Fortune 500 Financial Giant Trains Nationwide Sales Force via Computer

In 2002, two financial companies merged to form Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. The merger positioned the new company solidly on the Fortune 500 list. The challenges faced by the newly formed entity were considerable:

• Pick the best parts of the best plans from each of the two former firms and create new plans, products and options for the now-combined customer base.
• Create training for several thousand sales agents to train them not only on the existing plans of the other company in the merger, but on the newly designed plans, products and options.

Fortunately for Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, each of the original companies had at least some computer-based training programs in place. Computer-based Training, or CBT, uses a computer to deliver training without the need for an instructor to be present. The challenge was to quickly modify the existing courses and to create new courses to get the sales agents cross-trained and re-trained, while also providing training for new hires to the new company.

To meet this challenge, the firm chose Creative Approaches, Inc. of East Bloomfield, New York. Creative Approaches (CAI) has been developing custom CBT for firms like Thrivent since 1983. “We needed a vendor we could count on to do quality work and to meet our tight deadlines being driven by our rollout schedule for various products”, said Kathy Hartung-Kramer, one of two Project Leaders at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. “I had worked with Travis Piper, President of CAI several years ago when I was with a different company. I contacted him and described our situation. He quickly understood our needs and we worked out a process for exchanging information. Shortly thereafter we had CAI do one course as a pilot. That went very well so we proceeded to a full schedule of over 25 courses that CAI developed and modified for us for a Fall launch. We couldn’t have been more pleased”, said Hartung-Kramer. “CAI met every deadline and not only did what we asked them to do, but in many cases exceeded our expectations”.

Creative Approaches has been developing custom CBT courses for medium and large organizations since its founding in 1983. According to Piper, “studies have shown that people remember only a small portion of what they read or hear or are even shown, which is about as far as most classroom training can go. When the training is computer-based and well designed, retention levels reach as high as 90% because the person can interact with the training and can get immediate reinforcement when a concept or fact is misunderstood. When Thrivent’s agents need to know particular selling skills or how to operate the software that helps them do their jobs”, says Piper, “the training takes them through life-like scenarios so they get to experience and do the task being described”.

Since everything involved with this type of project has to be in written form, all communication can be done via the telephone and by sending files either as email attachments or via CD or DVD. “Even though Kathy and I have known each other for nearly ten years, our relationship has been strictly by phone and by email” says Piper. “Getting together face-to-face just hasn’t been a real high priority for any of us – there’s too much to do!”

Piper is a pioneer in the computer-based training field, having created his first online course in 1974 when working for Xerox. “That course”, according to Piper “let us complete a nationwide rollout of computerizing all of Xerox’ local offices in just one week per site instead of the originally planned two weeks per site. By 1980, Xerox was logging over 50,000 connect hours of online training each year” says Piper.

Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a not-for-profit Fortune 500 financial services organization helping nearly 3 million members achieve their financial goals. Thrivent Financial and its affiliates offer a wide range of financial solutions and have $63.6 billion (March 31, 2004) in assets under management. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and its members provide approximately $200 million annually for outreach programs and activities that support congregations, schools, charitable organizations and needy individuals.