From Frustration to Trust

Proactive Communication for Tutoring Center Staff eLearning

Overview

This scenario-based eLearning concept project helps tutoring center management and customer-facing employees explore the importance of using proactive communication to build trust and to express genuine interest for parent concerns in order to improve customer experience, reduce escalation, and increase retention rates. It provides opportunity for managers to practice proactively engaging with parents during the enrollment processes.

Audience: New and experienced tutoring center managers and customer facing employees

Responsibilities: Action mapping, storyboarding, visual & graphic design, eLearning development & instructional design
Tools Used (to date): MindMeister, Google Docs, Miro

This scenario-based eLearning solution followed the basic principles of ADDIE to determine the course goals and objectives during initial analysis. Following initial information gathering sessions with SMEs and stakeholders, the project was executed using SAM to ensure rapid prototyping and continuous feedback from the client. Being a certified Scrum Master, I value using Agile methodology in the development of learning solutions.

The Process

Analysis

The client is a national tutoring franchise focused on delivering measurable academic outcomes, positive learning experiences, and strong customer experiences for families. As the organization continues to expand, leadership identified a need to better support center staff in managing conversations with parents and building proactive communication and trust during the enrollment process and beyond.

Many parents experience frustration and uncertainty when they feel their child is not improving as expected. These emotions can strongly influence interactions with tutoring center staff and consequently customer loyalty. In fast-paced center environments, employees often take a reactive or task-focused approach to these conversations. While well-intended, this can unintentionally make parents feel unheard or undervalued, increasing the risk of dissatisfaction and unenrollment.

The team needed a scalable, engaging solution to help staff build confidence in navigating these sensitive conversations while also shifting from reactive responses to proactive communication strategies. By partnering with Customer Experience (CX) leaders, we identified a gap: although communication is critical to retention, staff typically receive only basic customer service training with limited opportunities to practice reaching out to and engaging with parents before situations escalate or problems arise.

The Problem

The Solution

As the former center learning director at this tutoring franchise, I identified a critical need for staff to engage in proactive, empathetic communication with parents, especially when students are not showing immediate or visible progress. While essential to retention and satisfaction, center staff often receive only basic customer service training, with limited opportunities to practice navigating emotionally charged parent conversations, addressing concerns before they escalate, or building trust before escalations occur.

This new scenario-based eLearning training empowers tutoring center employees to build trust with parents, reduce frustration, and strengthen long-term engagement through proactive communication strategies.

The eLearning solution I developed consists of:

A reference hub – Providing access to the organization’s customer experience principles, communication frameworks, and a course-specific job aid for just-in-time support during parent interactions.
A three-module, scenario-based eLearning simulation – Allowing staff to practice realistic parent conversations in a low-risk environment, with increasing complexity, guided feedback, mentor tips, and decision-based consequences.

This demo highlights the first module of the eLearning simulation, showcasing how learners navigate parent concerns about student progress and experience the impact of reactive versus proactive communication choices. Portions of the training have been modified for demonstration purposes.

Action Map

To ensure this eLearning solution would be based on real-life scenarios, I created this action map with the guidance of members from the CX management team as I acted as the subject matter expert (SME). We identified the business goal would be to increase customer retention rates by 10% by Q4.

I lead the process of translating some of the most common parent complaints into an action-based framework that learners could take to improve customer interactions using positive, inclusive language and empathy while staying away from any perceived perfunctory responses and blatant sales tactics. Genuine empathy and trust is the goal.

The first high-priority action for this course became the first decision point in Module 1, ensuring learners avoid obvious pitfalls when initiating conversations with passengers.

Design (IN PROGRESS)

Text-based Storyboard

The action map guided the development of a text-based storyboard using Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction as well as Bloom’s Taxonomy to create objectives. To model realistic interactions, I worked with SMEs to design a scenario where airline gate agents address airline passenger concerns during a flight delay.