Banking on an LMS Boosts Value
1 Jul, 2004
By: Rhonda C. ProctorIn an enterprise-wide leadership initiative to revamp its technology applications to better serve employees and customers, Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, a member of the PNC Financial Services Group, launched a learning management system (LMS) to help deliver training to its 24,000 employees across five states. The decision helped PNC save training time and money and has enabled trainers to embrace more strategic training activities. For the bank’s 900-seat call center, known as the National Financial Services Center (NFSC), the LMS has been instrumental in streamlining agent training, identifying specific skill gaps, and delivering just-in-time training to enable agents to enhance the service they provide to customers.
In this Profile, CP spoke with Nick Certo, Manager of Business Banking and Consumer Sales for the Regional Community Bank (RCB), who oversees these activities for the NFSC, and with Deb Smyth, Director of Performance Improvement and Learning for the RCB.
CP: Why did the idea of an LMS gain momentum at PNC?
NC: Very simply, we wanted to be able to grow with our customers. As an expanding organization, we made a strategic decision to invest in those things that allowed us to “touch the customer”. An LMS was consistent with our customer strategy and, we felt, it would enhance employee satisfaction as well. Because of our size and the number of training courses available, we needed to track and report the personal development of employees so that they could improve in their interactions with customers, excel in their current positions and grow in their careers.
CP: So it was an enterprise-wide initiative, not specific to the call center, the NFSC.
NC: Right. It was actually part of our Genesis Project, a technology improvement initiative for the organization designed to support customer relationship management. The idea was to support the agents—we call them Financial Service Consultants or FSCs—on their desktops.
CP: What were the anticipated benefits of implementing an LMS in the PNC culture, specifically in the call center?
NC: We wanted the LMS to assist with improvement to workforce readiness, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Relative to employee satisfaction, we wanted to deliver better education with higher levels of satisfaction, so instead of insisting that agents “show up” to specific training courses, we allowed them to make their own decisions about which courses they needed to attend, or skills they needed to develop. Then our managers would coach people where needed. If it were empowering to agents, we felt, it would have a direct effect on customer satisfaction, too.
DS: We also had organization-wide learning goals—one of which was to deliver 55 percent of our training through online courseware. The LMS was needed to support a learning environment “at-a-glance” that was self-directed. We now have 40 percent of our programs online and 60 percent facilitator-led.
CP: Why does the LMS work so well for the call center?
NC: Since it’s a browser-based system, it’s pretty easy to use. We call it our ENN, for the e-kNowledge Network. Basically, an agent logs on to see the course catalog and can hot link to an intranet website on demand, which reduces the need for the learner to spend time away from their workstation. Then they can choose a course of study tailored to their own continuing education. For example, let’s say that it’s been identified that employees need sales training. Suzie is very good at sales, but not so great at cross-selling, while Joe has a gap in product knowledge. Both need sales training, but it must be individualized to their needs. Working with their leads, who each have 12-15 FSCs reporting to them, FSCs identify specific skills needed to help them become better at their jobs. They go online with the course catalog, find what they need, schedule time off the phone and take the training that they need. Together they’ve diagnosed a skill development need, prescribed training, and the result is obvious.
DS: And it’s ideal for this environment because of the cost savings and time savings we’ve been able to glean, which is always an important concern across the enterprise, but particularly in a call center where time is at a premium.
CP: What types of courses are now offered through ENN, and how were they developed?
NC: We do everything from compliance to leadership, conflict resolution, and compensation, product and PC end-user training, sales, service and project management.
DS: It’s really flexible and the sky is the limit. We have adapted some of the old learning courses and built new courseware as well. Some programs were developed in-house, others by third-party vendors. Some were facilitator-led programs that are now online. Others were previously on CD-ROM, which have been converted. We can use video and teleconferences and can blend them with paper-based instructor-led aspects as well. Overall, it’s been an evolution to a learning environment that’s centralized.
NC: And one ideal for the call center, where agents can attend the learning in cubicles, by themselves alone, at their workstations. There’s also on-screen support for facilitated training too, where the instructor-facilitated piece is wrapped around an ENN experience.
CP: How many courses have been taken to date?
NC: As of the end of our fiscal year 03, for the entire RCB, our employees had completed 61,565 online courses, which is an average of about seven courses per employee.
CP: How long did it take PNC to implement an LMS?
DS: The ramp-up period was about six months to one year. We assembled cross-functional teams to make it work. A vendor team, a technical team, we looked at software and product knowledge. In retrospect, it was a really smart idea to bring others into the process. I’d tell someone planning to implement an LMS not to rush it and to know what you want to accomplish before you begin.
Experts Define LMS
“A learning management system is a software platform that not only delivers training over the Internet, but also analyzes the effectiveness of training and development,” explains Bill Perry, Director of Public Relations at Pathlore Software Corp.—the Columbus, Ohio, solutions provider that helped launch PNC’s application. “Analyzing the value of existing and future training was one of PNC’s critical needs right from the start,” he adds.
Brian Knudson, Co-Founder and CEO of Chicago-based NogginLabs, describes an LMS as “a software application (usually web-based) to plan, launch and track learning. It is typically used when planning instructor-led training (ILT) or e-learning rollouts to large audiences and provides for robust reporting and administrative features. For maximum learning ROI, an enterprise-class LMS should only be considered after significant learning content has been created and proven within an organization.” Knudsen cautions that “an LMS should not be the first step in creating a learning strategy; content should always come first.”
PNC''s Regional Community Banking business provides deposit, lending, cash management and investment services to 2 million consumer and small business customers within PNC''s geographic region.
PNC Bank, N.A., is a member of The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC is one of the nation''s largest diversified financial services organizations, providing regional community banking; wholesale banking, including corporate banking, real estate finance and asset-based lending; wealth management; asset management and global fund services
