using your own brand, corporate colours or logo throughout the course. With custom content, you can include these branding elements in your training materials.

Combining the Best of Both Worlds for a Perfect Training Solution

As you can see, there are plenty of situations where you can easily use off-the-shelf training products, and other times when it may be wise to create custom content.

So which one will you choose? Well, why not consider the option of combining the two solutions – a combination of both hy not consider the option of combining the two solutions – a combination of both off-the shelf and custom? Both buy AND build?

Some Learning Management Systems can provide you with a solution that allows you to modify off-the-shelf content to fit your exact learning needs and specifications. This combined solution can offer your business the perfect eLearning mix, allowing you to pick and choose the best ready-made content for your teams.

This gives you a huge amount of flexibility, as you can customise and modify modules within the training program. And you’ll also have the option to add branding elements to the materials, like your company logo. By choosing to combine off-the-shelf training with custom content, you'll really be giving your learners the best of both worlds.

Did you know that with the Go1 platform, you can create your own custom training programs or browse through thousands of off-the-shelf courses?  


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Combining off-the-shelf training with custom content

Already using a Learning Management System to train your team? Great! Now the next step is knowing how to use your LMS for reporting purposes. Your LMS platform is most likely full of insightful data that you can be tracking, to really start improving the performance of your team.

This data is invaluable when it comes to interpreting the learning habits of your employees, while also showing whether or not the LMS is delivering value to your organisation. You’ll be able to build a comprehensive profile of your employee’s learning habits, which you can use to personalise your eLearning materials and create far more effective training courses.

Keen to start tracking learning data from your LMS? The first thing you need to do is figure out which data is worth looking at. Learning Management Systems contain a huge amount of data, so you need to know what’s worthwhile.

Here are some of the key areas you should be reporting on if you want to start improving your employee training.

You can first look to see just how many team members are completing the online training courses. Your LMS should be able to track completion rates for each staff member.

By looking at the time taken for employees to complete each course, and even the individual modules inside them, you can gain an understanding of the effectiveness of your eLearning courses. If employees aren’t finishing them, they may be too difficult. Or the course materials may feel irrelevant, or not engaging enough to hold the attention of your learners.

On the other hand, if employees are consistently breezing through eLearning courses, your course content may not be challenging enough.

Obviously, the data you obtain from your employees’ online assessments provides you with a lot of insight into how they’re tracking.

If the majority of your staff are passing the training courses, and getting high scores in online tests, your eLearning courses are likely to be both effective and successful.

Christoforos Pappas, of eLearning Industry, suggests inviting online learners to take a pre-assessment before the eLearning course, then using your findings to choose specific activities and modules that best suit their needs.

“eLearning assessment data also gives you the power to identify online learners' strengths and weaknesses, which you can then use to create personal learning paths,” explains Pappas.

As well as getting employees to take online assessments, you can also ask them to provide feedback on the course.

This gives learners an open opportunity to be honest about what was good (or bad) about the course, how relevant they found the content, and if they enjoyed taking the course overall. In asking for this feedback, your LMS is giving you really clear and valuable data that you can use to further improve your courses.

Employees tend to be quite comfortable providing feedback online, as it’s much easier to give honest opinions to an eLearning platform than it is to a manager, face-to-face.

On that note, you could also include an anonymous survey section, for employees to leave feedback on the course instructor. This will help evaluate the effectiveness of online training instructors.

Using Your LMS to Report on Staff Training

As you can see, there’s a lot to be gained from the data in your Learning Management System.

As Kirstie Greany from Elucidat says, if you want to know if your learning is hitting the mark, look to your dashboard.

Greany explains how data can help you tap into your audiences to design a higher quality product that can give you an edge over competition.

“If you notice scores are continually low in a key area — it could be the question needs a tweak, you may have to provide further learning in that area, or they just need to try again —perhaps it’s meant to be hard! A bit of digging around will soon tell you if you need to make a quick change or not.”

Think of it like adjusting your sails to the winds. Tracking and interpreting data from your LMS should be a regular and ongoing process. By making constant adjustments to your eLearning courses, you can start getting the best possible results from your training materials and your employees.

What you should be reporting on for your training

Since all you need is a web-browser, webinars have become the easiest way to teach and train employees without leaving the comfort of your own desk.

In addition, holding a webinar may very well be the solution to all your time and money problems.

Say goodbye to sending all your employees to seminars and travelling to training conferences on the other side of the country – now your organization can get the message across to a large audience right from their computer.

