How Chatbots Could Be The Future Of Corporate Learning

Chatbots are not just a buzzword already. Today more and more enterprises implement the technology to cover different needs or are going to do that in the nearest future:

• Over 50% of companies are going to spend more per annum on the development of chatbots than traditional mobile app creation;
• 56% of enterprises report that conversational bots drive disruption in their industry;
• 57% of businesses say that implemented chatbot delivers a large ROI with minimal investment. 

Since the pandemic and lockdown, remote work and elearning have become the new norm. That drives the companies to think over the different ways to reskill and upskill their employees. This is where chatbots can be pretty useful and can improve the corporate learning process.

Ways Chatbots Can Help Corporate L&D 

According to the survey, 50% of employees believe that a successful career depends on frequently updating their knowledge and skills. Thus, it is crucial to choose the right learning platform that incorporates not only different features, analytics capabilities, customizable reporting but sophisticated chatbots as well. Below we outlined the ways chatbots can help corporate learning and development (L&D) for your company.

New Employee Onboarding and Training

Due to the survey results, 58% of new employees who had a structured onboarding program are more likely to remain with the brand after 3 years. Yet, onboarding is still a challenging process for both newcomers and companies.

There is a ton of information the newbie needs to learn and understand like company culture, procedures, significant dates, practices, the completion of documentation, rules, and so on. In its turn, the organization is to structure and timely provide the newbie with all that information.

L&D chatbots can help both companies and newcomers by structuring and simplifying overall onboarding and training processes. It’s because they:

• Help newbies get acquainted with the company and its culture/rules;
• Gather required information from the new employee to personalize the training;
• Walk new workers through the onboarding process and post-onboarding survey;
• Provide instant access to mundane questions;
• Notify newcomers about certain events, changes, and many more.

Providing a Continuous Learning Process

Implementing L&D chatbots, you provide your employees with around-the-clock access to the company’s learning materials and assets so that training can move into the workflow. The technology can be used as a personal tutor/mentor, personalized support, and so on.

L&D chatbots:

• Provide instant access to the learning content and expert knowledge;
• Give advice all the time;
• Suggest the relevant materials when it’s needed, etc.

Increasing Employee Engagement

Do you know that only about 30% of employees are engaged in their work? That leads to high turnover and increased costs. Chatbots can help you in providing consistent engagement and giving your workers a voice. Chatbots perform assessments, process inquiries in real-time, accelerate and personalize the learning process, analyze the conversations, suggest various learning assets, provide useful information to level up the knowledge in different areas, etc., eliminating the time and effort needed to perform such tasks manually. Thus, your employees get enough communication, feel cared for, and improve their skills.

Testing and Quizzes 

Chatbots also ensure unsupervised learning. Due to the ability of AI-based chatbots to track the employee/learners’ progress, bots can:

• Suggest the best course of action;
• Remind learners about the modules to compete;
• Recommend content most relevant to employees to improve results;
• Conduct different tests and quizzes.

What’s more, modern learning platforms can even check and give a grade to all the modules. All the information can be found in the detailed reports. And all that is made automatically.

Adding New Concepts To Old Material

L&D chatbots gather and analyze the data on learner performance, predicting good/bad outcomes of the course. That enables adjusting the course content depending on the individual level of each learner/employee. For example, replacing more complex parts with simpler ones for every employee to learn at his/her own personal pace. Also, the technology can keep the course content relevant and up-to-date. With a chatbot extending the conversation, new concepts can be added to the learning process and delivered weeks/months after the classroom experience is complete.

Chatbot As A Mentor For Senior Managers

Leadership skills are highly important in any organization. One more strong feature of AI chatbots is that they provide you with powerful, accurate, and robust analytics. That helps you in identifying traits that might make someone a suitable future leader. Once identified, the employees can get all the needed materials to improve such skills.

Goal Tracking

Another way to use L&D chatbots is goal tracking. The technology can analyze the goals and track their achievement as soon as you assign the candidate to the project. Besides that, chatbots analyze employee skill sets to provide feedback and advice on improving performance to achieve the objectives. Detailed reports give managers an overall picture of the growth and development of the employee.

Gathering and Analyzing ROI Data

When done manually, performance reviews are incredibly time-consuming. Using L&D chatbots, you can save a lot of time and get accurate performance reviews. AI-powered chatbots provide analytics that can:

• Assess the time spent on solving the test;
• The number of attempts taken to pass the test, and other ROI-related factors.

That is helpful for evaluating the employee’s progress, identifying the best ways to improve the content, and so on. Moreover, all the gathered and analyzed data can be used to make informed decisions for building more efficient processes and boosting the company’s efficiency and business agility.

Final Thoughts

With so many employees working remotely, it’s become a true challenge to track the workers’ performance and engagement. Yet, L&D chatbots can help you with that by:

• Gathering and processing a lot of data;
• Guiding the employees through the onboarding and training initiatives without staff intervention;
• Being available 24/7. They provide your employees with needed information and/or help, wherever they are and no matter the time zone.

Thus, chatbots can help you not only upskill the employees but increase the efficiency of the company, better retain employees, and reduce costs.

Alexey Kutsenko is CMO at DDI Development, which provides custom web & development services to clients worldwide. Alexey has vast experience in building marketing strategies for various clients, defining the client’s needs, and leading digital marketing strategies in the company.