Customer success story
DNV practices high-stakes customer conversations with RealTalk
DNV’s surveyors carry deep technical expertise. In an initial pilot, RealTalk gave them somewhere to practice communicating it, and they didn’t just try it once. They kept coming back to get it right.
92% of users improve upon repeating the training
96% would recommend RealTalk for future communication training
89% were satisfied with the overall experience using RealTalk
96% say RealTalk improved how they communicate in the field
About DNV
The world leader in assurance and risk management
DNV (Det Norske Veritas) is a global assurance and risk management company with 15,000 employees around the world, active in ship classification, offshore units, digital solutions, testing, inspection, and certification. Its overarching goal is to safeguard:
- Life
- Property
- Environment
From ship classification and offshore units to green energy, cybersecurity, patient safety, and the responsible use of AI, DNV’s technical expertise and independence help customers worldwide work safer, more efficiently, and more sustainably.
At the heart of that work are DNV’s surveyors: the people who go on board to verify ships and systems, and whose knowledge and assurance are what customers actually rely on. DNV holds itself to a high bar on quality, and the way that expertise is delivered to the customer is part of that bar.
“Our people possess a lot of knowledge. We sell knowledgeable people and their assurance to our customers, so they’re at the core of what we do. But none of that can be maintained unless you communicate it to the customer. Communication wasn’t very present in our training regime, so we were looking for a tool where you could do that in a self-paced session, and the tool wasn’t quite there until we found Attensi RealTalk.” Bjørnar Krukhaug Senior Learning Consultant
The challenge
Knowledge is only half the job
Surveyors are experts at the technical side. They have to be, because every inspection is measured against strict standards and there’s little margin for getting it wrong. But knowing something and getting it across to a captain are two different skills, and a surveyor can be completely right and still lose the room if the message doesn’t land.
The communication side was mostly picked up on the job. It wasn’t part of formal training, so surveyors often handled their first tough customer conversations for real, on board, where getting it wrong actually costs something. DNV wanted somewhere for them to work on that before it counted.
- Communication was not part of formal surveyor training.
- High-stakes customer conversations were learned through experience.
- Surveyors needed somewhere to practice before it mattered.
The solution
Practice the conversations before it counts
RealTalk gave surveyors somewhere to get the conversation wrong before it counted. They work through realistic dialogues at their own pace and get feedback the moment they finish, which is rare for something as fleeting as what you say out loud in a room.
The scenarios were built closely around DNV’s own reality, which matters for work this exact. And because each run is gamified to reward improvement, surveyors kept going back to beat their last attempt instead of ticking it off once.
What stood out was the reflection it set off. People came away knowing where they were strong and where they needed to sharpen, and that self-insight mattered more than the score itself. One surveyor described the scenarios as realistic and engaging, and said they captured how hard it actually is to find the right way to talk to a captain.
How it works
Four steps from practice to performance
1
Practice conversations
Surveyors step into a realistic annual survey, from the first handshake with the captain to delivering a difficult finding.
2
Get immediate feedback
Every session shows what went well and what to sharpen, right after you finish.
3
Repeat until it sticks
Scoring and gamified mechanics reward each attempt, so people come back to beat their last run.
4
Carry it into the field
Skills rehearsed in RealTalk show up where they count, in front of the customer.
Results
So useful that they wanted more
For a pilot, the question was straightforward. A new training format only sticks if people actually take to it, so what DNV really wanted to know was whether surveyors would find this useful. They did, and the ones who tested it asked for more.
They also didn’t stop at one go. Surveyors repeated the scenario around twice each on average, and almost everyone who went again did better the second time. On average, users improved their score by 20% from first to best attempt, and got to a solid level in under 40 minutes of practice. But the scores weren’t really the headline. What stood out was that people kept choosing to go back in.
These are the headline numbers from the pilot, drawn from surveyor feedback and in-simulation performance. Across satisfaction, recommendation and self-reported impact, the response pointed the same way.
- 92% of users improve when they repeat
- 89% were satisfied with the overall experience
- 96% would recommend it for future communication training
- 96% say RealTalk improved how they communicate in the field
For DNV, this is worth more than any single conversation. Surveyors are hired for what they know, but that knowledge only pays off when it reaches the customer well, and this is where the two finally meet.
“I see Attensi as a very important and relevant part of people development in DNV, because the particular strength of RealTalk is to push people into real-life simulations. It’s just as important to deliver the best possible customer experience, so we can go full circle in serving our customers, not only technically in terms of classification, but also in service delivery and expertise.” Ulrich Bernhardt Head of Competence & Learning and Academy
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