If your company needs to train a defined group of employees who perform a specific function – retail salespeople, automotive service writers, front-desk hotel employees, food handlers – it is tempting to hire a training company that has a program that is ready to go. You call the company, find out what the training costs, set up a room and let that training company deliver its course to your employees.

That approach has its advantages. You don’t have to invest your staff’s time to develop custom training. You don’t have to hire eLearning designers and developers. You just unlock the door to your training room and let it all happen.

The problem is that after the training is done, you could discover that it failed to meet your needs, for reasons like these:

• It taught skills that your employees really don’t use or need.
• Conversely, it failed to teach specific skills that your employees actually do need.
• The trainer the company sent had no personal experience doing the kind of work your employees do. Your leaners therefore didn’t feel they could learn anything from him or her.
• Now that the training is finished, you have no way to deliver it again to more employees without hiring the training company again.
• You were only able to train employees in one location. To present the same training to employees who work in your field offices or other regions, you will have to hire the training company again.
• You have no way to measure the results of the training. You just sit back and hope that your employees learned something and that their performance improved.
• The training did nothing to promote an understanding of your brand, because it was generic. Today, it could be that other employees at another company down the street are getting the same training your company’s trainees received last week.

Custom eLearning is the Solution

Of course you already knew that. But chances are you don’t want to think about creating custom eLearning courses because it will be too expensive.

To do it, you assume you will have to create a training department and staff it up with expert eLearning designers and developers. After you hire them, they won’t have enough work to do, because you only need to design training programs infrequently. So you think that despite the shortcomings of hiring that training company you used last time, you reach for the phone and hire them again. It is the simplest approach.

But there is another solution. You can hire a custom learning development company that has proven expertise in developing customized training programs. Will that be too expensive? Of course, that is a question you need to ask. But instead of operating from a position of fear about the cost, you can start discussions from a strong position. You can decide what your budget for your training is, tell the training development company “This is what we have to spend,” and see what they can do.

In many cases, you will get much more “bang for the buck” than you expected. An eLearning development company that wants your business will be motivated to deliver you as much value as possible. It wants to win your business and show you what it can do. That means you have leverage, and that you will probably get a much bigger ROI on your training dollars than you were anticipating, and more full-featured training than you would have gotten if you simply reached for the phone.

Why Custom eLearning Services Deliver a Much Greater ROI

Here are some of the reasons why . . .

• You teach employees the skills they actually need, because your eLearning development company starts by closely analyzing what your employees do and what they need to do to perform their jobs.
• You get custom training content that reinforces your brand, because it has been created specifically for you. It incorporates your logo, shows your employees and customers, and tells your company story to your trainees.
• Your training can include games, videos, quizzes, training games and other engaging content that makes it “stickier” and more effective than simply having a presenter go before your group to talk.
• Your training has trackable results, because it will be integrated with your company’s Learning Management System (LMS). You will know how many employees are taking your training, how many have completed it, how they have performed on exams that were embedded in your training, and more. And thanks to the LMS, you will be able to reinforce training concepts after the training is finished by sending your employees reminders to use what they learned, by sending out new training prompts, and more.
• You can measure the results of your training, because you and your eLearning development company built training around metrics. Instead of just opening the door of your training room and hoping something changes, you can measure the improvements that your training achieved. Did it teach your retail salespeople to increase the size of their average sale, for example? Did it reduce errors on your production line? Did it motivate your food servers to deliver the kind of customer experience that resulted in a 50% improvement in your customers’ satisfaction in surveys they fill out? The ability to measure means that you know what your training has achieved. That’s critical. You wouldn’t buy a new phone system for your company, or a new heating system, without having any idea what you are paying for. Why are you thinking about doing that with your training?

Plus, Customized Training Can Grow with You

Custom eLearning that your employees complete on smartphones and tablets can be one of the most effective ways to deliver cost-effective training that yields a high ROI for your training dollars.

There are questions to consider before you take this route to delivering your training. How many of your employees have smartphones, for example? If some of your employees don’t have them, what will it cost to buy enough tablets for them to use when completing eLearning courses? Is there excellent Wi-Fi connectivity in the company locations where you want them to train?

You and your eLearning design and development company need to ask questions like those before you commit to developing courses that will be delivered to trainees on tablets or phones. But after considering those issues, you will probably decide to consider mobile training even more seriously. It provides benefits like these:

• You can train employees who work in all your locations without incurring additional expense.
• When your company expands and adds new employees, your training program can be delivered to them repeatedly, without developing new training or spending more money.
• You can revise your existing training programs rapidly and economically, because they are “in your system.” When you need to teach your employees additional new skills, there is no need to build new training programs from the ground up.
• You can gain the ability to connect and communicate with your employees on their smartphones. You can send out reminders about what they learned in training, announce the availability of new training, and more. Enhanced communication capabilities like those are another high-value benefit that mobile training offers, at very little extra expense.

How to Keep Training Development Costs Under Control

One of the most effective ways to increase the ROI on your training is to spend less on it. That might sound like we are making a joke, but we are not. Boosting your ROI isn’t about spending more and getting more in return. It is about spending a reasonable amount and getting returns that far exceed your expectations.

How can you do that? Let us conclude this article with some actionable recommendations:

• Decide on a budget before you contact a eLearning development company like Tortal Training. See what you can get for what you have to spend. A good eLearning development company will work with you, make recommendations, and help you maximize your ROI.
• Have an idea of exactly what you want your training to achieve, and how you will measure results. Your eLearning design and development company should help you in this process, by interviewing your current employees, analyzing the systems they use, pinpointing areas that can be improved, and more.
• Ask about customizable content that could be right for your training needs. Tortal, for example, offers both custom eLearning design and development services, and Out of the Box Training Solutions that can be customized to help you reach your training objectives while controlling costs at the same time.
• Don’t forget to think about the future. Yes, your eLearning development company is helping you to design the training that you need right now. But to get much more value from working with that company, think about the future too. If you are about to expand company operations to a different state, talk about that. If you are planning to introduce a new line of products next year, don’t forget to mention that. The more you can anticipate your future training needs as you develop the eLearning you need right now, the more cost-effective your training will be.

Turn to Tortal Training for Training that Works 

Want to learn more about developing custom eLearning tools that work today and that you can expand and continue to use in the years ahead? Then it is time to speak with a Tortal Training expert. Call (704) 323-8953 today.