BT – Blended Learning

CommsLearning blended learning case study: BT

Overview
BT is the world's oldest communications company, with a direct line of descent from the first commercial telecommunications undertaking in the world. Today technology is more central to BT's business than ever before as it builds on the foundation of the digital era to create the information age. Innovation - the combination of technical know-how with commercial acumen has become even more crucial in a competitive world and BT recognises the significance of training and education in that process. CommsLearning have partnered with BT for over 3 years, developing stimulating and comprehensive learning programs for a number of operational areas.

The Need
The BT Business and BT Global Service sales teams have a comprehensive and wide portfolio of products and services to offer their customers. Introducing new solutions into that portfolio, giving the sales teams the knowledge and tools they need in a relevant and stimulating manner was the challenge set when BT offered mobile services to their customer base. With our background and experience in the telecommunications market, CommsLearning were asked to develop a blended learning programme including instructor led training, Webinars and a series of E Learning modules to introduce mobile services into the solutions portfolio.

Solution
Working in partnership with the BT Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) and SME’s from the mobile network operator, CommsLearning developed a programme of events and training designed to achieve a number of objectives. The first was to raise the level of knowledge and understanding for all of the Sales force as the foundations to further learning experiences. The second was to raise awareness of the market, the players in that market and support to BT’s proposition in that market. Finally, training was developed to equip the Sales teams with the product knowledge, sales arguments and customer benefits for each of the solutions making up the portfolio.

CommsLearning ran an interactive face to face training course at a number of BT sales events delivering content, encouraging feedback and creating a forum from which the sales teams could learn and interact.

We then designed, hosted and facilitated a series of webinars into which the sales team could participate. The webinars offered an opportunity to not only gain more knowledge and understanding but created a more personal interaction which gave the learner the opportunity to drill down and raise questions on topics within the subject matter more relevant to their individual learning needs. Finally we created a programme of E-Learning modules, using the ADDIE (Analyse, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate) instructional design model to create relevant, stimulating learning experiences for BT, focussed on the achievement of the business objective applied to each course.

Benefits
The learning programme created by CommsLearning, BT and the mobile network operator has been a recognised success. Not only has it enabled BT to successfully introduce a new, complex and technical solution area into their product portfolio, it has also been the catalyst to developing a new revenue stream, enhancing their position in the marketplace and giving BT a new competitive edge. The programme is an excellent example of how, using complimentary training methods, it is possible to create a successful, comprehensive programme of learning, suitable for any audience, cost effectively both in terms of time and money.

In a recent survey 100% of respondents rated the CommsLearning trainer good or excellent. 96% rated the course good or excellent and 100% felt the course met their personal objectives. When asked, the overriding comment was they would like to have the programme adopted as best practice.