But, in order to host your webinars successfully, you’ve got to have the right software and platform for your business. Of course, there are loads available on the market – so what one should you choose?

The right webinar hosting platform will depend on your budget, needs and goals. Let’s have a look at the most popular webinar hosting platforms to find the best one for your organization today!

If you’re looking into webinar platforms, there’s no doubt you’ll have come across Adobe Connect. This award-winning and highly customizable platform provides high-quality audio and video options to host the perfect webinar for your employees.

Whether it’s a weekly meeting or annual training, Adobe Connect provides tools to incorporate whiteboards, note taking and to share documents during a video webinar.

The Q&A feature is particularly useful for allowing the host to answer questions live. You can even add your own company logo!

What’s more, employees will never miss an event again. The easy to use Microsoft Outlook integration means that all employees can receive an invite for the webinar through their emails.

You can use Adobe Connect on any smartphone or tablet and businesses can enjoy custom plans to allow up to 100 employees to join a webinar at one time.

GoToMeeting by Citrix is a webinar hosting platform that’s well known for being simple and easy for everybody to use.

It can be used on any device to deliver HD video conferencing, with the ability to add webinars to Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. Invites will be sent to employees with custom URL links to click on that will bring them straight to the webinar.

You can screen share to making learning easier, as well as allow the HDFaces feature to bring others into the learning sphere. Now everybody can take part!

There’s different plans available to suit your business needs, such as the starter plan that allows up to five participants in a webinar. The Pro Plan also allows you to record your webinars for employees that miss out, as well as up to 25 participants to join in learning.

For larger organizations, the Plus plan allows up to 100 participants at once. GoToMeeting even has 24/7 customer support to help you out if you run into problems.

BlueJeans is the one-size-fits-all solution to webinar hosting. This cloud-based video conferencing software provides your company with a source of HD video webinar that can be accessed anywhere, on any device.

The interface is neat and tidy and it’s simple to create a meeting link for employee training or regular meetings. In addition, only the host of the webinar has to be a BlueJeans member – everybody else can access content without having to download anything.

During a webinar, you can screen share for better learning, as well as use video clips and documents with up to 100 people. There’s even an Active Speaker feature that can hand over the window to somebody new, keeping everybody in the loop.

BlueJeans don’t advertise their plans openly, but there’s a 14-day free trial you can have fun with to see if you like the interface and features.


With Zoom, you can host small team meetings and large department training right in one place. The HD audio and video software allow you to interact with up to 100 employees and broadcast training viewing for up to 10,000 people – anything is possible with Zoom!

It’s easy to use and integrates well with Microsoft Outlook for webinar reminders and invites, as well as having the ability to share documents, videos and photographs to aid with learning.

You can even record your webinars for later and distribute the video to employees that couldn’t make it on the day. Zoom has a variety of free and paid plans to suit every size of organization.

When it comes to webinar hosting platforms, you’ve got to have heard of Cisco WebEx. As one of the biggest names around, this platform boasts HD video and audio, as well as a bunch of advanced interactive features to make learning more engaging for employees.

This includes creating polls, promoting multimedia sharing and using Q&A live on screen – webinars have never been so much fun! Cisco WebEx is suitable for use on all devices and it’s easy to switch from one to another, even during a live webinar.

There are many plans available for Cisco WebEx that will allow you to invite up to 3,000 attendees at your training webinar.

Now you’ve read about the top webinar hosting platforms on the market, which one do you think will suit your company? It’s always recommended to try out any free trials first to see if you like the software before buying.

Choosing the right hosting platform will allow you to create awesome webinars for your employees and promote professional development all year round.

For more insights on webinars and the latest L&D trends, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of it all. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Are you searching for an innovative way to host employee training? Then you’ve got to try hosting your very own webinar. This online virtual meeting has become an essential business tool in recent years.

What are the top webinar hosting platforms?

As way to allow each of the team to have more time to work on their ideas and produce more extensive results to pitch to our panel of judges, the 2017 was run over 2 weeks, with the first night designated for forming teams and starting work on their learning solution, and the second night - 7 days after forming teams, finalizing their presentation and presenting to the judges.

This also allowed teams to meet up throughout the week to refine their solutions.

Participants were split up into teams based on their learning background so all teams had diverse skill sets and background knowledge that could be used to tackle our challenge.

Teams were then presented with some drab and dry learning content on cyber security, with their task being to convert the material into an engaging and successful learning experience. This could come to life in many forms, such as a gamified learning structure, a blended learning environment, a self-paced elearning, or even something as simple as a job aid.

