Proposal: Virtual Training Buddy for Service Skills Improvement in Retail and Food Service
Context:
The Challenge Owner is looking for a solution that can act like a virtual training buddy for service staff in the retail and F&B sectors, and that can also be customized to different companies’ specific brand philosophy, service principles, customers and service situations. The solution could become a useful tool for onboarding new staff and a self-help tool for staff to track their learning progress and improve their service delivery. If proven successful, the solution could potentially replace or supplement the Challenge Owner’s in-person training in future implementations with the following criteria:
- On-demand training platform
- Customizable according to companies service principles
- Gamified learning methods and progress tracking
- Feedback, reporting and collaborative peer learning
- Rewards mechanism and certification
- Dashboard
- Smart insights
Problem Statement
How might we provide a virtual training buddy for on-demand service training for food and retail service sector staff that can equip and enable them to continually improve their service delivery performance?
Due to a lack of budget and manpower capacity, most companies in the retail and food and beverage (F&B) sectors do not provide a structured training program for service staff, and staff either receive minimal training (e.g. one day of training) or are expected to learn on the job. While some companies have a mentoring/buddy system in place, the assigned “buddies” are often not well-trained or equipped to train new hires. The unstructured ad-hoc training, compounded by time pressures in the fast-paced retail/F&B environments, affects the training effectiveness and leads to uneven service delivery across the company.
Even for staff who have gone through the Challenge Owner’s service training program, it is difficult for the company to follow up with the staff to track their progress and assess whether their competency in service delivery improves over time. In the absence of a digital format of the service
playbooks, it is difficult for most staff to use hardcopies of the playbooks because of practical usability reasons.
The Challenge Owner has observed that while service principles differ among companies, the main challenges faced by companies are common sector-wide across retail and F&B. Hence, there is an opportunity to create a digital version of the foundational service training program that is applicable to the service sector. This program can also be customized by respective companies’ by having an option to update it with their existing service principles, customer persona and service situations.
Targeted Users
- Primary and Secondary targeted learners/ users of the envisaged solution (including estimated numerical figures)
- Estimated 140,000 frontline service staff from the retail and food sectors, with entry-level part-time and full-time staff as the largest target group.
Implementation Plan
Gametize is a highly intuitive and an easy-to-implement solution. Whether you are curating fresh content or adapting existing programs, Gametize is able to support your efforts with no coding knowledge needed. You are able to choose a variety of challenges and introduce a simple storyline.
In this prototype, we have picked coffee making as an example of how a virtual buddy can help you learn how to make coffee.
- Improved staff performance: Trainees should show an improvement in on-the-ground service delivery over time, as measured through surveys of customers, peers and management.
- User engagement rates: The number of trainees using the solution daily and the frequency of user engagement should increase over time.
- User satisfaction: Trainees and companies will be surveyed on their level of satisfaction with the solution, which should increase over time.
Potential Benefits
- Increased engagement: By incorporating game elements such as challenges, rewards, and feedback mechanisms using Gametize, it can help to motivate and engage our young learners to thrive in this gamified learning environment
- Drive and Anchor Learning: Creating a relatable and fun learning journey to make learning of skills enjoyable and interesting, which supports the retention and application of knowledge
- Behavior change: By providing rewards and recognition that encourages positive behaviour and actions, it helps to encourage learners to apply the skills they have acquired and take a proactive approach to managing the “self”
- Social impact: Equipping our young learners with the requisite skills to be functioning, supports their personal growth, provides them with an opportunity to integrate into mainstream society and improves the quality of life.
Proposed Solution and System
Create white-label apps with simple customizations quickly on Gametize.com. The solution is hosted and managed on our server and database (powered by Amazon Web Services), minimizing overheads.
The use of Gametize Gamification Strategy – Using the 6D Playbook. Gametize firmly believes in a test-driven approach and thorough and structured design-thinking processes. You can learn more about Gametize 6D Playbook.
About Gametize
Gametize is the world’s simplest enterprise-grade gamification platform for community engagement and advocacy. Clients use Gametize to motivate target behaviors, such as employee training/ performance management or consumer marketing/ sales advocacy. The highly customizable and versatile solution is available on both cloud and on-premises. Gametize is proud to be one of eight winning solutions to be piloted in the Jurong Lake District (JLD) to lead the way in urban sustainability at the recent Innovation Challenge, organized by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) – See for the press release.