Cisco Systems, inc.

Cisco’s Use of the Knowledge Guru platform won a Gold Brandon Hall Excellence in Technology award for “Best Advance in Sales Training Online Application”

Cisco added Knowledge Guru to their Cisco Sales Associate Training Program (CSAP) based on feedback that new sales professionals needed greater support in mastering and retaining Cisco’s technical content. They also wanted the curriculum to be more engaging. Cisco wanted to see if Knowledge Guru’s platform could provide the reinforcement that their sales team needed to master the content while also providing sufficient learner engagement.

 Based on learner satisfaction ratings, Cisco expanded Knowledge Guru usage further to include a game for most modules in the curriculum.

“We use the Knowledge Guru platform across several modules in our Cisco Sales Associate Program. Before they can work with customers, new associates must obtain a deep knowledge of our architectures and technologies. Knowledge Guru is essential to reinforcing this technical knowledge, and participants have rated Knowledge Guru highly as a learning tool that helped them achieve their certification. Most importantly, the spaced repetition built in to Knowledge Guru is critical to helping new associates retain this foundational knowledge when they begin working with customers.”

Marsha Connor
Senior Manager, Business Developer
Cisco Systems, inc.

Post-training evaluations revealed high learner satisfaction with Guru’s use. Sales associates rated the games a 4.93 out of 5 in their value as a learning experience. They rated the repetition in the game a 4.93 out of 5 in terms of the games’ effectiveness in supporting their long-term retention of the content.

Most importantly, the games are driving true retention of the content. For example, Cisco’s learning objectives in the “CSAP-Mobility” Guru game were met at an average rate of 87% per objective across all users.

Cisco uses Knowledge Guru games with their sales teams around the world and the experience scores equally well in all regions and cultures – Europe, Middle East, India, China, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, North and South America.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson has more than 275 operating companies, employing approximately 128,700 people. The Talent Acquisition organization of Johnson & Johnson used Knowledge Guru as part of a 5-week training program to teach a crucial process and drive efficiency and consistency for Talent Acquisition associates.

Because process is crucial for Talent Acquisition at J&J, the Knowledge Guru was used to both increase adoption of the four-step process across the organization and build a sense of camaraderie through a fun, informal approach to learning.

“The Knowledge Guru platform helped us identify improvement opportunities and implement training that reinforces key topic areas. As a result, managers are now regularly auditing their team’s work. Most importantly, Talent Acquisition managers have observed significant improvements in their teams’ performance since the rollout of the Knowledge Guru program.”

Kristen Pela
Manager, Training & Communications, Talent Acquisition
Johnson & Johnson

Participants completed the game’s 12 learning objectives with an 84% success rate. While knowledge transfer was overall strong, one learning objective only had a 72% success rate. This helped J&J find a knowledge gap, and the process step was reinforced through additional training.

 70% of survey respondents said they liked the Talent Acquisition Guru game the best out of the other learning types offered in the program. The game was the most popular element.

Quotes from participants:

“It helped me streamline my process.  I was able to incorporate the technology better into my day-to-day job.”

“Not second guessing myself. The training made me aware that I know the process and steps very well. I don’t need to second guess myself.”

“The technology piece was very all encompassing so the reinforcement was
 critical. Proper procedures were particularly helpful in employees’ day-to-day.”

The approach as a whole has provided J&J with a cost-effective way to teach and reinforce processes and procedures. Knowledge Guru has now been integrated across the global Talent Acquisition organization. The games are used to support change management efforts around the most critical processes.

ExactTarget Marketing Cloud

ExactTarget’s use of the Knowledge Guru platform won a Bronze Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning award for “Best Use of Games and Simulations for Learning”

ExactTarget Marketing Cloud’s sales reps, support team, resellers, and partners played the game to gain mastery over mobile terminology and product features and benefits – mastery that is critical to effectively selling and supporting a product. The game reinforced other rollout efforts and provided a “just before launch” reinforcement. Players loved the experience.

“We are continually looking at ways to innovate on our learning initiatives. The Knowledge Guru was a fun and new way for us to reinforce the training we needed to do with the launch of our new product. Our clients loved it!”

