Create an Onboarding Experience Inspired By The eCommerce Industry

This was originally published on elearningindustry.com on February 12, 2019.

How The eCommerce Industry Can Inspire Onboarding Experiences

Capturing a new employee’s attention during the onboarding process can be a difficult endeavor. Starting a new job bombards them with a ton of information to process, and you don’t want their bandwidth to falter when it comes to the important stuff. When it’s time for a new employee to learn and apply company policies and procedures, it’s a good idea to learn from the tried-and-true advertising strategies developed by the heavy hitters in the eCommerce sector. They’re masters of using a combination of online versatility and marketing techniques to train their new customers on how to use their product while they’re selling it to them. It’s a tricky concept to master, but the foundations of this approach are all around us today.

Employee Onboarding Experience

Customer experience has always been an important aspect of commerce. More recently, companies have started placing a focus on creating a better employee onboarding experience. An experience for a customer or an employee includes every moment between the beginning and end of a customer journey. By paying attention to these moments, and the result they have on the individual, you can create an experience that reinforces the values your brand holds.

Leaders in the eCommerce industry have become masters in creating engaging, positive, and seamless experiences for their users. Modern brands go to great lengths to ensure users know how to navigate their website, receive value as they explore new content, and know their purpose as they move through their journey. Squarespace, for instance, guides the user through gently through the process of creating a site, paying attention to each detail to ensure the highly-complicated process is as easy to understand as possible. This same kind of care can, and should, be applied to onboarding an employee. Every moment of every course should be considered. Questions should be asked like “Does the employee understand the purpose of the exercise?”, “Do they know where to go next?”, and “Does this moment surprise and delight the user?”. By creating an onboarding experience as seamless as the best eCommerce experiences, employees will learn more about and become more dedicated to your organization.

Personalization

Personalization has also become an essential aspect of the eCommerce industry. Take the streaming giant Netflix, for example. The more Netflix knows about you, the more it can cater its content to your interests. YouTube, Amazon, Facebook and more also work tirelessly to ensure their digital experiences are personalized to their consumers. Appcues.com does an excellent job at explaining how personalization plays an essential part in Etsy’s customer onboarding experience by suggesting you save items and pointing out “Editor Picks” that match your tastes.

eLearning courses can use personalization to create better experiences for employees as well. According to eLearningIndustry.com, personalized eLearning is important in part because each individual learns in a different way. They suggest personalizing elearning experiences by talking to users by name, letting users personalize their learning environment, and by organizing content in ways that reflect users’ goals and preferences at the same time another blog also offers insights into courseware personalization. Find ways to create an experience that’s unique to your employees’ needs and personalize their content like the eCommerce sites you’ve come to enjoy.

Branding

Branding, as well, is a tentpole of the eCommerce industry. A brand includes all the values, characteristics, aspects, and choices that comprise an organization. By controlling your brand, you control an important part of your customers’ and employees’ experiences. Allowing your brand to be present throughout your content helps users learn what your organization stands for. This practice is just as important for eCommerce customers as it is for your new employees. Many ways exist to create branded eLearning courses. Products, like Storyline, that let you customize your content, and agencies that build custom courses for you mean branding the onboarding experience is possible for any organization.

With all these resources available, you are in control of your new employees’ onboarding experience. You can personalize their courses to meet their needs and make sure your content reflects your brand’s values and vision. Think of the brands you resonate with most, ask yourself why that is, and how they’ve created a compelling story, then use those same techniques as you teach your workforce what it means to be a part of your organization.R