They were also given the criteria on which they would be assessed including:

· Engagement (how much does it draw in the learner?)
· Effectiveness (how likely will it solve the problem?)
· Scalability (high touch point with low operational cost)
· Success metrics (how success will be measured?)

Our panel of industry experts who would be judging the solutions included Jenny Blackburn, Director of Technology People & Leadership at Salesforce, Rich Taylor, head of Learning & Development at Palo Alto networks and, B.J. Schone, Sr. Manager of Sales Learning & Technology at Autodesk.

With eight teams of between four and six members tacking the challenge, we saw some amazing ideas coming to life over the two nights, and you can watch all the full video of all of our teams pitching below.

BALDT 2017 Learning Hackathon Pitch Night

All teams delivered amazing pitches to a great crowd of not only attendees, but our judges and a large group of additional attendees who had come down just to watch Pitch Night. After narrowing the field down to a top 3, and a length break for discussion between the judges, it was the team of Ryan Richardson, Kelly Reed and Davie Sy who came out as winners.

Congratulations Ryan, Kelly and Davie! They presented a great learning solution which clearly defined their all elements outlined in the judging criteria, including some creative ways to deliver and track training, as well as a very impressive rollout and tracking system that would lead to a successful roll out.

As the winners of the 2017 Learning Design Hackathon, Ryan, Kelly and Davie took home a $250 gift card thanks to Walmart.com, which they have very kindly donated to a local charity.

You can view all of the photos from the event here thanks to Gordon Mak

Thanks to everyone who came down and got involved in the night, as well as to Go1 for providing the food, and LinkedIn for hosting both nights!

If you want to be a part of future meetups like this, make sure you join the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup group.

The Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Team: Rajon, Scott, Angela, Stacy and Joselito

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

After running a successful hackathon event last year, this year the Bay Area Learning Design & Technology Meetup team expanded on their hackathon concept from the year by introducing a new format that would allow teams to have more time to prepare their project for presentation.

BALDT 2017 Learning Design Hackathon wrap up

We never stop learning – so why should your employees?

Every year, companies are spending millions of dollars on professional development training. Every organization can now see the value in investing in their employees and it’s become an important business strategy for the future. After all, learning is a lifelong process, right?

However, the delivery of professional development training itself is also changing. E-learning is taking over the office and businesses are opting for off-the-shelf training courses to deliver the goods.

Sure, customized content might seem like it has its advantages. But, off-the-shelf courses are just as good, if not a better option for small and medium-sized businesses – the best thing is it’s all ready to go!

We use pre-created content every day in the office – from Microsoft Office to Adobe Reader. So, why not off-the-shelf e-learning courses for professional development training?

Let’s find out about the main benefits of off-the-shelf training and why all businesses should use it for professional employee development.

Let’s face it, in the business world, keeping your spending costs down is always near the top of the priority list, especially for small and medium-sized organizations.

This is where off-the-shelf training programs come in – you can provide informative and engaging training content for your employees at half the price of customized training programs.

You don’t have to worry about hiring consultants, designers or experts to create a course – this is already done for you and available for one great price! off-the-shelf training courses actually help businesses to stretch their budget further and get value for their money.

Since employee development is ongoing and organizations should be encouraged to continue providing new sources of learning, off-the-shelf training courses provide ready-made options to add to your LMS anytime – even when you’re on a tight budget.

What’s more, technical support, maintenance and updates are usually included without any extra cost – great!

When you want to start new employee development courses in your company, you don’t want to wait another few weeks to begin training.

When you choose customized training, you’ve got to choose the courses, create the content, contribute to the design process and wait the course to be tested and verified. This all takes time that businesses simply don’t have to waste.

But, with off-the-shelf courses, you can have training right when you need it. The content is available immediately after purchasing – all you have to do is download and add it to your LMS. Accessing quality training content has never been easier or faster!

Off-the-shelf training courses means you can have videos, materials and exercises right at your fingertips. All you have to do is add new courses to continue employee development – there’s no need to start from scratch, design and test new courses. It’s already out there.

What’s more, you can say goodbye to attending expensive and time-consuming training events. Now you don’t have to schedule time out of the office and you can have the courses come to you.

You can pick and choose the modules that you want to incorporate into employee training and they can be accessed anywhere, anytime.

The great thing about off-the-shelf training programs is that there’s a never-ending list of courses that are available.

