The exclusive report, Role of Digital: Customer Service, compiling the results of a qualitative research exercise commissioned by Brightwave from engagement strategists LearnerLab, goes into the stories behind the stats to make a picture of what digital transformation looks like in the development of customer-service skills and knowledge.

Among the report's many unique findings was the widely held belief that digital transformation is a lived reality for 100% of L&D teams today. While budgets have remained static in 2017, the proportion of both learning and development (L&D) spend and blend devoted to effective digital learning solutions is up on last year.

The impact of digital learning is observed most clearly in the customer-service function, where consumers have led the demand for investment in seamless and effective online experiences in response to their service issues for some years. Many organisations have perfected their customer-focused solutions to the point where they will, in 2017, be extending the same consumer-grade digital learning experiences to the internal market: colleagues.

The story of customer success in today's organisations, where a happy customer can become a loyal brand champion, offers a lesson to the evolving L&D function. Colleagues who experience immersive and effective solutions to their skills and training needs improve the knowledge base of their organisation, and with turnover for customer-service agents in UK businesses between 15-20% p.a., offer huge efficiencies in recruitment, training, and onboarding costs.

The Role of Digital: Customer Service report provides the most honest and intimate look at the reality of digital transformation as it affects L&D today. The thinking and stories revealed by the report indicate a new centrality for L&D within organisational structures, where learner data is becoming an essential way for the business to appraise and understand the ways it is transforming in response to the age of digital business.

Jonathan Archibald, Brightwave Group MD, said, "Our Role of Digital: Customer Service report represents a significant addition to our understanding of the digital transformation process. The future of digital business has been on the horizon for years, but is now upon us. Due to their proximity to the market, customer-service teams are at the spearhead of this process, and their experience at this crucial stage has huge lessons for us all. The report holds vital information for today's L&D teams to negotiate the changing terrain and unlock the big benefits of digital for the whole organisation."

Brightwave Group's Role of Digital: Customer Service report will be released to the general public in February.