While attending a major training technology event in the UK, Andy was introduced to the Assima Cloning & Digital Assistant Suite. “Here was a system that would allow me to train new staff on SAP without the astronomical cost of building and maintaining a SAP training client,” he says. “Assima really was the answer to our prayers.” The Assima Training Suite works by cloning the core SAP applications and building training modules that guide end-users through key tasks and processes.
“Assima training modules look and feel exactly the same as the live SAP application, which means team members can learn by doing,” says Andy.
“There’s no need to maintain the clones with live data from our SAP systems, which saves a lot of time, and we can update training materials quickly and easily to reflect any changes in the live system. The ease of ongoing maintenance and the value of lessons being available 24/7 throughout the training period and during Business as Usual is a considerable time saver compared to the old way of training where classes and refreshers had to be run frequently with a training environment always available.” The Assima training clones were fast and simple to develop with support from Assima. “Two or three of our developers attended an Assima training session and they were then able to create all the training materials we needed,” says Andy. “Training is broken down into bite-sized chunks, and integrated with video clips and other training content that helps employees gain the skills they need.”
By replacing traditional classroom training with The Assima Suite, Npower has dramatically reduced training costs and times, while also enhancing the learning experience for staff and providing internal development opportunities.
The cost of developing a SAP training client and maintaining it over three years is around £3 million more than the cost of the Assima Training Suite. “We’ve saved £3 million by replacing our SAP training client with Assima, and that figure doesn’t even account for the fact that we need far fewer trainers now and that training is faster and more efficient.”
Assima Training Suite has helped npower to reduce onboarding times for new staff members by around 50%. “Now that we can blend classroom training with eLearning, we can train employees much more effectively and in less time,” says Andy. “As a result, we’ve reduced onboarding times for new contact center staff from 33 days with traditional classroom training to just 18 days with blended Assima training.”
More than 30 people worked full time to develop training content for the initial SAP training program at Npower. Now, with Assima, a program with a similar content requirement can be delivered by just six people – representing a five-fold efficiency gain.
“Instead of taking on a team of 30 extra people like we did last time, we’ve been able to create the content for the training program in Assima with just six people, who are all members of our ‘business as usual’ team,” says Andy. “Assima has helped us to reduce our staffing requirements for new projects by 80%, which equates to a major cost saving for the business,” he adds.
Being able to log complaints effectively, practice scenarios in a realistic, life-like environment and giving Call Center agents the confidence to deal with inquiries effectively has contributed to npower rising from the bottom of the big 6 energy suppliers to 2nd. They also became the 5th most improved company in the UK for customer service.
