UK-based Rison Software recently signed a deal with Nissan Motor Corporation’s training facility, Nissan Academy, to bring its VirtlX solution to employees in five regions across the Middle East, India, and Africa. Dash Research recently interviewed Richard Chalk, Managing Director, to learn more about the evolving company and its offerings.
Company Development
VirtlX offers a unique, unified platform utilizing an intuitive process model to address the challenges of employee / customer / partner / employer relationships. VirtlX assists companies in rapidly and easily gathering customer and employee sentiment, finding the shortfalls, and providing personalized online training. It is an interesting combination of EX and CX tied to learning and training.
According to Chalk, he had the concept for what is now VirtIX twelve years ago. “We had the thought of allowing companies to create their own materials for employees so they could be trained on specific information. Then we took the idea and formulated a CX element. In the first year it went out, we did well, but the product was too hands on and needed too much management,” says Chalk.
Rison Software continued to have several iterations and redesigns as Chalk and team worked to develop a solution that would keep what he refers to as the “golden thread” together, meaning having the right look and feel and a solution that can address all the idiosyncrasies of data and usability. Additionally, the company recently introduced its Callidus AI framework that includes data classification and value prediction to help eliminate labor intensive data analysis and provide deeper CX and EX insights.
“Our objectives included designing something that could be self-service with a friendly user interface, in an affordable SaaS model. It did take some time, but with input from users and several proof-of-concept projects, we launched our latest version in January 2023,” says Chalk.
Nissan Academy Becomes a VirtlX Client
“We have always had a very open invitation to clients when it comes to feedback on our product,” says Chalk. “We have an open ear and if they need or see something that would be of benefit, we strive to work that in, if possible.” Rison had the advantage of working with companies such as Gear4 Music and Finnies Chartered Certified Accountants in its proof-of-concept stage. The company helped Gear4Music get to a 97.4% engagement rate with its employees.
The company’s latest successful proof of concept with Nissan Academy has led to Rison landing a contract to support the company with its VirtIX solution. The Nissan Academy will be using VirtIX to communicate with its employees, measure employee satisfaction, engagement, and wellbeing, as well as report on training progress across the regions.
“We were up against multiple international, powerful companies in the experience space,” says Chalk. “Nissan Academy was looking for a means to rapidly and effectively reach out to its employee base with meaningful surveys that would give them insights into the wellbeing of its staff. But also, the ability for them to gather data originated from numerous sources and view this data in collated training progress reports. Rison Software’s ability to tie these aspects together in a single, unified, off the shelf platform, as well our very competitive pricing is what gave us an advantage.”
It is an all-in-one system that has a user-friendly distribution and reporting interface, as well as the ability to import employee information. This helps to measure and understand employee sentiment and monitor their training progress. Rison will also be adding an in-depth training analysis report to VirtlX as an add-on to the SABA LMS system currently in use by Nissan Academy.
Nissan Academy was attracted to the fact that WhatsApp was integrated with VirtlX, thus affording Nissan Academy the ability to reach employees on mobile devices, in all regions, in a cost-effective manner, resulting in improved engagement and the ability to take fast action when issues of concern are raised. Surveys can be sent via email, SMS, or WhatsApp.
Differentiators and Future Plans
“One of our strong differentiators is our ability to really help companies drill down into their employee data; as an example, to see what is going on with training, even down to particular courses and questions. It helps determine if questions are phrased correctly, how many times people are getting a question wrong, and what types of coursework needs to be created,” says Chalk.
The learning piece of VirtlX Enrich provides a way to upskill employees by dispensing online training that is unique to the company’s requirements, and can also give access to third party training materials. In-house training modules can easily be created and employee progress tracked.
“Proper experience is really reliant on a continual improvement framework,” shares Chalk. “Evaluating employee and customer sentiment, you can drill down into areas of unhappiness or friction. For employees, sometimes they are unhappy and it’s because they really haven’t had the right training. If an employee can’t answer questions because they don’t have the right knowledge and then doesn’t perform well in their job, it’s simply a bad feeling. And could result in poor CX. Keeping employees fully trained in a company’s services and products, as well as best practice, compliance, and personal development, allows your company to present the best trained people to your clients. Our solution helps address all three pieces to this puzzle.”
“It’s going to be an exciting year for Rison Software,” says Chalk. “We are going to be working to explore AI more deeply and adding other enhancements to our solution.”
The Nissan Academy project is certainly a boost to the company, and Rison is seeing an acceleration in partnerships and integrations with several major announcements pending.
Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