Scott Thomas
Director, Product Enablement
ExactTarget

Most importantly, ExactTarget’s use of Knowledge Guru drove significant business results for the organization:

  • Significantly increased average contract value of products sold.
  • Significantly decreased number of support calls, resulting in major savings.
  • Built quickest pipeline for product compared to previous launches in the past two years.
  • Case study of business results featured in Learning Solutions magazine.
  • The project went on to win a 2014 Brandon Hall Award.

Protect-A-Bed

Protect-A-Bed is the worldwide leader in mattress protection and innovation. They used Knowledge Guru to help accounts learn the differences in products and to help train and motivate salespeople to learn more about the products. They have also used Guru internally to help the Training Team learn about new training techniques and procedures.

“Knowledge Guru is super easy to use and has been a great tool for both internal and external training. We are happy to partner with them to supplement our training methods and tools.”

Miguel Marrero
National Training Manager
Protect-A-Bed

Protect-A-Bed uses Knowledge Guru’s reporting functionality to make their product knowledge training more effective. In one instance, Miguel’s team was able to use the reports to identify a specific question being missed and tweak their presentations to make sure they highlighted the knowledge gap. Future results showed that people were more likely to get the question right.

Dow Agrosciences

Dow Agroscience’s use of Knowledge Guru won a Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning award and two bronze Horizon Interactive Awards: one for training/elearning and another for websites/games

Dow AgroSciences uses Knowledge Guru to train sales reps in preparation for multiple product launches. These implementations have won awards such as a Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning award and a Horizon Interactive Award.

“This was our first attempt at incorporating a Knowledge Guru game as a learning tool, and extremely positive responses from sales reps have encouraged us to develop similar games for other projects. One of our seasoned subject matter experts who reviewed the game indicated the game was lots of fun and would be a good tool for our reps. The sales reps used the game to test their knowledge about the product before launch, and the game contributed to a very successful launch.”

Kevin Steffey
Global Technology Transfer Leader for Insect Management
Dow AgroSciences

Fortune 500 Financial Company

A Fortune 500 Financial Services Company (COMPANY) launched Knowledge Guru to aid in its loss prevention efforts and teach call center agents a critical process. Agents needed to know what they were able to do from a regulatory compliance standpoint… and COMPANY needed to analyze the process itself and identify improvement opportunities. Because of the importance of loss prevention, COMPANY needed a solution that would engage learners, get their attention, and motivate them to learn and apply the process.

The platform was highly regarded by managers and stakeholders:

“The Knowledge Guru game was a new creative way to teach or enhance agents’ (process) skills. The agents were able to play the game in short time periods which is great for a production based environment. The agents enjoyed the game and were excited to compete against their peers. The game made teaching, training and testing easy and effective for management. The experience was enjoyable for all involved and highly effective!”

COMPANY Operating Manager
Jacksonville, Florida

The platform’s instructional design format enabled COMPANY to identify areas of its policy that needed additional clarification and refinement from a compliance & legal standpoint. It helped COMPANY identify a specific process area that, while highly effective, had not been widely taught. The game has been part of a larger effort that has resulted in a more efficient, effective loss prevention process at COMPANY.

Participants completed the game’s 13 learning objectives with an 82% success rate… and reports showing learning objectives with a lower success rate helped COMPANY identify areas to emphasize in subsequent training.
Players responded well to the game, too. 99% of survey respondents in COMPANY’s Texas audience said that the Knowledge Guru game will be valuable to them on the job.

“The game was an exciting interactive experience. The fun animation made it not feel like the typical required learning courses that we sometime come across, but more so a fun and fiercely competitive event and to top it off you’re learning without the effort. Not only are you learning, but I’ve retained a lot of what I learned especially (specific process step). I think the thing that stands out the most regarding the game is being recognized by your colleagues on a more intimate level within your office, but also being recognized by upper management and the entire company. I wasn’t expecting that. Hats off to whomever came up with the game and those who introduced it to all of us.”

Marquita – Grand Prize Winner
COMPANY Agent

COMPANY’s Knowledge Guru game was the first use of gaming as a learning strategy in the company’s history. Using the Knowledge Guru was a learning experience that paved the way for future use of games and other engaging learning formats across COMPANY’s loss prevention business. Knowledge Guru is now integrated in new hire training at COMPANY.

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