Upgrading to a modern LMS is one of the best ways to boost employee performance in today's retail environment. Why? Because employees often find old paper- and desktop PC-based training systems tedious and difficult to reference.
In other words, training is hard to implement and quickly forgotten.
We’ve worked with large, multinational retailers with hundreds of locations to implement a new learning management system.
Changing their LMS sped up employee onboarding, increased interactions, reduced employee training time (while increasing learning retention), and ultimately improved customer service and sales.
But one LMS solution isn’t always as good as the next. Just uploading your current training materials as static files into a new digital system won’t hook your employees and get them to learn more.
Instead, the best LMS should:
- Help new hires onboard quickly while boosting learning retention.
- Keep employees up to date on rapidly changing product lines and new pieces of training.
- Adapt to each learner’s specific training needs and give them the best training material for their situation, exactly when they need it.
- Give leaders insights into what learning content works and how teams are progressing.
- Offer practical retail training courses to tens of thousands of employees across thousands of locations.
Below, we’ll show you how Bigtincan’s LMS solves these problems.
We’ll also include two brief case studies to show you what this looks like for two large, multinational brands successfully using Bigtincan across their retail businesses, including:
- A sports apparel and equipment company
- A makeup and cosmetics brand
(The brands will remain anonymous, but we’re willing to bet you’ve either used their products or at least heard of them.)
Book a demo to learn more about how Bigtincan’s LMS solution could work at your company.
Microlearning keeps employees tuned in and helps them retain knowledge
A retail LMS is only as good as its results — AKA how well trainees retain what they’ve learned from their retail training.
In our view, microlearning is the most effective way to retain knowledge. Microlearning provides each retail training as a short burst of easily digested information.
Short-form learning is scientifically proven, with information retention increasing by 41% when training sessions are 15 minutes or less.
Instead of lengthy product training sessions, microlearning delivers 1-2 minute videos, quizzes, and focused content that associates can quickly review (and remember) before helping customers.
For example, a shoe retailer could create a one-minute video on new shoe releases, which retail employees can easily reference from their mobile device while on the sales floor.
Or a furniture store could create short half-page explainer documents or blurbs about products for retail employees to access from a phone or tablet while on the floor with customers.
Finally, any good retail LMS should be mobile-first and mobile-focused (as we’ll explain below). So, our enterprise customers commonly use their mobile app's homescreen to display short training videos and lessons that employees can quickly access during their shift.
This is where you can push the most important and up-to-date information, products, and campaigns to retail employees.
Short, focused training sessions help employees remember more than long training sessions. Plus, these quick lessons let brands reinforce key points and share updates with store teams when needed.
Our LMS solution makes it easy for brands to deliver microlearning-based training to employees.
And we kicked it up a notch with CoachingAI, which enhances microlearning with immediate feedback on practice sessions. It analyzes what employees say and how they say it through vocal delivery scoring and tone-of-voice analysis. This helps ensure employees internalize and correctly apply their training.
Want to learn more about microlearning in retail? Read our guide on modern training methods and how they improve employee knowledge retention: The Best Enterprise LMS 2.0 for Training and Knowledge Retention.
Just-in-time learning onboards new hires faster
The quicker new hires understand the basics and effectively sell on the shop floor, the better, right?
Just-in-time learning is another training method that gets retail employees up to speed faster than standard retail training methods.
Standard methods typically involve a heavy dose of up-front training as:
- Group lectures: Requires waiting until there are enough new employees to warrant training
- Desktop-based video training content: Typically long videos with short quizzes afterward
- Paper handouts: Consumed on the employee’s own time
These trainings aren’t as practical as microlearning and are hard to reference on a whim.
For example, if a new employee is on the floor and a customer asks about a pair of running shoes, the employee must:
- Remember that specific detail by heart
- Try to go back and sort through hours of training to find the relevant information
- Ask their manager or someone who knows about the shoes
With Bigtincan, employees can look up the information they need when they need it (thus the “just-in-time” moniker).
