Interactive staff training video... what do you think?

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JoLee

JoLee

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Apr 8, 2019
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  • #1
    Hi everyone,

    I am looking to stat an interactive video production business, and the business will specialise in producing staff training video for retail (e.g. sales assistants) etc. It aims to help new staff to start off at their position. While watching you can make choices on screen and you will learn from it.

    What do you guys think about this video? Any feedback will be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks.
     
    WaveJumper

    WaveJumper

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  • #2
    Welcome to the forum, whilst not a new idea the more training some shop staff get the better. Will you be aiming at the one man private retailers, or trying to sell onto the larger chains on our high streets the later maybe a bit more difficult as you will have to get in at head office level
     
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    JoLee

    JoLee

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  • #3
    WaveJumper said:
    Welcome to the forum, whilst not a new idea the more training some shop staff get the better. Will you be aiming at the one man private retailers, or trying to sell onto the larger chains on our high streets the later maybe a bit more difficult as you will have to get in at head office level
    Click to expand...

    Hi WaveJumper,

    Thank you for your feedback. I think the ‘new’ element in this business is the interactivity. I am in retail and peeps around me feel like either the company is not providing enough training for them to start confidently or the training videos are very boring. I am hoping interactivity, making it more like a game than a work training, will help. Let me know if I am wrong.

    Our end goal is to work with chains because they have higher staff turn over rate and will find a training video more cost-effective. But I totally agree with you - they are harder to reach, so we are planning to start with small retailers, small food places and charity shops.

    Thanks again.
     
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    WaveJumper

    WaveJumper

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  • #4
    JOLee totally agree it seems as time's get tough the first thing retailers cut apart from staff numbers is training. The easier it is to roll out a system / program the better, the more 'fun' and interactive the better too. Just one more thought don't rely on the major chains having access to the internet in my experience most do not an example in one Shopping Centre I have worked with out of 126 stores only two were able to access internet, some never even had a PC.
     
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    fisicx

    fisicx

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  • #5
    JoLee said:
    Our end goal is to work with chains because they have higher staff turn over rate and will find a training video more cost-effective.
    Click to expand...
    Chains have their own in house resources. If they need a video they will do it themselves.

    JoLee said:
    ...so we are planning to start with small retailers, small food places and charity shops.
    Click to expand...
    Who probably don't have the budget to pay for your videos.
     
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    A

    acrobat

  • #6
    This is a good idea and something that larger businesses will pay for, however there are many companies (UK and worldwide) that offer this type of service along with other training content as well as some DIY services for the smaller/in-house training teams. So you might struggle with this as your sole product but as a start to a larger complimentary service offering its certainly an interesting field to get into. Also don't underestimate the difficulty of B2B sales when dealing with large and enterprise organisations as its often about who you know that gets the sales so start building up your linkedin connections!
     
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    paulears

    paulears

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  • #7
    They don't always do it themselves - we've done some work for a major coffee shop this year - intended for managers who have to look after trainees and apprentices. Sort of what to do videos. What kind of interactivity are you thinking. My experience is that many of the people using these things are not very IT minded, don't really like computers and find even the simplest ones difficult. I'm surprised how how low we have to set the level with very clear and simple objectives. It's also difficult to make money with businesses that have chains of command - so you get a yes, move on, then get a review request when some of the content supplied is replaced, or simply wrong, so you go back reviewing and replacing quite a lot. As an example, every instance of 'qualification' had to be replaced with a different word, because it was decided that to use this term conferred status it didn't really have (on a CV, for example). Everybody I met called the process a qualification, but Head Office suddenly changed it. Will your interactivity be confirmation of the right choices? Sounds like it could work fine, if you can make pricing work.
     
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    JoLee

    JoLee

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  • #8
    fisicx said:
    Chains have their own in house resources. If they need a video they will do it themselves.


    Who probably don't have the budget to pay for your videos.
    Click to expand...

    Hi Fisicx,

    Thanks for your feedback! I believe that every brand has their own in-house team that will do training videos and also external promotion materials. However if we could develop something decent that is all set in place and all we have to do is to go and film it, I think it will be more cost-effective for them to get us to produce the video rather than asking their own in-house team to develop the technique all over again.

    As of with small businesses, totally agree with you. Our plan now is to create prototypes with charity shops for free so we will have something to showcase to bigger clients. Would love to get your ideas again.

    Thank you again.
     
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    JoLee

    JoLee

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  • #9
    acrobat said:
    This is a good idea and something that larger businesses will pay for, however there are many companies (UK and worldwide) that offer this type of service along with other training content as well as some DIY services for the smaller/in-house training teams. So you might struggle with this as your sole product but as a start to a larger complimentary service offering its certainly an interesting field to get into. Also don't underestimate the difficulty of B2B sales when dealing with large and enterprise organisations as its often about who you know that gets the sales so start building up your linkedin connections!
    Click to expand...

    Hi Acrobat,

    Thanks for your comment. Super insightful. When you say there are many companies doing it, do you mean generally training videos or specific interactive training videos? 'Cause so far our research has pointed us to believe that there is very little interactive training video production based in the UK. There are some from the States and Australia, but not seem to be here, please correct me if I am wrong.

