The Challenge
As the global leader in student employability and engagement, Symplicity is software that supports the full student experience including talent recruiting, accessibility, wellness and behavioural intervention. The solutions empower higher education clients to enhance each student’s ability to stay in university, graduate and secure their first job.
The company has grown from a local organisation to a global team with offices in Australia, London, Brazil and the U.S. This means that the product support team truly provides around-the-clock assistance to more than 2,000 colleges and universities.
The product support team has around 30 team members working at any given time, and Symplicity also has to onboard and train the entire support division, which includes implementation and client managers. With an in-house training team of five people who also own and manage specific Symplicity products, it became clear that the team needed to find an efficient way to deliver consistent training to their dispersed team across multiple different time zones.
“One of the business problems we were trying to solve was that we needed to meet agents where they are,” explained Jake Harper, Manager of Global Support Operations at Symplicity. “We needed to find a way to handle staffing and training with minimal business impact so that agents could keep serving clients. We also needed the ability to benchmark our CSAT and elevate it.” So, the team set out to find a solution to solve this challenge, and that’s when they found Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly).
Jake Harper
Manager of Global Support Operations
The Solution
When Symplicity found Seismic Learning, they decided to overhaul the onboarding process for both their in-house agents and centralised support team. Before Seismic Learning, new employees were onboarded and trained by their bosses, which took up nearly 80% of each leader’s time.
“Seismic Learning makes onboarding so much easier,” Jake touts. “Before, it was just a bunch of videos, and team members never knew if they had them in the right order – it was a maze. Now, it’s very streamlined, and it allows us to onboard staff with minimal intervention and reliance on us. It’s easy for them to access, it’s searchable and we can track where everyone is at, which is wonderful.”
In addition to providing new agents with onboarding, Symplicity also uses Seismic Learning to ramp staff and deliver training based on the product life cycle that their clients face. For example, right before a new school year starts, support agents receive training on specific platforms to prepare for the influx of questions and issues clients have as they begin a new academic year. This approach has helped the Symplicity team become a place for continuous learning.
“Before, our agents knew just enough to help clients,” shares Jake. “We’ve learned that there’s always more that our agents can understand, especially with our systems. Now, they understand the platform, are ready to solve issues and can keep up with how things are changing with the software.”
Symplicity also integrates Seismic Learning with their support request platform, Zendesk. With this integration, Jake can easily build a new lesson and bring it into the Zendesk experience so agents can find the training they need, right when they need it.
Jake Harper
Manager of Global Support Operations
The Results
Now that Symplicity uses Seismic Learning, Jake and the rest of his team can ensure everyone is up-to-date on the knowledge they need to do their job. “My favourite part is going back through completed lessons and seeing how agents answered a question or completed an assessment,” explains Jake. “Then, I can go back and coach the team manager on any gaps and how we can get the team in the right direction. It allows me to really gauge where they’re at in the learning process.”
Since using Seismic Learning, Symplicity has seen tremendous results including:
- A 5% jump in satisfaction for an average CSAT score of 99%
- Reduced onboarding time from six to three months
- Lower time-to-close with a 15% increase in one-touch tickets
When it comes to building knowledgeable, confident agents, Jake shares that Seismic Learning has been extremely beneficial, especially in onboarding new agents. “When we onboarded a new agent, we wouldn’t really see a return on investment until six months out. With Seismic Learning, our agents feel more productive and prepared to take customer interactions and make a positive impact on the team.”
Jake and the Symplicity team also have plans to introduce an agent scorecard and QA process this year. The scorecard will give agents a snapshot of their average CSAT scores, resolution times and one-touch tickets. It will also include Seismic Learning data, like overdue assignments and benchmark expectations, so they can correlate how training impacts their overall performance.
When reflecting on his experience with Seismic Learning, Jake shares a few recommendations for other organisations considering implementing a training solution of their own. “I can’t believe how fast I can get information out to my team now and ensure that they understand it. So when you’re looking at software, really look at how easy it’ll be to use from the perspective of the learner.”
That user-friendly learner experience paired with a seamless approach to training has been extremely beneficial for the Symplicity team, and Jake sees no signs of it slowing down.
“It was just so easy to deploy,” concludes Jake. “And, it was very easy to get integrated into our organisation from a systematic standpoint. Now, I only see it going further as everyone within the organisation can really see the potential.”