Modern retail training requires quick access to information exactly when needed. Bigtincan Readiness enables this through:
- RolePlayAI: Allows employees to practice scenarios safely before real customer interactions
- Practice Mode: Provides AI feedback for refining skills before formal manager review
- Robust search capabilities: Scans full text of documents and video transcripts
- Interactive 3D AR Training: Creates immersive learning experiences with clickable training playbooks and lifelike 3D augmented reality models, leading to 4x faster completion rates and 40% more confidence in skill mastery
- Integration with LinkedIn Learning and SCORM: Offers courses for comprehensive training options
Examples of microlearning and just-in-time learning with Bigtincan
Here's how it works in practice: A retail employee searches "running shoes" on their mobile device and instantly finds the latest product information. They can answer customer questions on the spot and share relevant product details via email.
For new hire training, create bite-sized videos for specific tasks. For example, a two-minute video on operating the cash register lets employees learn and practice immediately. This gets new team members to serve customers faster.
Starting small is perfectly fine. Begin with one shared tablet at the register for training. Or break down your training videos into shorter segments that employees can quickly reference.
Bigtincan Readiness adapts to your needs, whether training one store or rolling out across your entire retail chain. Schedule a demo to see how other retailers use our platform.
But if you’re unsure how to get started, request a demo to receive help from our experts.
Give leaders insights into training efficacy and employee progress
Want to know if your training is working? With Bigtincan Readiness Scorecards, you can see exactly how well your retail teams learn and grow — in real-time.
Our Scorecards show you:
- How individual employees and teams are progressing through their training
- Which training programs lead to better sales numbers
- What skills your employees are mastering (and where they need help)
- How quickly new hires are getting up to speed
- Which sales reps are doing better than others
- Performance trends over time to see how sales reps are improving
The results speak for themselves. Our customers have seen:
- New employees ready for the sales floor 90% faster
- Training investments delivering 13x returns through better performance
- Clearer insights into which training materials actually work
Best of all? Everything is visual and easy to understand. Store managers can quickly spot who needs extra coaching and what training programs make the biggest sales impact.
You'll know exactly how your retail teams perform and where to focus your coaching efforts.
Improve and track activity with gamification
The gamification features of the Bigtincan include a leaderboard for ranking progress, achievements, and assignments — opportunities to reward your employees to take the learning journey.
How you use these features to reward your teams is up to you. Base ‘employee of the month’ recognition on these metrics. Or offer a prize to whoever finishes the retail or compliance training with the best score.
Either way, Bigtincan provides information to help you reward successes and encourage those who are slower with the training.
Customize the Bigtincan interface to match your brand
One reason our customers love Bigtincan: it lets you make the app look exactly like your brand. You can change colors, logos, and layouts to match your company's style. Your team will feel like they're using a custom-built app.
You can change the logo, colors, and layout to match your brand.
Two case studies of enterprise retailers using Bigtincan
“Seeing” is believing. So here are two examples of major retailers using the Bigtincan Platform to improve employee learning and retention:
#1. Global sportswear company
A global sportswear retailer with 1,000+ stores picked Bigtincan from 50 competing vendors. It now uses Bigtincan to train its retail teams across the world.
Before Bigtincan, the retailer struggled with a 40% employee turnover. It relied on paper handouts, morning meetings, and bulletin boards to train its staff.
The retailer now uses a branded mobile app that puts all training in one place. Every employee can access training materials on their phone or tablet.
#2. Cosmetics brand with more than 2,000 stores
A global beauty retailer with 2,000+ stores selected Bigtincan to train its retail teams.
Before Bigtincan, it faced several challenges:
- Staff wasted time using slow desktop computers
- Training materials were scattered across PDFs and slides
- Managers couldn't track who completed training
- Teams couldn't access materials without being at a store computer
Now, teams access all training on their phones or tablets. They can complete lessons anywhere — even without internet. The app matches its brand perfectly, making it feel like its own.
See how Bigtincan could work at your organization
Modern retail demands fast, practical training that drives results.
Bigtincan helps retail teams:
- Cut new hire training time by 90% with mobile-first microlearning
- Access product information instantly on any device with AI-powered search
- Practice customer interactions with CoachingAI and RolePlayAI
- Track employee progress with visual Readiness Scorecards
Ready to transform your retail training? Schedule a demo to see how leading retailers like our global sportswear client (1,000+ stores) and beauty retailer (2,000+ stores) use Bigtincan to boost sales performance.
