Microsoft trains Teams users with the most dysfunctional office ever
A Teams training session themed on “The Office,” opened by one of its legendary characters
A race for the meeting platform
March 2020 started a race for who would become the leading productivity and meeting platform for remote work. Most companies had not picked a unified meeting solution. Hundreds of thousands of users had access to Microsoft Teams but simply weren’t using it.
Video and webinar fatigue was setting in for remote workers. To deal with it all, people were binge-watching their favourite shows. The most popular show of 2020 was “The Office.” Simply walking people through Teams features was not going to win anyone over. So the answer was to use the most dysfunctional office environment ever to teach people how to use world-class productivity tools. If people got comfortable using Teams, it would become embedded in their new daily routine.
Welcome to The (Modern) Office
The (Modern) Office was a virtual training session opened by Todd Packer, who explained how Microsoft Teams would have made life better at Dunder Mifflin. After the laughs came a guided walk-through of Teams, covering group chats and project timelines.
Characters joined as Teams members
The concept went beyond Todd’s appearance. As Michael Scott and Jim Halpert joined as members in Teams, the demo illustrated creating group chats, participating in video calls, managing workback schedules, and sending GIFs.
One call to action per session
The engagement and excitement created in each session was channelled toward a single action. At the end of every session, viewers were called out to request training for their departments, to achieve the scale and impact needed.
Equipping the sales teams
Given the account-based focus, Microsoft sales teams were engaged as demand gen champions. They were equipped with a complete bill of materials including collateral, social selling copy decks, email signatures, and email templates.
An account-based route to scale
The opportunity was clearest in strategic accounts already using Teams but not using its meeting features. Sales teams used the novel experience to bring some much-needed laughter to their customers’ days.
Worth a Dundie
Each session drove a spike in requests for additional Teams training, and the campaign passed every target it set, from sessions delivered to active users gained.
