How Vrbo helped their customer service reps to improve efficiency whilst dropping calltimes by 5 seconds

Connecting millions of homeowners and holiday-goers, Vrbo is a holiday rentals marketplace that strives to deliver outstanding service to their customers. With in-depth knowledge of their products and processes being a key component of delivering outstanding service, Vrbo utilised Wranx to increase the efficiency of their Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), as well as improve knowledge retention.
Getting CSRs up to speed
Vrbo needed to train both new and existing CSRs in their contact centers – new employees initially complete in-class training, but an effective method was required to retain and consolidate their newly acquired knowledge about the company and products.
Vrbo also needed to provide continual training to existing CSRs, where they’d be presented with more advanced questions that require transversal thinking.
The company’s processes and products could change rapidly, and it was not always possible or practical to deliver face-to-face training with every update. Catherine Osborne, Manager of Education and Knowledge at Vrbo explains more:
At Vrbo, we continuously strive to improve our sites and services by testing and developing innovative ideas. At times, it can be a bit overwhelming for CSRs to keep track of all recent changes and novelties, especially if their scope is too limited to require dedicated training.
Improving efficiency and knowledge with bite-sized learning
Vrbo needed a means of delivering training content and company updates to employees in a continuous, efficient and measurable way. As time was limited for the call reps, training that could be completed in short bursts at a time convenient to them was preferable.
The key criteria was to ensure that all CSRs were equipped with the necessary knowledge to provide an excellent service to customers:
We believe that the more knowledgeable our CSRs are, the better and faster they can assist our customers, hence the greater our customers’ satisfaction with our service will be. Amongst all other training initiatives we put in place, Wranx stands out for its format of delivering bitesized learning on a daily basis, which allows CSRs to continuously test and improve their knowledge, and ultimately become more efficient in their job.
Continual customer service training
Vrbo utilised Wranx to reinforce general company knowledge, but to also share customer service best practices and raise awareness of new product and subscription plan launches. Wranx converted Vrbo’s existing content into short, bitesized modules that could be easily digested by the call reps.
Training modules were released monthly and covered a variety of onboarding and process-related topics.
Wranx’s Content Team also worked with Vrbo to review their material by suggesting improvements and ideas on how to convey knowledge even more concisely.
Vrbo also utilised a pre-assessment to establish a baseline of knowledge amongst CSRs before they completed their training module. A post-assessment was then used to measure the level of knowledge acquired following the completion of a Wranx module.
Combining pre and post-assessments like this allowed Vrbo to generate an a/b test, highlighting improvements to the level of knowledge attained.
Overwhelming engagement leading to improved efficiency
The response from Vrbo employees was overwhelmingly positive, with learners citing the ability to learn from anywhere while ‘on the go’ as particularly beneficial. Vrbo saw high engagement rates of up to 92% on the Wranx platform, with one learner setting a record 444 days of consecutive logins.
When utilising pre and post-assessments, 89% of users who completed 100% or more of the module improved both their scores and accuracy.
Vrbo also saw a 56% decrease of Misinformed users from pre to post, with 78% of the original Misinformed users becoming Aligned in the post assessment.
Overall, call reps found that the Wranx platform helped them to better retain knowledge and the company saw call-times drop by an average of about 5 seconds as a result. Communication and working relationships also improved, as Vrbo cited an improved culture and receptiveness to learning from the CSRs:
Since we started using Wranx, we can observe a lively discussion amongst agents about certain pieces of information. Very often we find that agents weren’t aware of certain internal processes or interpreted them in a different way, which is why the content presented through Wranx very often leads to clarifying discussions within teams that help to bring all CSRs on the same page. Additionally, Wranx contributes to our cultural value of ‘Mastery’, in which continuous learning plays a key role. Wranx has given us increased flexibility to deliver training content and updates to our reps in a manner that is quick, engaging and fast, ensuring our reps retain new information as quickly as possible. It is an amazing partner in our education program and has proactively helped us to reach our goals.
Catherine Osborne
Manager of Education and Knowledge, Vrbo
second drop in call times
%
learner engagement
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of learners improved their scores from pre to post assessment
questions answered

Overview
TOTAL TRAINING TIME DELIVERED:
2801 hours
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES TRAINED:
512
KEY CUSTOMER CHALLENGES:
Rapid business change, limited time available for training, knowledge retention
CUSTOMER BENEFITS:
Knowledge retention, improved culture & receptiveness to learning
TYPE OF TRAINING DELIVERED:
Customer service, product/ business updates
