HOW CAN COMPANIES MAKE LEARNERS SUCCESSFULLY FINISH ELEARNING COURSES?

Elearning is now creating huge waves in the corporate world. B2B elearning courses are bought by companies to train customers and employees.

The B2C scenario involves the learner signing up for the course; it could be a student or an employee looking to broaden his horizons. But the company is not responsible for the course fees.

However, in the B2B elearning, the company gets a course created for all its employees and other stakeholders. Everyone working for the organization has to complete the course. The business incurs the fees of the course and hence wants an ROI.

B2B elearning is quite different from the B2C version because the company has control over the course here. There is no choice before the learner whether or not he should go through the course because it is mandatory for him.

The business needs to provide course access to so many employees, and for renewal, it must pay a monthly fee if more employees join the company. Since the businesses spend so much on getting such courses for their employees, attention needs to be paid to engagement.

The elearning courses need to apply the Hook model created by erstwhile Stanford professor Nir Eyal so that the learners feel motivated to finish the course. This model explains how the learners become ardent about using an online product in 4 stages, trigger, action, reward for the effort, and finally investment, so the product is now more suited for the learners.

This model has the 4 following stages:

Trigger:

The first stage of this model is the trigger, where employees need to be given a push to apply for the course. Every employee needs a different kind of external trigger, such as the course signup link sent in an email, to get enticed into signing up for a course.

When users start using a product or service for the first time through a trigger, they get attached to the service. It’s just like giving the trigger to a learner through banner ads about new courses on the company’s intranet.

Once he gets curious about the course due to the banner ad, he will watch its preview on the LMS by clicking on the ad.

Thus, the learners become emotionally associated with the product evoked every time it is used. Hence using this product soon becomes a habit because the users develop an internal push to use it due to their emotions.

Action:

Since the user has already started an internal urge to use the product, how to ensure he takes the necessary action. The companies can ensure that taking action is relatively easy for the user; hence the app must have a simple user interface. Thus, taking a user’s ability into consideration is crucial while designing elearning courses or an elearning app.

Hence, the elearning courses library must be designed in mind that it’s a smooth experience for the users. They should face no barriers in signing up for the course after they have a glimpse of it. Hence the LMS must have an easily accessible search button.

Also, the learners can be motivated to finish the elearning courses when it’s in the form of easily understandable and short modules that don’t require much time commitment.

Employees also need notifications about how much of a course is left and what’s the deadline for mandatory elearning courses.

Reward:

The course might not require much effort from the user to access it, but the user must also be engaged with the course. It’s only possible when the user gets a reward that gives him a due reason to pursue the course.
For example, when learners are acquainted with the benefits of finishing a module which implies scoring better elearning assessment grades than others, they feel excited to go through a course.

The user is now asked for some form of contribution from him. This means he is required to give feedback which ensures that the elearning courses will be created per his needs. So the next time he is given an external trigger in the form of the course link, he will click on it too.

Investment:

The user can be asked for his detailed opinion about the elearning courses and how they led to his professional betterment. The learners also have to show some solidarity with the course, and as a result, they can share the course link with their friends and get some points for referrals. Such efforts show the course creators how much learners have liked the course. When users express their preferences regarding the course, it offers a better option to the course creators for future modules.

Originally published at https://creativtechnologies.com on June 15, 2022.