From programs that help employees pass exams, such as the Pennsylvania Property and Casualty Course, to more general guidance on How to Understand Customer Needs – there’s something for every organization and to gear towards individual business goals.

In addition, every course is different and provides a wealth of ways to train employees.

This can include informational content in the form of videos and quizzes, as well as games and reading – you can choose whatever course is going to contribute to your vision of employee development and help them build valuable skills for the future.

Yet, it’s not just small and medium-sized businesses that can benefit from off-the-shelf courses - they are also great for large organizations that have several different departments.

Instead of prioritizing certain teams, you can provide training options for everybody and give everyone the same opportunity to learn and develop their skills with ready to go courses.

Let’s not forget that off-the-shelf eLearning courses are great ways for employees to learn and develop their skills. Why create your own content when there’s plenty of quality sources out already that you can choose?

The content in off-the-shelf training courses is created by experts in the field and with many programs, you’ll find a wealth a videos, exercises and quizzes to suit everybody’s style of learning and keep employees engaged with training.

After all, company logos and branding may look nice, but professional development training should always be about providing quality content and providing employees with useful information.

What’s more, since off-the-shelf programs can be used by everybody, they are tried and tested, guaranteeing customer satisfaction – you’ll never be disappointed!

There you have it – the benefits of off-the-shelf professional development training!

The most important parts to take away from this article is that off-the-shelf training courses provide tried and tested quality content for your business, with a range of different topics and course areas to choose from.

In addition, you can access this content almost instantly after downloading. No delays, messing about or waiting around – you can start your professional development training today!

And who can forget, you can also save money in the process. Does it get much better than off-the-shelf training?

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.


Professional development training and why it matters - Go1

Why all businesses should have off-the-shelf professional development training

Every episode of The eLearning Assist is run be a different member of the Go1 team so that you can tap into the knowledge within the team, covering all aspects of eLearning from creating content, learning principles, improving processes, selling courses, compliance, and expanding your training program.

In Episode 2 of The eLearning Assist, we had Eduardo Gomes on hand to take a closer look at how to structure a good training program. This included everything from setting up a learning portal, how to select content - and which content types are right for your learners - laying out a program form enrolment to completion, and more.

In our live demo for this episode, Eduardo took everything we talked about in the first part of the webinar and showed you how to apply these concepts to structure a good training program within your own Go1 Portal - so that you can start to improve the way that you deliver training.

The eLearning Assist takes place every month and covers trending industry information, a demonstration of a Go1 Platform feature, and a Q&A session where we will cover any questions you might have around anything to do with online learning, content, training, or the Go1 Platform.

The sessions are free for anyone to attend, and are a great chance to learn some new skills that you can apply in your organisation.

You can view the full webinar video below to learn more: 

The eLearning Assist: Episode 2 - Structuring a good training program

You can also download a copy of the slides in this demo here


The eLearning Assist is also available as a podcast - just search for 'Go1' in iTunes or listen below 

The eLearning Assist: Episode 002 - Structuring a good training program by GO1 Speaker Series

If you have any questions about any of the items covered in this episode please let us know as we'd love to help you out! Also, if there are any topics that you would like to see us cover in our next episode, let us know so we can make sure we include a demo to walk you through everything.

For more insights, be sure to subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Learning how to structure a good training program can be challenging, especially if you've never done it before. To help you understand more about structuring training programs, in The eLearning Assist Episode 2 we took a deeper look at how you can start creating effective and engaging training programs.

The eLearning Assist: episode 2 catchup - structuring a good training program

In recent months, there’s been a lot of media focus and discussion around the pervasiveness of sexual harassment in the tech industry.

You’re no doubt already familiar with some of these stories – such as the female entrepreneur propositioned by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist; the chief executive who faced numerous sexist comments from a male investor; and the former Uber engineer who went public about the pattern of sexual harassment she experienced at the company.

Since then, many women have come forward with their own accounts of sexual harassment in the workplace, as the chain of events has encouraged more female employees to talk publicly about their experiences working within the technology startup industry. And as we're seeing, this is not just an issue for Silicon Valley – the Australian start-up scene is facing similar problems to the United States in this area.

These stories have revealed a lot about the extent of sexism within these male-dominated environments, where there has long been an imbalance of gender. Unfortunately, in 2017, women are still significantly outnumbered when it comes to working in STEM-related studies and careers, making up only one in four IT graduates and fewer than one in 10 engineering graduates.

So what can we do to make sure that we continue open and honest dialogue around this topic? How can we work together to prevent the sexual harassment of women in the workplace?

