Case Study

CRM Training for a Global Bank

Overview

A major global bank recently engaged NorwalkAberdeen to conduct end-user training for a new customer relationship management (CRM) platform they were introducing to their front office.

The Challenge

Their client’s requirements initially seemed straightforward. The would need in-person training for their front office, delivered in a three-month timeframe. Since the new platform was a hybrid of custom development and a vendor platform, and there was significant integration with other bank systems, the training needed to demonstrate a unified user experience. Finally, the front office staff needed white glove treatment, trainers that spoke their language, and a high level of access to experts.

There were, however, some special challenges that arose. First, their core training team was fully allocated to other projects and wouldn’t have bandwidth to get us up to speed. Compounding this issue, was the fact that a high level of specialized bank knowledge was required to develop and deliver the training to the client’s satisfaction. A second challenge was that the scope of the system’s initial release was in substantial flux even in the days going into the launch. Our training needed to react in real time to changes. We also learned that there was resistance to change platforms, due to their experience in earlier releases, and that we would need to help overcome this resistance.

Our Approach

Working with management, we developed a shared understanding of what success meant and set aggressive and realistic goals to achieve that success.

We soon realized that, as we could not get to every member of the team in such a short period, we would need to deliver both in-person and virtual training.

We quickly got up to speed on bank systems, data, process, and policy through documentary analysis, conducting interviews with employees in other areas of the bank and having early discussions with select members of their front office teams.

We then started with a train-the-trainer approach, as the core training team needed to learn the system and could provide valuable feedback on how best to deliver to the front office. We were conducting this training within two weeks of beginning the engagement. To reduce feedback cycle time (and to be closer to the core training team), we temporarily relocated to New York.

We conducted week-long training and onboarding sessions for the front office in Los Angeles and Miami. These sessions focused first on getting the teams up to speed as quickly as possible and also highlighting the positive impact the new platform would have on running their business. We also created recorded training courses and other ancillary materials for subsequent use by the core training team.

The Results

The initial training and onboarding sessions helped to evangelize and increase demand for the new platform among the front office teams. Where reluctance to change platforms had been present before, they were actually eager to start work on the new system.

We also met the needs of the core training team by creating lessons learned summaries and providing recommendations on how to avoid problems in future roll-outs.

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