Customers ask us what they can do to get high completion rates for their courses. We did a little research to find out what winning courses had in common. The upshot? Course length and $BlueBucks incentive awards were the deciding factors.
What did we discover?
Course Length
It’s plain to see that the shorter the course, the more likely it will be completed (15% increase).
So, how short is short?
Our data found a break at courses over 14 minutes long. For optimal retention, our instructional design team says 5-10 minutes is the sweet spot.
$BlueBucks
Using $BlueBucks awards were also tied to higher completion rates - a 19% uptick.
We see this increase even with just one to two $BlueBucks. Offering three to five $BlueBucks per course doesn’t seem to move the needle over offering only one or two (You don’t get more bang for more $BlueBucks!).
Some customers wonder if they can make up for a longer course length by offering more $BlueBucks. Not so much. It’s hard to keep learners interested for long stretches, even if they can earn more rewards. No matter how you slice it, longer courses are what kill completion rates.
The Data
These takeaways are based on the experience of our trades industries partners during the 2018 to 2022 time period. That covers a whopping 8,658,030 enrollments, on 45,872 courses, 8,373 of which had $BlueBucks.
We divided the courses into “successful” and “not-so-successful” courses. (Even an incomplete course is better than none at all). Which bucket a course fell into was based on overall completion rates, compared to the BlueVolt average of 73%.
Successful courses hovered at 90% or above, while not-so-successful courses dropped to 30% or lower completions. On the whole, successful courses ran at an average of 10-14 minutes and 56% had $BB, while not-so-successful courses averaged at 129 minutes and only 4% had $BB.
The Takeaways
Simply put: keep your courses short. Consider breaking up longer courses, offering fewer modules per course, and building out training tracks instead. Then reward your learners for finishing those shorter courses with $BlueBucks.
To learn more about how to get your learners over the finish line, schedule time with your Customer Success Manager.