    Yeah I agree with you - B2B could be quite a pain and especially if we want to work with bigger chains. We are looking to start Twitter ASAP where we believe we will be able to build connections. Also Linkedin is such a good idea! Thank you so much for this.
     
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    JoLee

    JoLee

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    Apr 8, 2019
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  • #10
    paulears said:
    They don't always do it themselves - we've done some work for a major coffee shop this year - intended for managers who have to look after trainees and apprentices. Sort of what to do videos. What kind of interactivity are you thinking. My experience is that many of the people using these things are not very IT minded, don't really like computers and find even the simplest ones difficult. I'm surprised how how low we have to set the level with very clear and simple objectives. It's also difficult to make money with businesses that have chains of command - so you get a yes, move on, then get a review request when some of the content supplied is replaced, or simply wrong, so you go back reviewing and replacing quite a lot. As an example, every instance of 'qualification' had to be replaced with a different word, because it was decided that to use this term conferred status it didn't really have (on a CV, for example). Everybody I met called the process a qualification, but Head Office suddenly changed it. Will your interactivity be confirmation of the right choices? Sounds like it could work fine, if you can make pricing work.
    Click to expand...

    Hi Paulears,

    Thank you for your feedback, incredibly helpful info here. How did you get the project with the coffee shop if you don't mind me asking? Needing some help in terms of getting clients in the future.

    We are thinking hotspots on videos that will allow watchers to make choices, and that will lead to a different ending. Think Bandersnatch. And yes they will know if they've made the right choice, 'cause ultimately we want to let staff members know what to do in that scenario. We think this sounds simple enough to not very IT-minded people - what you think?

    I am struggling to understand the chain commands part of your comment. Do you mean we might need to go change the video content a lot just because of the wordings? If yes then true we are anticipating that and when we do produce a video with big companies we are planning to give them maybe just one single time to go through the video, give comments and we will make the changes accordingly, but there is just one chance. After that if further changes need to be made we will charge more. This is a practice that I learnt from a freelance video producer that I have worked with before, I think this practice is quite fair. Please let me know what you think, greatly appreciated.
     
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    JoLee

    JoLee

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    Apr 8, 2019
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  • #11
    WaveJumper said:
    JOLee totally agree it seems as time's get tough the first thing retailers cut apart from staff numbers is training. The easier it is to roll out a system / program the better, the more 'fun' and interactive the better too. Just one more thought don't rely on the major chains having access to the internet in my experience most do not an example in one Shopping Centre I have worked with out of 126 stores only two were able to access internet, some never even had a PC.
    Click to expand...

    Hi WaveJumper,

    Thank you for your reply. Yes and the less training employees get the more difficult it is for them to do their job, which will then affect the company's reputation and customer service quality. It is a vicious cycle really.

    I think rather than asking them to watch in the shop the videos will be given to staff before they work their shift. This maybe a good way to overcome the internet issue?

    Thanks again for your feedback.
     
    Upvote 0
    A

    acrobat

  • #12
    JoLee said:
    Hi Acrobat,

    Thanks for your comment. Super insightful. When you say there are many companies doing it, do you mean generally training videos or specific interactive training videos? 'Cause so far our research has pointed us to believe that there is very little interactive training video production based in the UK. There are some from the States and Australia, but not seem to be here, please correct me if I am wrong.

    Yeah I agree with you - B2B could be quite a pain and especially if we want to work with bigger chains. We are looking to start Twitter ASAP where we believe we will be able to build connections. Also Linkedin is such a good idea! Thank you so much for this.
    Click to expand...

    Hi JoLee

    I assumed by interactive videos you mean something like this raptmedia com/customers/deloitte right? (sorry I can't post links so I've mangled the urls a bit hopefully you can figure them out) There are many elearning companies in the UK and many of them offer the same or similar type services as part of their overall package so that's worth keeping in mind.

    Also as nice as video is, you're still up against "normal" elearning content such as this example used to teach new charity fundraisers spongeukweb.azurewebsites net/pfra-demo/#/id/co-05 (because you mentioned charities in another post) so that's competition too. In general a course like that will be cheaper and quicker to create or update compared to video.

    I think this a good market and hopefully will become even more exciting with many companies already starting into VR and AR (check out some of the HoloLens training demo videos), so there's lots of interest in interactive visual learning of all kinds.

    Also I don't know your B2B experience level but with the bigger companies you can see a lot of bureaucracy at every step of the process which means the time from starting a simple project to actual pay out could be months/year so keeping an eye on cashflow is key.
     
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    C

    CommWave

    Free Member
    Mar 25, 2019
    56
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  • #13
    JoLee said:
    Hi everyone,

    I am looking to stat an interactive video production business, and the business will specialise in producing staff training video for retail (e.g. sales assistants) etc. It aims to help new staff to start off at their position. While watching you can make choices on screen and you will learn from it.

    What do you guys think about this video? Any feedback will be greatly appreciated!

    Thanks.
    Click to expand...
    Do a search for H5P I think you will find it interesting.
     
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