Training for hours, days, and weeks in a classroom or Zoom-based environment is not the way to create an effective customer-facing organization. Modern organizations require modern training approaches, and Spekit could be an excellent fit for your organization. And the Spekit Chrome Extension allows a no-code approach that differentiates it from others in the space.
What do we mean?
Modern training approaches should include a mix of the following to beat back our natural forgetting curve:
- Learning reinforcement — remind people, at regular intervals, of critical nuggets of knowledge.
- In-the-moment-of-need insights: When you do any job, you want easy access to information. Spekit helps here.
This article will focus on setting up Spekit and the reinforcement aspects only. Our next article on Spekit will cover the other elements of a modern approach to training.
Note: Spekit is genuinely one of the most straightforward solutions we have ever worked with — but pay attention to the following caveats to determine if it is right for you.
Caveats
Spekit works great for organizations that leverage a multitude of applications to get work done like Salesforce, Outreach, LinkedIn, etc. given the complexity of onboarding and continually training on these solutions as systems and processes evolve. If you only use a few tools or don’t have a complex tech stack, it may not be the right fit.
AND, the Google Chrome browser is required to use most of the functionality. I’m a Mac guy and tried using it in Safari by default, only to hit a brick wall there.
Spekit can work for road warriors if you live in the Salesforce mobile app, as they integrate there.
However, users in other environments may want to look at alternatives.
Getting started with Spekit
Since this is our first article on Spekit, we will quickly review the setup process of Spekit before we dive into using the product for learning delivery.
Install the Spekit Chrome Extension
The magic of Spekit’s no-code approach is that all users must have the Spekit Chrome extension installed — install from here.
Once you’ve installed the extension, which takes less than 2 minutes, click on the Get Started button in the bottom right to walk through the remaining steps.
Note:
- Anyone using Spekit MUST have the Spekit Chrome Extension installed if they use it within Salesforce or other applications accessed via your Chrome browser.
- We are writing this while using a Trial account, so unclear if the “Schedule a demo” option would show up for paying customers.
- Also, on the right side of the screen, note the purple Spekit element. This item is the docked app we will be using in a few minutes.
Creating our first Spek
Click on the purple Spekit icon on the right side, and the doc will open.
Click on the Create button in the top right corner of the Spekit dock, and click on the Spek button.
We choose Spek, so let’s examine that part of the UI, as this is a critical component in our modern training creation process.
You will likely create Speks the majority of the time.
Keep the following in mind as you work with Spekit.
The Wiki
Speks, and all other Spekit objects, live in the Wiki area. If you are not familiar with the concept of Wikis, think of them as a content library.
Topics
In Spekit, Topics organize a collection of related knowledge. For example, we created a Topic for Trust Enablement to test Spekit on our parent website.
The Topic creation page asks you for the URL of the website this topic relates to; see here:
Alright, back to the Spek creation screen.
Filling in Spek details
Set a title and description, and assign it to the topic to organize.
Now, assign an expert.
Modern training approaches MUST leverage subject matter experts (SMEs) from around the organization to distribute the workload and ensure the best information possible is available to the entire business.
We love this approach!
Skip Salesforce; let’s look at the bottom half of the Spek screen.
To support modern training delivery, let’s discuss “Notify my Team” and Spotlights.
Notify my Team
If you update information, and no one knows, does it matter?
Of course not. This functionality reminds the SME to let everyone know what was updated.
Spotlights
Reinforcement — built-in.
Spotlights are:
- A reinforcement mechanism.
- They open in front of your customer-facing teams while they work.
- Spotlights remind your teams of important information.
They can postpone the spotlights and review at their convenience when necessary.
And, the best part is:
In Spekit reporting, you can see who has read which Speks, how often they dismissed them, how long they spent reading, and tie this back to performance.
Modern training delivery in-context
We’ve shared a bit about creating Speks, how you can use notifications, and then Spotlights for announcements and reinforcement, respectively.
Our next article will explore in-context, in-the-moment-of-need by connecting to our Salesforce instance.