Addressing gender equality in the workplace

While many tech companies and startups are doing their best to address this issue, more work is needed to dismantle the unconscious bias that often exists towards women in these industries.

A tech company employee (who is currently in the process of a sexual harassment claim against one of her former employers) believes "there's an unconscious bias in the industry that creates discrimination due to the ratio of men to women, it's nothing new – I guess it's more prevalent due to how tech industry has evolved."

"It's important to remember that we are not born with this bias, it's not an [inherent] gender trait, but something we are taught as we grow up,” she says.

Unfortunately, in group environments such as the workplace, sexual harassment can have a knock-on effect on other staff who see it happening around them. When people see others tolerating, or even encouraging, this kind of behaviour, it serves to reinforce and normalise negative male/female stereotypes.

Many male-dominated environments, including the workplace, display that kind of ‘locker room’ culture, where unacceptable actions or comments are passed off as ‘harmless jokes.’ And if you don’t go along with the jokes, you’re no longer 'one of the boys.'

For women working in these environments, there’s often a fear of the backlash that could result from speaking out about sexual harassment – a backlash that could seriously damage their career, reputation and everyday work life. They become caught in between the two fears.

This is why it’s so important to speak up when you see or hear something unacceptable, even if you’re not in a management position. Calling out sexual harassment in the workplace is everyone’s responsibility, so if you see someone being harassed, please have the courage to report it.

Regardless of the industry you work in, or the job you do, all employees have a legal right to work free from sexual harassment. This means both during working hours and at any form of work-related training activities or functions. And extends to social media and text messaging.

For employers and managers, it’s your responsibility to create and implement a clear and effective policy on sexual harassment, and communicate it to all staff within your organisation. Be sure that your policy is compliant with all local, state and federal laws. Define clear consequences for unacceptable behaviour and monitor staff to make sure employees are complying with this policy.

What constitutes sexual harassment at work?

One of the biggest problems with addressing sexual harassment in the workplace is that it can be hard for people to define. It can take the form of many different behaviours and actions, with some of them less obvious or aggressive than others.

Whilst many people may think of sexual harassment purely in terms of unwanted sexual advances or inappropriate touching, it can also encompass far more subtle forms of behaviour. This often makes people unsure of just where the line falls, and whether someone has crossed that line or not. And unfortunately, women often choose not to report incidents of harassment for fear of ‘overreacting’ – or being told they are overreacting.

The Australian Human Rights Commission defines sexual harassment as “any unwanted or unwelcome sexual behaviour, which makes a person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated.” There are many ways that an individual can be made to feel uncomfortable or intimidated, without physical contact occurring. And they are all potentially damaging.

So regardless of whether someone is staring inappropriately, making sexually suggestive comments, telling or emailing inappropriate “jokes” or subjecting you to unwelcome physical contact – all of these examples are considered sexual harassment and are behaviours that are completely unacceptable in the workplace.

Make all staff aware of sexual harassment policies

Employers in the tech industry (and all industries) must provide regular compulsory training on the topic of sexual harassment in the workplace, to help staff properly recognise and address this issue.

Managers, supervisors and team leaders should participate in training specifically relevant for their positions, as they can play a significant role in preventing workplace harassment. Your leaders must be up-to-date with all sexual harassment laws in your state and know how to deal with any incidences in the proper way.

Training can help make it clear to staff that sexual harassment is neither welcome nor tolerated in your organisation. It can also help to make sure that individuals are aware of their rights and are empowered with a clear idea of what constitutes sexual harassment, so they can feel confident in addressing and reporting it.

Empowering women to speak out against harassment

The word ‘empower’ is important here. Because none of this information is really new. And sadly, the stories that have been told by the women mentioned earlier are not new stories. It’s part of a narrative that has existed for centuries.

But with the recent media attention around this issue, we have an opportunity and reminder to make sure we continue talking about the sexual harassment that occurs in male-dominated industries. And an opportunity to feel empowered to effect change in this area.

By speaking out against sexual harassment, and calling out inappropriate behaviour in the workplace, you can challenge and change the dynamics in your own sphere of influence. You’ll also be encouraging other women, and men, to do the same.

As Amber Tamblyn said in a recent article in the New York Times:

"We are learning that the more we open our mouths, the more we become a choir. And the more we are a choir, the more the tune is forced to change."

If you'd like to learn more about how you can educate your workplace about the prevention and addressing of sexual harassment, check out Go1's range of courses available including this one.

