Measuring soft skills is difficult. Measuring the effect of soft-skills training on real indicators, such as sales, is harder still, and the return on a training investment is a struggle for trainers everywhere because the tangible results rarely show a direct link. This case study is one of the rare occasions where the link could be measured.
Leadership is not only for managers
We believe leadership skills are not a prerogative of management. Listening, motivating and guiding show up in every conversation, and whoever masters them shapes the context and reaches objectives, whatever their role. In this case, the people practicing were salespeople. The question was simple: is there a correlation between practicing with a digital role play and job performance? Sales made before and after the program, compared with a control group that did not practice, gave a tangible answer.
Why digital
Role play is a powerful resource for soft skills, because it lets people practice the critical conversations of their role and discuss the outcome. Its universal problems are time and scalability, which have historically confined it to small, expensive, high-level programs. A digital role play removes the constraints of time and place and makes the method available to thousands of people at once.
The program
The company, a large banking and insurance group, deployed two scenarios about a sales meeting: one by phone and one face to face, on a car insurance policy and a comprehensive household policy. Both followed the company's own selling model, and both were built from real cases provided by subject-matter experts, so that the skills exercised in the simulator were the same ones salespeople use with customers. One group trained with the simulator; a control group received a classical training method. The real-life figures refer to the six months after the practice bootcamp, or after the traditional training for the control group.
The numbers
The analysis involved 13,755 salespeople from eight facilities across the country. During the program, 23,909 simulations were played, an average of five per user. On a 100-point scale, the average score was 52.6 and the average best score 68. Fifteen percent of users completed at least ten simulations, twice the average, and of those, 21% reached a best score of 85 or more.
Quality of the strategy in the simulator improved
In the phone scenario, the average score rose from 19 at the beginning of the program to 47 at the end. In the face-to-face scenario, from 30 to 71. The score measures the quality of the strategy: the ability to handle the conversation as a routine task, with a clear process in mind. People got better at the simulated conversation. That was expected. The question was whether it would show outside.
Real performance improved too
The group that trained with the simulator closed a customer meeting with a quote 76.8% of the time; the control group 40.4% of the time. Relative to the control group, that is 90.1% more quotes.
On actual sales, the simulator group closed a meeting with a sale 26.7% of the time against 14.5% for the control group: 84.1% more closed deals.
On a smaller sample of 1,150 salespeople for whom gross sales were available, the simulator group increased gross sales by 42% over the period, against a 17% average increase overall.
Diligent users sell more
We called a user diligent when they completed more than ten simulations. Comparing diligent and non-diligent users in the three facilities with a large enough sample, diligent users sold more in every case: 32.4% against 30%, 29.9% against 25.9%, 29.4% against 25.3%.
Efficient users sell more
We called a user efficient when they reached a best score of at least 85. In seven facilities out of eight, efficient users sold more than non-efficient ones; in one, they sold 2% less. Practice volume and practice quality both mattered, and they pointed in the same direction.
Why it transferred
The scenarios were designed with authenticity in mind. They followed the company's selling model and were built from real situations described by the people who live them. The skills needed to do well in the simulated meeting were the ones needed in the real one, which is the condition for transfer: what is learned comes back when the real situation resembles the practiced one. The salespeople trained by doing in an environment realistic enough that the improvement moved with them to the customer's table.
A note on measurement
All the simulator scores in this study came from what salespeople said in their conversations, measured against the company's selling model. The real-life figures were the company's own sales data, analyzed in aggregate and compared across groups. No individual was ranked or evaluated through the simulator: the study measured a program, and the program worked.
It is always a privilege to see practice change what people do at work. In this case, the ones who took practice seriously became leaders of their own role. If you want to see how a program like this is built today, from your selling model and your materials, book a demo.