Helping CrossKnowledge Scale Feedback Practice for Alstom

Reading about people skills is different from practising them. For large organisations, the challenge is giving thousands of employees meaningful opportunities to rehearse without requiring a facilitator for every conversation.

CrossKnowledge faced this challenge with its client Alstom, which needed to enable 15,000 managers to practise giving feedback. Providing a live coach for each manager was too expensive and difficult to organise.

A virtual practice partner

Through its partnership with Meta-Skills, CrossKnowledge deployed customised conversational AI avatars. Juliette, Director of Solution Consulting at CrossKnowledge, describes them as a “virtual partner”.

Learners speak naturally to an avatar that understands the scenario, pushes back and challenges their approach. The interaction gives them an opportunity to practise the conversation itself, beyond choosing an answer in a fixed quiz.

A safe place to try again

The practice environment is available around the clock. A manager can rehearse a difficult conversation at 10pm, make mistakes and try again without the pressure of a real workplace encounter.

When a roleplay ends, the learner receives immediate, actionable feedback tailored to their own areas for improvement. That creates a direct connection between the conversation they just had and what they can work on next.

Turning learning into practice

The case illustrates why active practice belongs alongside learning content. Managers need to apply ideas, notice what happens and refine their approach. Repeated simulations and personalised feedback make that process accessible to a much larger group of learners.

For CrossKnowledge and Alstom, conversational avatars offered a way to address the practical bottleneck: giving managers the experience of a feedback conversation without needing a live coach in every session.