“Sharing courses with IMARK is very easy now and includes no IT overhead or additional costs.”
-Kristen Hinzel, Hammond Power Solutions
Challenge
Hammond Power Solutions had been using Articulate to develop their course content and deploy it to a server. The process worked, but it limited their reach on who could view their courses. They also spent significant time and effort on course distribution issues. Lastly, as Hammond used an IT staffer to manage the backend issues with deploying a course to their company website, there were overhead concerns.
This plan was not scalable, and Kristen Hinzel, Hammond’s marketing coordinator, knew they needed to make a change. To meet Hinzel’s training goals for the company, including sharing courses with IMARK University, the leading course provider to Hammond’s distributor prospects, Hinzel would have to find a better way of creating and sharing courses.
That’s when Hinzel was encouraged to look at BlueVolt.
Solution
When Hinzel and her team at Hammond first spoke with BlueVolt’s sales teams, they conveyed their fears about losing control over their training program. BlueVolt assured them that they would always own their training. BlueVolt would simply provide them with more robust tools, a better platform, and a wide-reaching sharing network.
Making the switch to BlueVolt was easy, especially with the quick and responsive support provided by the BlueVolt team. Hammond’s staff was happy to find that they still maintained control over their course content. They were also thrilled to know they could reach out to BlueVolt’s Creative Team for course design assistance if they needed the help.
Hammond already had a course library, and BlueVolt showed them how to put their pre-existing courses and quizzes up onto the BlueVolt platform. More importantly, BlueVolt demonstrated how Hammond could extend their reach and get distributors’ attention. That was an essential element of meeting Hinzel’s training goals.
Next, BlueVolt indicated ways that Hammond could enhance the materials they already had. Doing so allowed Hammond to upgrade their training and offer learners additional value, including:
- Downloadable support materials
- A certification program for essential courses
- $BlueBucks incentives
With these additional tools, Hammond provided learners with a clear path to follow during the entire training process. Incentivizing the training further ensured higher course completion rates.
Results
Before partnering with BlueVolt, Hammond spent a large portion of time and effort deploying their courses. Not to mention the additional cost of having an IT admin split their time between their regular duties and performing backend maintenance on training course deployment duties.
They had freed up that time and energy, and could now spend it on developing more course content and nurturing distributor partnerships. “Additionally,” Hinzel said, “sharing courses with IMARK is very easy now and includes no IT overhead. I simply upload the course to BlueVolt and they appear in IMARK U. I let them know it’s ready to go.” Hinzel was also pleasantly surprised to find that she could add supporting materials, including PDFs and other documents.
The cost reductions were another bonus. “We cut costs. Now we pay for the $BlueBucks program only. No more administration fees,” Hinzel added.
Instead of spending money supporting technology, BlueVolt’s $BlueBucks program helps Hammond shift that cost-outlay to an incentive program that offers a return. The money spent on administration fees now goes directly into an incentive program driving Hammond’s target audience to complete more courses on Hammond’s product offerings.
About Hammond
For over 100 years, Hammond has grown from a small family-owned business in the shortwave radio market to the industry leader in magnetic transformer design and manufacturing. Hammond now has multiple manufacturing facilities throughout Canada, United States, Mexico, and India. Hammond currently has 11 regional distribution centers throughout North America. Hammond is well-positioned for growth and has several long term and short term plans to continue on this path of success.
www.americas.hammondpowersolutions.com
About BlueVolt
Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Portland, OR, BlueVolt is a pioneer in the eLearning industry. BlueVolt’s solutions help a wide range of organizations increase sales, build brand awareness and enhance employee knowledge. Along with its learning management system and channel learning and readiness (CLR) SaaS platform, the company offers a range of client-focused services, including course and curriculum development, strategic support, business intelligence, and unique channel-training innovations.
