VR training that builds confidence and drives real results for member service representatives
Ent Credit Union is a community credit union serving a 14-county area in northern, central, and southern Colorado. With over $9 billion in assets and more than 470,000 members, Ent has been improving the financial lives of their owner-members since 1957 through education, better rates, lower fees, and access to high-quality financial products.
With a strong commitment to employee training and enhancing member experience, Ent partnered with Aequilibrium to explore innovative VR solutions that would elevate their training effectiveness and prepare their team for real-world member interactions.
Our Mandate
We developed VR training to help Member Service Representatives (MSRs) to develop soft skills for effectively leading sales conversations and encouraging members to apply for credit cards.
Services Provided:
- VR Training Strategy & Design
- Scenario-Based Simulation Development
- Interactive Character Design
- Unity & Motive.io Implementation
- Performance Analytics & Measurement
- User Experience Design for VR Training
- Custom Virtual Environment Creation
The Challenge
- Scaling Consistent, Effective Sales Training
- Ent Credit Union’s traditional sales training method relied heavily on role-playing exercises, but this approach faced significant limitations that impacted training outcomes:
- Consistency gaps: Role-playing scenarios varied dramatically depending on who was facilitating, leading to inconsistent training experiences across different sessions and locations.
- Limited practice time: Classroom settings couldn’t accommodate the extensive practice time needed for employees to build genuine confidence in sales conversations.
- Lack of personalized feedback: With limited training capacity, MSRs rarely received detailed, actionable feedback on their specific performance areas.
- Real-world readiness: Employees often felt underprepared for actual member interactions, struggling to spot sales opportunities and achieve conversational goals when it mattered most.
- Ent needed a training solution that could provide consistent, scalable practice opportunities while building the soft skills their MSRs needed to succeed.
Enter Aequilibrium.
We were trying to make the learning deeper and better. The value of virtual reality is that you can practice something without being in reality. If we weren’t able to train someone in a live environment, we wanted to give them the opportunity to fail and learn without it being high stakes.
–
Marnie Gerhardt
Director, Learning Innovation, Ent Credit Union
The Solution
Immersive VR Training That Feels Real
We developed a comprehensive VR training program using Unity and Motive.io platforms, creating scenario-based simulations that closely mirrored typical sales interactions at Ent Service Centers. Our approach focused on realistic practice, immediate feedback, and confidence building.
Realistic Training Scenarios: We designed lifelike sales and customer interaction scenarios where trainees practice communication, problem-solving, and selling with virtual humans. Different dialogue paths show how varied conversations can lead to diverse outcomes, effectively preparing trainees for real-life situations.
Experience as Actors, Not Observers: We streamlined the learning process, letting users concentrate on training instead of figuring out VR navigation. Trainees learn the best approaches through conversation and can explore the virtual setting independently.
Bringing Authenticity to Training: Using character personas from customer research, we made training feel more realistic. We built a training space that looks and feels just like a real Ent Service Center, making the learning experience as close to the real deal as possible.
Key Features & Outcomes
- Overwhelming Preference for VR: 100% of MSRs preferred VR training over traditional role-play, praising the immersive nature that allowed for more realistic and practical training experiences.
- Significant Confidence Boost: 73% of MSRs expressed increased confidence in their ability to lead sales conversations, compared to 52% in pre-training surveys.
- Improved Information Retention: MSRs reported an 82% increase in information retention following VR training sessions compared to traditional role-play methods.
- Judgment-Free Learning Environment: The VR environment eliminated the social pressure and judgment concerns that often hindered effective role-play practice.
The future of financial services training
By leveraging VR training to develop MSRs’ soft skills for leading sales conversations, Ent Credit Union successfully addressed the challenges of consistency and scalability in traditional training methods. The immersive and interactive nature of VR simulations provided extensive practice opportunities, resulting in improved confidence, performance, and measurable business outcomes.
This partnership demonstrates how VR training can enhance employee preparedness and proficiency in real-world interactions, ultimately driving business success in the financial services sector.
Ready to redefine your training?
