In this month’s BMF Training Zone, as originally featured in PBM magazine, the BMF outlines the benefits of its online product training facility — BMF Campus.
The most successful merchant sales staff exude confidence in their knowledge of building materials and systems, and that confidence helps them to build mutual trust with their customers. They are not only able to give customers the best advice, they also get the most out of every transaction by offering them options, add-on selling and upselling.
Now it’s easy for every member of the merchant team to increase their base-line knowledge and keep up to date with new products and systems as they come to the market. They just have to get online with BMF Campus, the ultimate product learning system, delivered by the BMF’s partner, Cortexa.
BMF Campus delivers engaging, bite sized programmes on the features and benefits of individual manufacturers’ products, enabling merchant staff to quickly develop their understanding of a wide range of product and technical issues. The technical courses are complemented by a range of selling and communication skills courses, all available 24/7 via pc and increasingly by mobile devices.
In addition to a specialist ‘Wood Campus’ section, BMF Campus includes content from over 100 of the industry’s leading building materials and accessories brands to keep staff informed of the latest products and trends in every area from foundations to ridge tiles, and heating systems to hot water taps. It also offers training in key areas such as Management Skills, Microsoft Office, and Health & Safety Compliance.
For individual users, access to the system is available free of charge. However, as many merchants want to manage training for their wider staff team, there are three levels of subscription-based service — all available at a reduced cost for BMF members. If a staff member uses the system as an individual and their company subsequently upgrades to a subscription service, all their initial training records are retained on the system for continuity.
With a subscription service, local managers take full control. They can enroll their staff, add new starters and allocate specific programmes to individuals, for example by linking online training to POS campaigns or product targets for sales staff to match specific promotions. Staff can also be encouraged to use the site to discover as much about different product areas as they can.
Two of the subscription packages are designed to suit either single site or multi-branch merchants. The Professional Package, which allows up to 30 staff to be registered, is best suited to a single site, while the Enterprise Package provides the facility to manage a network of branches and departments with unlimited numbers of users. Both subscriptions include “site manager” access, enabling merchant managers to run reports and monitor staff activity.
In addition, a recently introduced ‘self-select’ service allows subscribers to access sets of skills courses, with simple monthly payments, with bundles including Customer Service, Health and Safety and Cyber Security.
A third subscription — Bespoke — is available for companies who want to include additional content, for example company induction, systems or procedural training.
Whichever option you choose, BMF Campus is the simplest way to quickly build a wide range of skills across the company. Courses typically take between 20 minutes and an hour to complete, with auto-bookmarking helping with the longer ones. Every course completed is recorded along with the student’s assessment score, providing an individual learning profile for every staff member.
To see the current list of products included and to find out how your company can benefit from this service, visit www.bmfcampus.co.uk or telephone Cortexa direct on 01933 227226.
