How Modern Technology Can Guarantee Success of Your Training Course
As one knows the era of training has been around for a long time. For many years firms would contact a reputable firm, who would then provide training for their customers. These worked on the basis of word of mouth.
However with the advent of the technology notable computers, the ability to assign one’s reputation for credible training house has often fallen to the few that have the budgets to afford incorporating such technologies.
Some areas of training do not fall into this category where technology can guide the training house to the customer e.g. culinary, fishing, general labor .
However a vast majority of training houses have turned to technology in their attempt to offer courses that offer tangible results. Prior students would sit hand written tests at the end of a course and that would be good enough to verify they had passed the course. Some training houses just pass a certificate on completion of the day’s training.
Well during time accountability was sought by both firms sending their staff to courses and customers who wanted certificates that others would recognize. This is particularly the case with I.T ,customer service, and sales.
To get participants to such courses many firms from the industries teamed up with certain partners to offer courses that were certified by the industry leader. For example Microsoft created a Gold, Silver etc partner program.
The benefits of such programs would be that the training firms would get more customers to their courses as they were recognized by the industry leaders. The fees associated with such partnerships were outside the budget of small to medium sized training houses which often had to rely on other methods to keep business flowing, usually word of mouth.
What should be noted is that although these high fledge partners offered the courses such as Executrain, Learning Tree, Horizons and a host of smaller firms with (big budgets to be a partner). They did not actually allow students to sit their actual certification tests which were done with another firm.
For example for Microsoft exams , one needs to go to a Prometric center where they are charged to sit a test. On completion, they are told that they have passed or failed. The actual certification process never actually takes place in the original training center, which beg to reason why they charge such fees for their services.
So in essence going to a partner was nothing more then a paper saying that if you go to this course then you are going to one of our preferred suppliers of courses, simply because they paid the firm a big fee to become a partner. I am sure others will disagree but you only look to their backgrounds to see that they will be part of this “monopoly style” setup.
The poorer, smaller firms often lost out they did not have the money to create such associations. This often meant that by recommendation, cold calling, heavy advertising was the only key to their success.
Well with the introduction of Supercandidate software things could well change for the fortune of this sector. This lies in its technology which is easy to use and cost effective to deploy for even a one person training firm.
Technology has come a long way with the likes of the internet bringing down the operating costs of any computer setup. This is also the case when it comes to the training markets.
As earlier discussed most courses are created with no real tangible result at the training house level. This is obtained for certified courses only when you do the test at an additional cost and/or other location.
With the foray of technologies out there, the aim of the smaller training houses is to look at how technology can give them an inroad, to the same benefits of partnerships without actually becoming a partner. The answer is in “TANGIBLITY”.
Now for that, the training firm has to offer solid evidence that there is a valid end result when going to their courses, such as guaranteed passing of certification or credible tracking results as is the case of sales training completion.
How could this be realized. The following would be needed for this to work:
1) The course being taught has to have alignment to a certification which can be mimicked.
2) The company would need to have access to the internet for their students
3) The company would be willing to allow for retests to ensure credible passing.
4) The course would need to offer these tests at a price confidence level.
Let us examine these how these areas would allow you to access to more customers to your training courses.
First of all the aim is to “Guarantee” passing a certified exam. This can only be achieved if the training house is training on an area where certification exists. Under current conditions mentioned above, most training houses just provide training with respect to a few day courses and training material. The actual test takes place elsewhere.
Here, the company would utilize their own course content and set up questions which mimic the certified test. This was not possible to the majority of smaller training houses because to do so would require a lot of cost based on license fees associated with firms like Prometric. Now with Supercandidate, this problem is removed as its cost is minimal and will allow the training house to offer such tests within their own facilities.
The second reason is self explanatory as the cost associated of building something with a firm limits the resources offered by scaled products found online. With the internet in virtually every training house, this is really something they already have.
The third point really stems from the word “Guarantee”. If you recollect, earlier we described the traditional approach where a student does not actually sit any tests until the arrive at the testing firm. These testing firms are in the business to make money so they charge a fee for the test. The student will sit the test but will only be notified if they pass or fail. This is not very helpful but is a great way of making students retest, to get that retest fee.
Now if the training house could offer a guarantee that if the customer took their course, they could guarantee that the customer would pass first time, it would drive many more customers to the training house door.
This is the clever part. Remember we said that the tests need to mimic the actual exams for certification. Well once a test is built like that by the training house using simple typing skills using Supercandidate, every time a test is taken, a result is gained. Now unlike the conventional testing firm, the training house will be able to view automatically generated reports on the test. This they can relay onto the customer who can keep working on failed areas and retest, until they are 100% on the ball. With Supercandidate the reporting and testing is all automated and allows repeat tests with no additional costs.
This is how the training house can now guarantee the pass of any customer that uses their training firm.
Finally the area of costs. I think I have already explained the reason why scaling reduces costs and that utilizing cutting edge technology that is simple to use and administer is an essential ingredient to the success of the testing technique. If a training house offers guaranteed passing, they can actually increase their pricing but it is important to keep the pricing down to an area where you do not readily offer the same costing offered by the testing firm, otherwise it will not be seen as beneficial. The best approach is to take the little cost associated with the product mentioned above and offer the service for free to ensure that you have the breakthrough that you need.
Choosing such a technical tool in the information age needs to understand the benefits of the cost attachment to the customer for this added feature, which in turn brings in more revenue. Using tools like Kenexa Proveit, Adobe Captivate, Pitman or Articulate will never allow this to happen due to the hugh initial implementation costs of such tools as opposed to a product like Supercandidate (often 90% less). This is why it is very important for the smaller sized training houses to know that there is hope out there for a better product which integrates well with their business model, for a significantly lower price.
Using the method demonstrated above will clear the way for your competitiveness using the internet and related software to your advantage. No longer will the partnering of large firms with large firms remove your chance of getting the customer revenue. Remember success of your student is success of your business and this guaranteed approach using the latest the internet has to offer will bring them as repeat customers over and over again!
About the Author
A professional in the HR industry for 14 years. Having worked for large corporates such as Citi Group, Unilever, AT&T, then becoming a consultant for DVD Industries finally joing a cutting edge media firm that works with HR and the employment industry to streamline the selection process of candidates from inside and outside a firm to ensure the best fit person for a job role
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