Once you're comfortable with the basics of building a Scenario, you can amp up your role-play content by introducing these handy features!
Learn how to:
Streamline "Repeat" Conversations
Streamline "Repeat" Conversations
When different learner answers will lead to the same character response, there's no need to duplicate dialogue boxes for each one!
You can have one or several learner answers connect to the same dialogue box, saving you time and keeping your Scenario editor organized.
Answers from different conversation branches can be linked to the same avatar dialogue as well!
Each connection can have its own point reward value, ensuring answers are awarded accordingly even though they connect learners to the same end-dialogue result.
When to do this:
several learner answer options will yield the same result (e.g., 3 answer options will make the customer angry and leave; connect those three answers to the same angry reaction dialogue)
give learner the opportunity to recover from a poor decision (e.g., learner gives poor answer to avatar and avatar reacts in upset way; include a good recovery answer option that, when picked, will bring the learner back to the main conversation to pick up where they left off)
Include Additional Avatar Reactions
Include Additional Avatar Reactions
Introduce customer unpredictability into your conversations!
Not every person will react the same way to what is said or suggested. By including alternate reaction paths, each play-through of this training game will become unpredictable for the learner. This will teach them how to recover from unexpected results.
To do this, you can link a learner's response to more than one customer reaction. You can use a reaction that's already connected to a different learner response, or you can create a new one just for this. There's no limit to how many alternate paths the conversation may go!
How to add a second customer reaction
How to add a second customer reaction
Use an existing "Scenario Text," or...
- Add a new conversation box -
SELECT "Add Conversation Stack" (at the bottom of your screen)
A new "Scenario Text" box will appear!
- Connect the secondary response option -
SELECT the "Response Text"s box with a diamond shape (upper-right side)
SELECT the "Scenario Text"s blank box (upper-left corner)
A connection path will appear, connecting the two dialogues you selected!
Now, when a learner plays this training game and chooses the multi-path answer, the response will sometimes change!
When to do this:
offer products and services to customers (e.g., learner offers the customer a chance to sign up for a company product; some customers will be happy to listen to the offer, while others may get upset at this "sales tactic" and need a bit of extra "work" to recover the conversation)
give customers options to choose from (e.g., learner offers the customer help with setting up their online banking account; customer may accept the offer on the spot, or they may decide to set it up themselves on their own time)
How to specify preferred paths
How to specify preferred paths
If you want a particular path to be followed more often with each play-through, you can customize how likely it will be picked. That's where "Answer weight" comes into play!
Let's say you have two potential paths: PATH A and PATH B. If you input a high answer weight for PATH A, and a low answer weight for PATH B, that would mean PATH A is more likely to occur and PATH B is less likely.
To do so:
SELECT the path you want to be the more-likely option
CHANGE the "Answer weight" to a higher number
SAVE changes
SELECT the path for the less-likely option
CHANGE the "Answer weight" to a lower number
SAVE changes
When to do this:
a less-than-ideal answer option is chosen that could push a customer away in real-life (e.g., learner chooses an answer that aggressively pushes a product onto the avatar; depending on the customer, some may ignore the aggression and stick around for more information, but others might choose to leave the conversation altogether)
teach learners the best/preferred phrasing to align with company expectations (e.g., the learner chooses to nicely greet the customer in the same manner, but one of the options includes saying the customer's name; set the option that includes the name to have the most points, and the non-name option to have fewer points, so the learner is rewarded in both cases but is especially rewarded for following company expectations)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Each path's answer weight should always be set to "1" or more to ensure Scenario will accept the answer and function as intended!
Change Avatar Expressions
Change Avatar Expressions
To add more personality and realism to your Scenario, change your avatar's expression on a textbox-by-textbox basis!
To do this, select the avatar's image on any text box.
Each time you select it a different face will appear, giving you several options to choose from.
Choose appropriate reactions for each of the avatar's conversation points to create an even more engaging experience!
When to do this:
emphasize the customer's positive/negative reaction to a learner's answer (e.g., learner chooses an answer that makes the customer very happy; adding a happy-looking avatar image to the happy dialogue will emphasize that their choice was a good one)
Emphasize Preferred Answers
Emphasize Preferred Answers
Sometimes, a learner can have more than one great option to respond with. While both will result with a positive experience for the customer, one phrase may be preferred over the other.
With customizable point values, you can incorporate that into your dialogue!
Let's say your learner has just started the Scenario. After the customer says "hello!" they have several answer options, two of which are good ones:
"Good afternoon! What can I help you with today?"
"Welcome back Mr. Customer, how can I help you today?"
If your company likes both answers, but would prefer that the customer's name is used in the greeting, you can allocate points to reflect this:
"Good afternoon! How can I help you today?" = +5 points
"Welcome back Mr. Customer, how can I help you today?" = +10 points
Learners will still gain points regardless of their choice, but they will get full marks if they use the customer's name!
Similarly, you can customize poor answer choices as well, giving semi-bad ones a smaller deduction versus really bad choices a bigger deduction.
When to do this:
a less-than-ideal answer option is chosen that could push a customer away in real-life (e.g., learner chooses an answer that aggressively pushes a product onto the customer; depending on the customer, few will ignore the aggression and stick around for more information, while the majority will choose to leave the conversation altogether)
teach learners the best/preferred phrasing to align with company expectations (e.g., the learner can choose to thank the customer and wish them a good day or thank the customer and ask if they needed anything else; both will reward the customer for being polite, but since the company wants learners to ask if the customers need anything else each time, learners that choose that answer would be awarded more points for doing so)
How to customize point values
How to customize point values
To start, first DECIDE on your point range, from worst score to best. To give you the ability to rate certain answers much better (or worse), the range needs to be bigger than -1 to +1. (e.g., +2 to -2; +5 to -5; +10 to -10).
Next, SELECT each answer path and ENTER an appropriate value:
perfect answer = + max points
good answer = + some points
so-so answer = zero points
bad answer = - some points
worst answer = - max points
Make sure to SAVE when complete!
Best times to do this:
you want to emphasize both preferred and very poor answers (e.g., learner can choose between three good answer options of varying impressiveness; the least-preferred could have a lower value of 3, the middle a value of 6, and the best will give 10 points to the learner)