With Pathlore, Canon Launches eLearning Center for Dealer Network
Lake Success, N.Y., Canon U. S. A., Inc., a subsidiary of Canon Inc. (NYSE: CAJ), trains over 10,000 dealer-technicians and systems engineers in its U.S. dealer network. By launching an eLearning Center with the LMS, Canon is offering its dealer network a blend of online and classroom training. This blended solution will deliver training programs more efficiently then ever before, say Canon’s executives. And quality training provided to high-level support professionals will help Canon achieve brand loyalty from dealers and end-user customers.
By relying on the LMS, engineers and technicians, for instance, can tap what Canon calls online “pre-study” materials. These materials help workers learn about products prior to taking in-person training with their peers. This in turn lets instructors make hands-on diagnostics and troubleshooting the focus of classroom training. The eLearning Center offers dealer-technicians a way to take online certification tests, too. If the technicians pass the online exams, then they can opt-out of certain courses. For technicians, this increases their productivity and lowers costs by eliminating the need to travel to Canon regional offices. The approach also allows them to spend more time with customers.
“With the LMS, we’ll be able to increase hands-on diagnostics work in certain classes from 60 percent to 70 or 80 percent,” says Don Walker, manager of Educational Services at Canon U.S.A., Inc. “It’s all about making a dealer-technician feel more comfortable with our products, which improves service quality and sales.”
The LMS also lets dealer-managers and technicians go online to check class schedules, course descriptions and students transcripts.
“We’re making it easy for our dealer network to get instruction that helps them support both customers and products, and together achieve a high level of end-user customer satisfaction,” adds Walker. “If we make learning about Canon’s products easier, while maintaining a high level of quality, then dealers and end-users – when offered a choice – will select our products over our competitors’ brands.”
Before installing the enterprise learning-management system, Walker’s team kept tabs on training with pen and paper. For example, to find out how many people took one of Canon’s copier classes, Walker would have to call five regional training centers to build a report. With the LMS in place, Walker says, Canon, in many cases, can save up to 50 percent of the time the company spent juggling class schedules, registering people for training and weighing the results.
“The Pathlore LMS will centralize the business of training at Canon, which will save us time and reduces our expenses,” notes Walker. “It also will strengthen the link between Canon and its dealers.”
“Canon has gone beyond simply tracking training to relying on its LMS to improve the performance of its dealer-technicians and systems engineers,” says Steve Thomas, Pathlore’s chief executive.
About Pathlore
Founded in 1995, Pathlore develops software that delivers and analyzes all facets of corporate training. More than 1,000 customers from around the world have tapped Pathlore’s learning-management solutions to increase sales, improve employee retention and comply with government regulations. The privately held company’s clients include DaimlerChrysler, Delta Air Lines, Novartis, PNC Bank, Southwest Airlines, U.S. Bancorp, government agencies on three continents and more than 100 health care organizations. Pathlore has a network of offices and strategic partners around the globe. For more information, go to http://www.pathlore.com
Pathlore is a registered trademark of Pathlore Software Corporation. All other registered and unregistered trademarks and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