Many women have come forward with their own accounts of sexual harassment in the workplace, as the chain of events has encouraged more female employees to talk publicly about their experiences working within the technology startup industry.

Speaking out against sexual harassment in the workplace

There’s no doubt about it, customer service is still one of the most important factors when it comes to deciding to do business with a company. It’s no good having the most up-to-date tech gear, or fancy office suites – if your business doesn’t deliver on customer service you’ll find it hard to stay ahead of the competition.

What’s more, with the ever-increasing impact of social media, providing excellent customer service has never been so important. Customers now have the potential to provide instant feedback on any company across social media and review sites. So if you work in a customer service role, you’ll want to be sure your skills are up to scratch.

Online learning is a great way to improve your customer service skills.

To get you started, we’ve put together five of the best eLearning courses for customer service. Through these short, interactive online courses, you'll learn how to listen to customers, form positive connections, build customer loyalty, improve your telephone technique, and handle complaints.

These courses aren’t just beneficial for people working in a customer-facing role. Improving your customer service skills will greatly help your career, whatever position you’re in – because we all deal with customers daily, whether they’re external or internal to the business.

This first online course is a great introduction to the world of customer service, providing plenty of interesting statistics and facts about today’s consumers.

For example, 89% of people say they’ve stopped doing business with companies because of poor customer service – that’s a huge percentage! This course is designed to give you the skills you need to provide great customer service, so you don’t become one of those companies.

The short online course covers seven specific skills that you can use to drastically improve your interactions with customers on a daily basis. You’ll learn how to:

The course content has a strong focus on improving your listening skills, as without this fundamental skill you won’t be able to respond to your customers’ needs.

You’ll also learn about paying attention to your body language and gestures, as well as the words and language you use in the work environment. All of these things have a significant impact on how customers perceive you and the company you work for.

Building on the fundamentals of the previous course, this eLearning content looks at the importance of creating a connection with your customers. Because the fact is, your sales approach matters just as much as the product you’re selling.

This course will really get you delivering exceptional customer service, helping to develop the skills you need to engage and connect with your customers. You’ll explore listening skills, as well as questioning skills, to learn how to show an interest in your customer as opposed to your product.

As this course explains, it’s the “connection between you and the customer that provides an elevated customer experience.” People can buy their products or select services from any number of sources, especially now that most of us shop around online. It’s the connection we feel with certain service reps that keeps us coming back to their store or company.

On that note, it’s important to talk about customer loyalty.

Many businesses tend to spend a lot of time, money and energy attracting new clients, running plenty of special promotions and deals for new customers. But did you know that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one?

This is just one of the many ‘real world’ things you’ll learn throughout this short eLearning course. The course brings customer loyalty back into focus, highlighting the benefits of retaining your existing customer base in a world where customer loyalty is on the decline – people don’t stick to one product or service provider like they used to.

However, as the course instructor tells us: “Great customer service can turn average customers into loyal fans of your business.” What’s more, if you can increase your customer retention rates by just 5%, you can increase profits by a whopping 95%!

This course may especially appeal to managers who are keen to train up their employees in better service techniques, as it really shows the importance of building a loyal customer base.

Also part of the Customer Service collection, this course focuses on something that you might not think is all that important.

But as you’ll see, your telephone manner when dealing with customers can quickly shape their entire perception of your company. In fact, it takes just six seconds for a caller to make an impression of your business – six seconds!

For many of us, text messaging has pretty much replaced talking on the phone, but if you’re in a customer service role you need to be skilled in the art of the phone call. If you don’t have the right telephone etiquette, you’ll find yourself losing customers, fast. But on the other hand, if you know how to communicate well with your callers, you could soon build up your loyal customer base.

This eLearning course takes you through the seven steps of telephone customer service:

Step 6 – Try to Resolve Issues Immediately

Following these steps will have you impressing customers with your communication and service skills, while also giving you more confidence on the phone.

Last, but not least – we all know customer service can have its tricky moments. And a key component of providing great service is knowing how to handle negative feedback and complaints.

This course can help you with this, by providing you with tools and techniques you can draw on in difficult situations. The absolute best way to manage customer complaints is to have a system in place that helps you to control the situation and lead it towards a positive outcome. And fortunately, 95% of customers will give your company a second chance if you handle their complaint successfully.

Throughout the course materials, you’ll learn how to use the LAST technique – an acronym you can draw on to remember the steps you can take to handle and control a customer complaint: Listen – Apologise – Solution – Thank you.