CUSTOMER CHALLENGES:

Operating in the retail industry brings with it many challenges. High turnover is consistently an issue and the National Retail Federation reports that the average turnover rate in the retail industry is over 60%, compared to 15% for all industries in the United States.

“Just being in retail, turnover was a big challenge for us,” says Michael Cioffi, Senior Manager, Talent and Development at WOW! Mobile Boutique.

To tackle this challenge, the employee onboarding process was reviewed and the team found that, while new hires wanted to take courses and managers were following up on their progress, the existing system was failing to support this effectively.

“The learning system prior to Docebo was creating an environment where Learning Paths were not intuitive, search functionality was cumbersome, access from employees was sporadic and reporting was extremely difficult to execute.”

“How do we validate that certain people have completed a course, whether it’s compliance training or development training? Keeping our finger on the pulse, as to who was completing what, was also a challenge for us.”

WOW! Mobile’s kiosk locations also means sales associates don’t have a typical, office-based work environment to complete training, so a mobile-enabled solution is necessary.

“We are a kiosk environment so a lot of it’s done on mobile, just on the go. Everyone’s got a phone on them, so having a platform that just didn’t enable that was really difficult for us.”

SOLUTION:

A modern, mobile-accessible, and easy-to-use learning platform (for both learners and admins) was needed to revamp the onboarding and ongoing development programs.

On top of these necessary capabilities, it was also critical to partner with a solution provider that would help guide their ongoing efforts.

“Obviously there are a lot of LMS providers out there, but it was important for us to not just partner with a company that gave us an LMS out of the box, but somebody that would dedicate time with us on a weekly basis to chat through our visions and plans to grow this out, and then continue to stick around with us.”

Docebo was selected for both its functionality and the access WOW! Mobile would gain to its Customer Success team, which is dedicated to helping customers get the most out of their platform and continuing to provide tailored support.

One of the first steps for WOW! Mobile was to reinforce its brand throughout the onboarding experience, so the team white-labelled their platform with its logo and corporate branding to create a familiar experience from the get-go.

Some of the other platform capabilities the team leveraged were Channels and Learning Plans.

With Channels, users can quickly access content organized by different categories. Employees log in and find the information they need on a particular product or use it for sales enablement to understand how to pitch certain products or services better. This already has led to a 30% reduction in transactional errors.

The platform now enables admins to set up Learning Plans, which contain a specific set of courses that new employees can be assigned and go through in a set order to get up to speed efficiently. Easy-to-find New Hire Daily Requirements are also used to guide new employees throughout their onboarding.

Employees now also have support at their fingertips. By using the Docebo Notification application in combination with a third-party support ticketing system, employees are notified when a query to the support team has been answered.

On top of all this was the importance of ensuring that access to the platform on mobile devices was as seamless as possible. Docebo’s native mobile app, Go.Learn, is optimized for iOS and Android devices and has enabled WOW! Mobile’s employees to easily search resources, attend courses, and complete training materials, whenever and wherever they are.

RESULTS:

Since deploying the new onboarding initiative on the Docebo Learning Platform, WOW! Mobile has seen significant improvements in employee performance, including:

  • 300+% increase in employee engagement.
  • Turnover in the onboarding phase has decreased.
  • 30% reduction in transactional errors.

“What we saw prior to coming into this venture was that turnover was killing us and so I looked at what was within the learning department’s control,” says Cioffi.

“So when we hear that our partners are quizzing our staff on new products and we get overwhelming feedback that they’re aware of what’s changed, what’s coming down the pipeline, and what to offer customers, that’s a pretty good feeling.”

WOW! Mobile’s employee development initiatives have now been brought to the forefront of its retail space and leveraged in its employment branding. By addressing the issues contributing to turnover, employee retention has been positively impacted because staff now have relevant, easy-to-find content, accessible at their time of need.

The impressive success so far has built a steady foundation for WOW! Mobile to continue building upon. Looking to the future, Cioffi says it will be integral to include their employees as much as possible in the learning process and keep delivering what best reflects their needs.

“One of the things that really sets us apart is that we just want to develop our people the best we can within the organization or for whatever their future endeavors are.”

“We’re taking feedback from the learners as to what kind of content they are looking for and integrating those into our platform to make sure our people feel like they’re inspired, they’re growing, and they’re returning home at the end of the day and they feel good.”