With iSpring, I achieved a 4.8 satisfaction with my courses

SgtGodoy.com is an online provider of test preparation courses for entry-level exams for Law Enforcement Officers, TSA Agents, Border Patrol Agents, and Customs Officers. Enrollment for these test prep courses exceeds 7,000 users per year.

The business has enjoyed a growth of 500% over the past 5 years based on Sgt. Godoy’s focus on providing great content and superior customer satisfaction. A key reason for this success was upgrading to iSpring Suite for all tutorial and test development.

Sgt. George Godoy

Background and Objectives

When I retired from law enforcement in 2007, I wanted to start a business that could help people pass the entry-level testing required to join law enforcement. The only resources available at that time were antiquated hard copy books based on decades-old testing approaches.

Online students literally had to keep the piece of paper on their desk to record answers to a quiz. I decided to completely revamp the way training materials are presented and delivered.

Being a small business, I had to compete with several large international companies that provide job certification training. Targeting their weaknesses, I made it a goal to provide the highest-quality, most attractive looking tutorials and quizzes, backed with personalized support.

Over the past five years, based on the customer reviews that I collected, I have achieved that goal — thanks in large part to iSpring Suite, which has been my primary authoring tool.

SgtGodoy.com test prep courses reviews on ShopperApproved

Choosing a course authoring toolkit: Why iSpring?

When I started this business, I had experience with PowerPoint, web development, and marketing, but not with eLearning solutions. I experimented with tools like Blackboard, Articulate, etc. The primary reason I chose iSpring Suite was because the tool was PowerPoint based. It provided the ease of use I was looking for.

Because iSpring Suite is PowerPoint based, it provided me the ease of use I was looking for.

The second thing that was important to me was the variety of the question types that you can create and how easily you can create them.

Today, the total number of questions across all my quizzes is about 5,000 — probably 50 questions per quiz. It would have taken a long time to create all of this if it were not for the ease of use that iSpring Suite provides.

A Hotspot questions from one of the quizzes

I have developed about 5,000 questions. It would have taken a long time to create all of this if it were not for the ease of use that iSpring Suite provides.

The third thing I like about iSpring is that the final product looks outstanding. Each of my courses consists of a variety of presentations or lessons, plus a variety of practice exams. And because I am putting my name on them, it’s especially important to me that they work perfectly, are reliable and the user interface is good.

The material comes out looking great, the quizzes are extremely high quality and very attractive.

Finally, one of the most impressive things about iSpring is the technical support team. It’s hard to find good customer support nowadays with web-based products, but iSpring’s customer support is excellent. I just love everybody who works on the customer support team.

Developing courses with iSpring Suite

Being a one-person company, I do everything from course development in PowerPoint to publishing and promoting my courses online. When I started, one of the hardest things was figuring out the right workflow. Now, having developed about 40 courses, I’ve come up with a solid authoring process.

The first step is to get all the information together. There are many different types of police certification tests, and each one has its own requirements. I begin by researching all the requirements and writing an outline of the tutorial I’m going to create. I also get lots of inspiration from gathering images to make the course more entertaining and effective.

Putting all the information together before creating a course

Then, I write out a narration script and start developing a PowerPoint presentation slide by slide, adding animations and graphics. Once the presentation is ready, I record the narration and synchronize it with the slides using iSpring Suite. From initial research to publishing, a great tutorial takes me about 4 days to develop, depending on how much photo editing is required.

Recording audio narration with iSpring Narration Editor

I also use iSpring’s built-in QuizMaker to develop quizzes and assessments. Creating a quiz may take up to 16 hours, depending on the number of questions and images. Sometimes, I take questions from books, but in most cases I write questions and answer options from scratch. I also add detailed feedback messages to each question. I enjoy the fact that I can include diagrams and images in the answer explanations.

Using detailed feedback messages to reinforce learning

A presentation and a quiz on a certain topic make up a module. Each course includes a number of modules on different topics, depending on what each course requires. For example, reading comprehension is a subject that is included in most of my courses.

Module structure

Results Achieved

Over the past five years, I’ve had about 30,000 people complete my courses — currently running about 7,000 students a year. My courses are designed for self-evaluation, so I do not typically track learners’ results. The most important metrics of success to me is customer satisfaction.

I collect customer reviews and ratings on ShopperApproved.com and my overall customer satisfaction rating there is 4.8. I guarantee a full refund to anybody who is unhappy with my courses. Still, over the last four years, my refund rate has been only 3%, which is terrific.

Thanks to iSpring, I create beautiful interactive content that my learners find both effective and engaging. I receive many positive reviews about the quality of my courses: