Global | Retail
How do you get up-to-date, top notch product training delivered to busy employees on shop floors all over the globe, wowing their customers with the latest brow trends and tips? Dive into the beauty of effective employee learning with Benefit Cosmetics. With Elucidat at their fingertips, this global brow-beating beauty brand not only sculpted a world-class experience for their employees, leading to a staggering 145% increase in monthly learner visits, but also carved out substantial savings. It’s an eyebrow raising tale of innovation; and genuine learning curves.
“The platform has allowed us to fully customize the program for each country and grow participation”
Cortney Freshwater Senior Manager – Global Education at Benefit
Introduction
Global beauty brand Benefit Cosmetics have been magically transforming brows since 1976. As worldwide leaders in all things eyebrows, and with upwards of 30 brow-based products plus a range of counter services, Benefit keep standards high by educating those working with their products and services.
But they needed a change in tact. Their product training was high end, but delivered as presentations. They needed a way to get it into the hands of busy front-line staff spread across 50 countries more easily and track engagement. But having never created elearning before, where to start?
Since starting to use Elucidat in 2017, Benefit has not only unleashed their global learning presence with interactive, high-end elearning, but increased take-up and built greater in-house knowledge and control of their content. All while realising an estimated 69% saving on the costs of an LMS.
A new solution was needed
The Global Education team devised the Benefit Brow Program in 2016, for those working with and for Benefit. They produced a comprehensive training presentation, covering eyebrow trends through the years, creating the perfect brow and how to use their products. The challenge then became how to get this content in front of learners.
Benefit has a presence in 50 countries and counting. Their learners can be in dedicated stores, on counters or third-party staff working in concessions. Many are on shop floors wowing their customers with the latest brow trends and tips, so need to be able to access any learning content quickly via tablets or mobile devices.
The traditional LMS approach was neither cost-effective, nor manageable, for the relatively small Global Learning team. This is because many of their learners are third-party staff members, and enrolling them into an LMS would be at cost to Benefit; plus the potential number who would need access is in the thousands. Benefit needed a responsive, online option that was as easy as a presentation to distribute and access, but which also provided data insights they could track and share with global, and sometimes external, teams.
Hello Elucidat, hello savings!
Elucidat was a perfect fit. The platform’s direct link sharing and in-built analytics mean that Benefit’s learning content can be accessed with just one click, no matter where the learner is or which device they use. Plus, the Benefit Global Learning team are able to monitor who makes progress and where.
Using the platform’s Your Data feature means the team can access not only pass/fail rates, but identify specific learners who have entered into the course, their retail location and everything they have attempted. Then, via a simple export, the team are able to provide local markets with their specific data.
For Benefit, this has resulted in confidence that their audience have been educated; provided insights into any areas that need more attention and delivered definitive knowledge of which team members from which stores have participated.
Overall, the ability to directly share links to learning content and use Elucidat’s powerful analytics saved an estimated 69% (around $75,000) in LMS costs across the length of their contract to date.
Growing the impact
Benefit Cosmetics wanted more than to just get learning content out there. This was about crafting excellence and tweezing out imperfections.
They coupled their subscription with some Elucidat sparkle via the Learning Consultancy Team. They worked with our expert consultants to build out a series of fully branded elearning templates, that not only captured the right look and feel, but also the brand voice. But of course, they didn’t stop there.
Through their use of Elucidat’s Analytics, the Benefit learning team gained useable insights into learner engagement. They upped their approach, and again with assistance from the Learning Consultancy Team, reimagined their elearning and explored more of the platform’s capabilities. Now their elearning sets learners fun challenges, using badges and other gamified approaches, to increase learner engagement further.
The result? A doubling of monthly visits, meaning more people on the front line undertaking this valuable training, which boosts customer service and sales.
In summary
The Global Learning team at Benefit can certainly take a brow. With no experience in creating interactive elearning, they moved from creating training presentations, to planning, building and implementing top quality, incredibly branded elearning that grew it’s audience two-fold. The Brow Program success also helped Benefit to branch their use of Elucidat into additional global learning initiatives.
- Novice authors: Partnering with Elucidat’s Learning Consultancy Team helped Benefit get off to a flying start with bespoke templates and advice
- Analytics: Through Elucidat’s in-built Analytics the Benefit team learnt vital lessons that helped them improve their offering further, and track engagement
- Branding: Using Elucidat’s Brand Style controls and designing bespoke templates, Benefit’s fantastic branding shone through and connected with people