LessonsLesson design guide
Example lesson
The same lesson written badly and well, card by card, with what changed and why.
The topic: handling customer complaints for a customer support team. The company policy says to acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours on working days, offer a solution or a next step, and escalate to a team lead when a refund is over €200.
First draft: starting from the content
| # | Card | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title card | Complaints policy 2026 |
| 2 | Card | Introduction. Customer satisfaction is one of our key values. This lesson introduces the complaints handling policy approved by the management in March 2026. |
| 3 | Card | History of the policy. Until 2024 complaints were handled by the quality department… (8 sentences) |
| 4 | Card | Definitions. A complaint is… A claim is… A suggestion is… (three definitions) |
| 5 | Card | The process. Acknowledge within 24 hours on working days, analyse, propose a solution, escalate refunds over €200, close the case in the CRM, send a satisfaction survey. (one long paragraph) |
| 6 | Card | Exceptions. (a list of 7 special cases) |
| 7 | Quiz | In what year was the policy approved? 2024 / 2025 / 2026 / None of the above |
| 8 | Quiz | Which of the following is NOT part of the process? (four options, two of them arguably correct) |
| 9 | Card | Thank you for completing the lesson. |
What's wrong:
- No goal. The lesson tells people about the policy but never asks them to handle a complaint.
- History, definitions and seven exceptions bury the three rules that matter.
- Card 5 packs six steps into one paragraph.
- Question 7 is trivia. Question 8 is negative, and two options are defensible, so people who know the policy lose points.
- No explanations after the answers. Nothing to take to work.
- With 2 questions and an 80 % pass mark, one mistake means failing.
Rewritten: starting from the goal
Goal: Handle a complaint correctly: reply in time, offer a next step, and know when to escalate. Approach: Practise decisions. Pass mark: 80 % with 5 scored cards.
| # | Card | Content |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Title card | Turn an angry customer into a loyal one · "4 minutes: what to do in the first 24 hours of a complaint." |
| 2 | Poll | When a complaint lands on Friday afternoon, what do you usually do? Reply right away / Reply on Monday / Pass it to a colleague. (Show results after answering) |
| 3 | Card | Reply within 24 hours on working days. A quick "we're on it" calms most customers down, even before you have a solution. Friday at 4 pm → reply by Monday 4 pm at the latest. |
| 4 | Card | Always offer a next step. Not "we'll look into it", but "I'll call you on Tuesday with the result" or "here's a replacement". The customer should know what happens next and when. |
| 5 | Card | Refund over €200? Escalate. Your team lead decides. Tell the customer who will contact them and by when. |
| 6 | Quiz | Mr Novák writes on Thursday at 3 pm: his order arrived broken. By when do you have to reply? Friday 3 pm ✓ / Monday 3 pm / Within 48 hours / When you have a solution. Comment per option: e.g. "When you have a solution" — the customer waits in silence and writes a review instead. |
| 7 | Quiz | What's the best first reply to Mr Novák? (three realistic replies: vague apology / clear next step with a date ✓ / promise of a full refund) Comment per option with the consequence of each. |
| 8 | Card | What happened next. You offered a replacement by Tuesday. Mr Novák replies: "I don't want a replacement, I want my €350 back." |
| 9 | Quiz | What do you do now? Refund right away / Escalate to your team lead and tell him when he'll hear back ✓ / Insist on the replacement. Comment per option. |
| 10 | Ordering | Put the steps in order: Acknowledge the complaint → Find out what happened → Offer a next step → Close the case in the CRM. (each step depends on the previous one) |
| 11 | Matching | Match the situation with the right action: Broken item, €80 → Offer a replacement · Refund request, €350 → Escalate to the team lead · Customer asks for an update → Reply with the next date. (+ 1 extra item: "Forward to the quality department") |
| 12 | Card | Remember: reply within 24 working hours · always a next step with a date · over €200 → team lead. |
| 13 | Checklist | For your next complaint: Reply today · Name the next step and the date · Check the refund amount. |
What changed:
- One goal, and every card serves it. History, definitions and exceptions are gone (exceptions go in a separate job aid, linked if needed).
- A poll opens the topic with people's own experience, and colleagues' answers make it interesting.
- Each rule has its own card with a concrete example.
- Questions are situations with one defensible answer, wrong options are real mistakes, and every option has a consequence.
- A story (Mr Novák) runs through the lesson and develops.
- Ordering and matching have only one correct solution.
- 5 scored cards, so one mistake still passes at 80 %.
- It ends with what to do at the next complaint.
- Follow-up: three days later, a Review & recall lesson with six new situations, sent in a sequence.