Training your ambassadors is an important step in building your ambassador program.
Once you’ve recruited an entire team of ambassadors, the next step is to train them - not only so they can feel comfortable using our platform but also so you can set any expectations you might have, particularly in terms of how responsive they should be and how creating content will be part of their role.
In this article, we’ll look at:
Let's get into it!
Ambassador Training Center
When you're ready to onboard your ambassadors, head to the admin dashboard and Settings > Invite to find a link to our Ambassador Training Center. To save you time, we've also included an email template you can simply copy, amend, and email out to your ambassadors to get them set up on the platform.
As part of our training, your ambassadors will watch a series of videos and take part in some mini quizzes to get acquainted with our technology. They will learn how to set up their profile, how to use our Chat feature safely, how to upload Content, and respond to FAQs (depending on which training you select in the 'Invite' screen).
At the end of the training videos, your ambassadors will automatically be invited to download The Ambassador Platform app, and create their profiles.
Running your own ambassador training
Of course, you’re more than welcome to run your own ambassador training sessions. For those of you taking that option, we’ve gathered together some tips for you.
First of all, if you plan on running your own training, we’d suggest allowing a good amount of time for the session - at least 45 minutes, ideally an hour. You don’t want the session to be rushed - there’s plenty you’ll need to cover and you’ll want to allow time for questions from your ambassadors too.
There are a number of ways you can approach this training, but here are a few things you might like to consider.
First, give an overview of their role - what it means to be an ambassador, the scope of their role and how this fits in with the marketing/recruitment team's broader activities, and how they are very much considered an extension of the team and that you value them as such.
You might then want to engage your ambassadors with some sort of role play exercise, to get thinking about the sorts of conversations they will soon be having with prospective students.
Get the ambassadors into groups and ask them to discuss answers to the sorts of questions they are likely to get asked in real life. For example, an ambassador training session for universities or colleges might cover the following questions:
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What course do you study? Why did you choose it? Why do you enjoy it?
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Why did you choose to study at your institution?
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What do you do outside your studies? Tell me more about student life, societies, the town/city/campus.
Doing this gives them the confidence to have conversations with prospects online and at events. Working with other ambassadors is also helpful as it allows them to bring together different experiences and information from across your institutions' community. Helping each other with information on topics that may be unfamiliar not only builds a positive community among the ambassadors, but also provides them with a greater breadth of knowledge.
It's also important to stress that they're not expected to know all the answers! For example, if they don't know the answer to a question about scholarships, it's best that they ask for help rather than give out information that may be incorrect. The best way to do this on our platform is to invite a staff member to the conversation so that they can help. They can also invite fellow ambassadors to the conversation.
Make sure your ambassadors are also aware of your institution’s safeguarding policies and features within our platform, such as the flag conversation tool, so they know what to look out for and how to report concerns with admins if they have a safeguarding issue on our platform.
You might also want to get your ambassadors to brainstorm ideas for content prompts and FAQs - remind them they can submit content whenever they like from the app and encourage them from the very start to do exactly that.
You might also cover tips on how to capture photos and videos, and how to edit their content using their phones.
However you run your own training, some key elements you should look to get across are:
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The importance of content - encourage them to get into the habit of creating content and sharing it with you, the more the better!
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Be engaging - stress the importance of your ambassadors not simply answering questions when chatting to prospects, but asking questions back themselves. It helps keep conversations moving, gives your prospects more confidence, and allows your ambassadors to learn more about them and therefore be even more useful.
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Diversity - Everyone is different and has varied backgrounds and life experiences. Your ambassadors will be in contact with both young and mature prospects from a host of backgrounds, so they need to be able to communicate with a wide range of people. They must be honest but also consider how their personal views or experience may be different to others'. How can they tailor the content of their conversation to reflect this?
Top-up Training
Get into the habit of catching up with your ambassadors regularly throughout the year to make sure that they are meeting the expectations of the role, and happy in their work. You might also want to consider running a yearly refresher training for ambassadors that have been working on the platform for a while to keep them motivated and engaged with your team.
We have a fantastic Next-Level Ambassador Masterclass video that you might want to share with your veteran ambassadors to reinvigorate their passion for the role, or run your own in-person workshop! You could share some high level data from the admin dashboard on the number of prospects that your ambassadors have messaged or converted to offer acceptance as a way of showing them the impact of their work. The promise of a free lunch / pizza / coffees to congratulate them on their efforts would, of course, always be welcomed too!
If you need any further tips or information on how to train your ambassadors effectively, please don't hesitate in contacting support@theambassadorplatform.com, or reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager for advice.