Abstract:

In this study, we have conducted a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of a training course based on a digital role play. It was carried out in 2016 and involved a total of 13755 salespeople of a banking and insurance company for 6 months. Our objective was to identify if there is a correlation between the use of a digital role play and the increase of confidence in the trainees, by comparing their real-life sales results (quotes and sales) with the ones of the salespeople not using the simulator. We used 2 different situations of digital role play named “Skillgym”: one mimics a sales made by phone, and the other replicates a face-to-face meeting. People who used the simulator were the 34% of the sample. First, we compared the average score in the simulator at the beginning and at the end of the training period, and we observed an increase from 19% to 47% of the maximum score for the phone sales simulation, and from 30% to 71% for the face-to-face simulation. This score represents the confidence of the user, i.e. his ability to face the virtual interview like as routine task without too much stress and with a clear process in mind. This data demonstrate that the trainees actually improved their virtual sales confidence by using the digital role play. Then, we compared the evolution of real-life result of these people with the ones who did not use the simulator: we observed that the group using the simulator managed to conclude a customer meeting with a quote the 76.8% of the times, while the other group did it only the 50.5% of the times, with a difference of 26.3 percentage points. About the actual selling, the group using the simulator performed an 8.4 percentage points advantage compared to the other ones (26.7% vs 18.3%). Moreover, after the deploy of the “Skillgym” simulations, the development of gross sales in the whole company shown an average increase of 17%, but the increase of the ones of the regular users of the simulator was 42% (this evaluation is based on the performance of 1150 people). Even if this is only a preliminary evaluation, even considering some possible biases in the data shown we believe that the use of a digital role play can actually improve the salespeople confidence in proposing a quote to the customer with higher confidence and courage, since this methodology lets them to “train by doing” in a virtual environment specifically designed to challenge and improve the same skills that will be used in real life.

Keywords:

Tutoring and Coaching, Learning and Teaching Methodologies, Blended Learning, Lifelong Learning, Next Generation Classroom, Online/Virtual Laboratories.