Many times, managers approach e-learning with cost concerns. Fair enough...as long as you take a broad enough view. A wider perspective has to include the results you get from the money you spend. But ROI can be so difficult to measure, most of the time we just give up.

So take another approach. Sometimes a regular hammer does the trick, and it's cheap. On the other hand, a sledge hammer is only incrementally more expensive, but gets a whole lot more results.

As a case in point: in one survey, our sales learners--and their sales managers--both tell us that our courses helped them to sell 8% more product, on average. 

Now, there's no doubt that immersive e-learning costs incrementally more, but the results hit like a sledge hammer!

And you have to ask yourself: What's it worth to hit a home run with your e-learning courses? What if you spend 10 or 15 percent more, but doubled the results? No doubt that even a few points increase in sales could pay for your course...even your whole program!

So, the next time you start thinking about the cost of your e-learning programs, be really budget conscious and figure in the return on your investment, as best you can. The increased results from using avatars and simulations may be just what you need.  And even if you can't measure it directly, let us show you how to get data back from your learners that supports you in doing the best job you can do.

Most of the time, we concentrate on helping learners practice the decisions they need to be good at to succeed. Those decisions may be rooted in some kind of policy or procedure, or in many cases, they have to do with qualifying, recommending and overcoming objections in sales training.

Of course, interacting with an avatar is a really effective way to practice because we're closely simulating the real situation, in an environment where there are no penalties for mistakes.

Besides interacting with learners, we know that avatars can do a very good job of demonstrating and they can be used effectively as a coach, too. But there's one more role that we hadn't been so aware of, and that's avatar as facilitator.

Using our avatars as facilitators came into sharp focus as we were planning for an online resource that would take the place of several days of new employee training. The role of interacting so that learners could practice decision-making was greatly diminished because our learners would be new hires.

One thing about online vs. instructor led training (ILT), you can cover the same material much more quickly. Balanced against that advantage, however, you don't have the facilitator there to tell war stories or make important connections. Enter the w/ avatars!

As we looked at the content, we realized that, much like a facilitator on a leash (always enough, never too much), the avatar could intoduce and direct whenever it was required. That wasn't a big a surprise. But we were delighted when we realized that the avatar could also make cogent observations, pointing out when two plus two was more than four, anytime...heck, everytime it was appropriate. Not just a facilitator, this avatar would be insight-on-tap. Stored company wisdom-on-tap!

So just like any other conversion of ILT to online, everything could be done more quickly and directly...and we're not missing the facilitator at all!