How we transformed the Customer Experience (CX) of an education offering
#DigitalTransformation #GoGreen #GoDigital #DesignCollaboration #UsersFirst
Need
PTC University offers ‘In-classroom’ training for the working professionals. The classroom trainings are a premium offering, a high margin business amounting to $10 Million annually. The Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) take classes facilitated by the printed guide books.
The guide books were printed in North America and are shipped across globe. This business modal bought along the following constraints: -
• Classrooms admins cannot do on-the-spot registrations.
• Shipping guide books across the globe is logistically cumbersome.
• The high-quality printing and shipping of guide books costs $1Million annually.
Goals
• Allow on-the-spot registration to the classes.
• Streamline shipping and logistics.
Constraints
• The classroom trainings are offered in eight languages across five continents.
• The guide books are highly value IP and must be protected from piracy.
• There is no backup, if a guidebook gets misplaced or damaged.
Role
CX Researcher, CX Designer, UX Writer, HTML & CSS developer
Tools
Balsamiq, Adobe Illustrator, IntelliJ code editor
Stakeholders
• Level 1: Class students (working professionals)
• Level 2: Class Instructors, Guidebook authors
• Level 3: Steering Committee, POs, Developer team
• Level 4: Sales & Marketing, Legal and IT compliance
Ideation & Solution design
• The best solution discovered was to shift from paper based printed guidebooks to digital guide books.
• Advantages of digital guide books: -
• No need for shipping
• Allows on-the-spot registration
• Protection against piracy
• Always up to the date
• Environment friendly (Saves paper)
Prototype
• The idea was to get test the solution through a working prototype.
• We developed HTML5 based responsive guide viewer.
• The group has an inhouse LMS that offers elearning solutions.
• The LMS will be used to serves the content to the guide books.
• In order to prevent learnability, the instructional design of the digital guides was deliberately designed like the existing elearning courseware.
Feedback and iterations
The prototype was presented to the following stakeholders for the feedbacks.
- Product Owners & Steering Committee
- Class Instructors & Content Authors (SME who will write the guide books)
- Sales and Marketing & Customer support
- Legal and IT Compliance
- Developer team
Product Owners & Steering Committee
• They were excited to see the simplification of logistics and the cost savings.
• The proposed solution was designed using the existing IT infrastructure (Inhouse LMS). Committee liked that we won’t have to invest heavily in IT.
• The solution saved company’s carbon footprints and can be part of CSR activity.
Class Instructors & Content Authors
The class instructors and the content authors feedback were the most important. They were responsible for the deliverables and the overall class experience. Some of their feedbacks and design changes are: -
• The class guides are a premium offering. They should not be bundled with the existing LMS courseware.
A separate section for the class guides was created in the LMS’s homepage to distinguish them from exiting offerings.
• The students can take the paper guides with them.
The subscription to the digital class guides was extended to lifelong.
• The class schedule is very tight. The students don’t have the time to register to the LMS.
A new mechanism was designed to bypass the registration and access the guide books during the class hours.
The class students can register to LMS after the class and access the guide books.
• The students like to dogear, take notes and underline on the paper guides.
A new feature to save the notes was introduced.
All the pages in the guide book have a unique URL and are bookmarkable.
Sales and Marketing & Customer Support
• The Sales and Marketing team has always positioned the classroom trainings as a premium offering.
The aesthetics of the class guide viewer was designed to position them as a distinguished and premium offering.
• The Sales team saw an opportunity to expand the userbase to attract the college students.
The digital guide viewer was made responsive. The students can use the digital guide books on mobiles.
Pilot
The usability tests were done and then we ran a few pilots. The pilot programs helped the class instructors to get accustomed to the digital class guides and then help the students to use them.
There were a few learning from the pilot program: -
• The class instructors were not able to tell the students to how to move to another section in the guide book. They could no longer say — “Go to the third para on page number 9.”
The modules and lessons were numbered. Now the instructors can now say — “Go to module 3 section IV”.
• A few students found it distracting to switch between the digital guides and the PTC products on their single screen.
The students were advised to the open digital guides on their smartphones and follow along on the laptops.
Achievements
• The digital guide program turned into a huge success and is successfully running for the last 5 years.
• The students immediately adopted digital guides and are using them as a continuous learning companion.
• Cost saving of $ 1 Million every year.
• Saving 1000s of trees every year.
Lessons
• A working prototype is the best proof of concept.
• Involve all the stakeholders and Influencers in the ideation process. Everyone has something to contribute.
• Leverage existing technology infrastructure. It helps to ship faster.
• Usability testing is great. A successful pilot is the real learning.
