Company Profile

Chris Thrash and Associates

Industry:
Healthcare -
Patient Satisfaction

Mission Statement:
"Our mission is to create vision, purpose and passion for service culture excellence within organizations."

Project Type:
Electronic Learning

Services Provided:
Actionscript 2.0 Code
Flash Development
Copy writing and editing
Graphics Development

Electronic Learning -
Chris Thrash and Associates

Chris Thrash as a nationally known speaker and writer with over 20 years in the healthcare consulting industry. He conducts customer service improvement seminars and initiatives at hospitals all over the United States.

Finished Product

You can view the finished e-learning products online by clicking the appropriate link below. Because the e-learning software is licensed to individual customers, only a demo is shown online.

SMILE: You're on Customer Camera!
"This module takes staff on a hospital tour as seen through the eyes of hospital guests and provides them with five simple things they can do to impact the service experience."
Standing Ovation: Moving From Good to GREAT
"The Standing Ovation E-Learning module compares our roles on the stage of healthcare to the art of theater to remind staff members how to Set the Stage, Know Their Role, and Perform with Purpose as they deliver patient care in moment-to-moment interactions."

Challenge

Late in 2007, Chris realized that an electronic learning platform would be beneficial to his clients long after he has left their hospital. When making improvements in customer service, sustaining results can be a major hurdle in some organizations. Employees can forget the impact of the presentations given and fall back into the "old way" of doing things. Chris believed that providing an optional e-learning module for the hospital's employees would help them continue to focus on positive service experiences.

Solution

Chris believed that by leaving the hospital with a simple electronic learning system that can be deployed on their local intranet, and having the hospital require its employees to go through the e-learning once per quarter (or more if needed), his message of positive customer experience could be more easily sustained and remembered, and therefore, practiced in reality.

Making an Emotional Connection

To carry out the overall strategy, Chris turned to me for help. We began by looking at the desired outcome: sustained positive customer service improvement. I then made the observation that not logic, but emotional connection and desire are the primary triggers for a person actually wanting to provide a positive customer service experience. We designed our e-learning around creating this positive emotional connection, because once that emotional connection has been made, the how-to of logic can actually be absorbed by the person reading through the e-learning. If they resent the fact that they're required to view e-learning, if they believe it's "just a bunch of fluff", they can't be open to actually changing what in some cases may be a cynical attitude.

Execution

We began by using the existing training outline that Chris had developed over the years as a DVD-based video package. From there, I wrote a script and created an outline based on his training, with a special focus on making an emotional connection with the end user, rather than just hitting them with cold logic.

While Chris made edits and approved my script, I began to create mockups and compositions in Photoshop of what our eventual Flash-based e-learning would look like. A color scheme was chosen, and animation effects were developed.

Once the script and overall graphic mockup were finalized, I brought the source images I had developed, along with several stock photos, into Adobe Flash and developed the finished e-learning product.

Impact

After the e-learning was released, Chris asked me to make a slight change to his website's navigation. We created an entire new section for electronic learning, as he now is focused on making e-learning initiatives a major part of his business.