If your organization is in the retail or hospitality industry, you know how important first impressions can be. Many customers will define their experience with your brand by the first person they interact with, which means that you need every team member trained to provide a stellar customer experience every time somebody walks through the door. The best way to do that is through e-learning on a learning management system, or LMS, but you’ll have to find one that fits your needs.
There are hundreds of LMS solutions on the market, each targeting distinct organizations and learners. Furthermore, there is a lot of technical jargon that can make it difficult to determine which one is the right fit for your organization. Craig Weiss, Founder and Lead Analyst for the Craig Weiss Group, is an e-learning savant whose predictions have proven over 90 percent accurate since he started his blog, e-learning 24/7. Below, Weiss lists his top eight picks in no particular order for frontline worker training in the retail and hospitality industries. If you want even more insight, you can create a free account on FindAnLMS.com and read unbiased reviews on more than a hundred systems by Weiss himself.
- Bluevolt LMS
- Biz Library
- eThink
- Fuse LMS
- Open LMS
- BrainCert Enterprise LMS
- eLoomi
- Knowledge Anywhere
One of the biggest advantages of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store is that staff are on hand to explain how products work to customers and help them find the right fit for their needs. Bluevolt gives learners access to a knowledge-sharing network of over 5,000 manufacturers, distributors, buying groups, and industry associations to ensure that your employees have all of the information they need to act as a positive differentiator for your company. Bluevolt is also a powerful LMS that supports dedicated product portals, virtual conferences, and personalized learning tracks to help your team members pursue their goals. The platform also offers incentives for learning called “$BlueBucks” to motivate learners.
Biz Library is a cloud-based LMS with thousands of high-quality, modern video lessons on topics that are essential to modern workers. Team members can be assigned personalized learning paths and even create their own upskilling programs to promote learner engagement. The platform also supports just-in-time learning, meaning that your employees will be able to access educational content while working to ensure compliance with all of your guidelines. Every customer is assigned a Client Success Manager to assist with any technological hiccups as well, leading to outstanding customer service.
eThink isn’t an LMS but a service that helps users make the most of the two most popular open-source learning management systems on the market: Moodle and Totara. Some of the services that they provide include AWS cloud-based hosting, ecosystem consulting, third-party module set-up, help with HRIS/ERP/CRM integrations, and outstanding customer support. The eThink Academy is also a great repository of industry-specific courses that your employees will appreciate.
Named a 2021 Platinum Pick by The Craig Weiss Group, the best thing about Fuse LMS is how easily it incorporates training into your organization’s workflow. Training materials are mobile-friendly and accessible at all times, allowing team members to learn wherever and whenever works best for them. The platform also includes a special training area where employees can practice vital customer service skills and see the real-time consequences of their actions without jeopardizing your organization’s reputation. Feedback between learners and instructors is encouraged, and social learning elements promote engagement.
Like eThink, Open LMS provides a highly curated and enhanced version of Moodle. This means that you get the benefits of Moodle such as custom-branding on all courses, plus powerful analytics and reporting capabilities designed by experts. Open LMS also includes a Workflow Automation system that automates enrollments, user reminders, and course completion activities to streamline the admin side of the eLearning equation. It is owned by Learning Technologies Group (LTG), the same company that owns eThink.
BrainCert is a custom-brandable, easy-to-use LMS that’s cloud-based and ready to scale with organizations of all sizes. If your employees are constantly checking their social media feeds, they’ll love using an LMS that integrates directly with popular platforms such as YouTube and Facebook. It also offers real-time collaboration tools to help your employees feel like a team even if some learners are asynchronous. BrainCert also has a mobile app, allowing your team members to access training content on the Apple and Android devices that they already use every day.
eLoomi allows admins to choose from over 20,000 educational modules from leading content providers, so every organization is bound to find a great fit. The service includes expert support if you’re having a hard time picking modules, and there are course authoring tools if you would prefer to design new ones or import existing courses. Admins can also view learner performance on the personal, departmental, and organizational levels. Most importantly, eLoomi recently launched a brand new feature called My360+ that allows workers to receive actionable feedback from instructors, colleagues, and customers to quickly identify and address any skill gaps.
Knowledge Anywhere is a cloud-based, scalable, single-source hybrid learning solution that brings your organization’s virtual learning, webinars, instructor-led training, certifications, assessments, and more under one umbrella. You can measure the business impacts of your training program with real-time reports or export the data into Microsoft Excel to create custom reports. The platform also offers built-in social buttons to connect course content with LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, inspiring your employees to share their progress with others. All clients receive access to a dedicated customer success representative for excellent customer support, and a massive user interface improvement is scheduled to go live in mid-2022.
While the eight LMS solutions above are among the best for the retail and hospitality industries as a whole, they may not be right for your organization. Similarly, you still have to determine which one best suits your needs. You can create a free account on FindAnLMS.com today to take advantage of all of Weiss’s e-learning knowledge.
