Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ
General
Retorio is a cutting-edge AI coaching platform that takes learning to the next level. Retorio’s AI coach simulates typical challenges that your learners face in their career. It has assimilated knowledge from tens of thousands of professionals worldwide, enabling it to address sales, service, and leadership challenges adeptly. Akin to a flight simulator that prepares pilots for critical one-shot moments, Retorio’s AI coach prepares learners to navigate the most challenging situations in their careers.
Organizations worldwide invest substantial resources in sales, service, and leadership coaching programs with the intent of transforming their teams' skills and capabilities.
However, there is often uncertainty regarding the measurable impact of these programs on employee performance and organizational outcomes.
Experienced coaches are limited in number, making it challenging to provide coaching to a large workforce. Individual coaches may also offer inconsistent advice and lack specialized knowledge of an organization's specific industry or context.
Due to its high cost, access to coaching is typically restricted to a select group of employees. Retorio's AI coaching platform democratizes access to coaching by providing impactful, measurable, and scalable AI-powered coaching designed specifically for the enterprise.
Sales coaching: For example, Retorio's clients use Retorio to improve quota attainment, conversion rates, and mean deal sizes by enhancing sales conversations, equipping their sales force to evolve into better solution sellers, becoming more client-focused, addressing objections more effectively, explaining products and services more effectively, communicating value propositions, or negotiating prices.
Service coaching: Retorio assists service organizations in reducing average handling times (AHT), augmenting net promoter scores (NPS), and upselling by onboarding service personnel faster, enabling them to respond to inquiries more effectively, and establishing more robust connections with their clients.
Leadership coaching: Retorio empowers both emerging and established leaders to inspire their team members, foster a more diverse and inclusive culture, become more agile and adaptive problem solvers, institute enhanced collaboration and communication, and develop emotional intelligence.
Various other applications can be accommodated by Retorio.
Retorio is GDPR and EU AI-Act compliant.
Retorio's AI Coaching Platform does not fall under the prohibited AI use cases under the AI Act, Chapter II, Article 5 or any other articles.
The EU AI Act explicitly addresses the use of emotion recognition systems and social scoring classifies them as prohibited AI applications when used in certain contexts. This regulation primarily targets AI systems that attempt to infer emotional states from biometric data such as facial expressions, body language, or physiological signals and scoring systems that aim at preventing individuals from getting access to certain resources.
While detecting emotions is forbidden by the AI Act, detecting readily apparent facial expressions, such as “smiling” is explicitly exempted from the list of prohibited use cases in Article 5 of the AI Act.
Retorio offers an at rest API and supports different ways to integrate into CRM, HRM or LMS systems such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Cornerstone, Workday, SuccessFactors, etc. Please book a demo to inquire about available integrations.
Behavioral Intelligence refers to the ability to comprehend and impact social interactions through the perception of your own behavior and the behaviors of others. It goes beyond traditional notions of intelligence and encompasses the ability to interpret, predict and adapt one’s behaviors based on internal and external cues.
It is a vital skill in today’s business world, particularly when engaging with other people. Retorio harnesses the power of Behavioral Intelligence to revolutionize learning and development.
By utilizing Behavioral Intelligence, our training platform unlocks a new dimension of personalized training, including on-demand tailored feedback on behavior and data-driven insights.
Behavioral intelligence—this comprehensive understanding of human behavior and change—is what differentiates Retorio’s training platform from other forms of training programs, such as e-learning courses, instructor-led traditional training, certification programs, etc.
Absolutely; you can invite candidates and view all their results without the need for an additional tool like an Application Tracking System (ATS). However, should you already have an ATS, you can easily integrate Retorio into your existing ATS.
Retorio is used in pre-screening processes, where our clients collect and analyze video applications in order to give every candidate a chance to leave a personal impression.
Retorio is used in internal assessments to derive a better understanding of an organization's culture and to reveal behavioral patterns that drive performance.
Moreover, Retorio is used in training programs to enable customized soft skill trainings and to enable private users and employees to prep-up for job interviews, client talks, leadership roles, etc.
Retorio's current strategy is to provide AI coaching to medium-sized and large enterprises, typically employing at least 1,000 individuals or having a minimum of 300 personnel dedicated to customer-centric roles. A significant proportion of Retorio's clientele comprises global organizations with sales, service, and leadership teams distributed across various geographical locations.
To cater to smaller clients, Retorio collaborates with select HR consultancies and training agencies. We welcome you to book a demo with us, and we will gladly evaluate whether we can serve you directly or through one of our partners.
If you are interested in partnering, please contact us through our partner page.
We’re committed to ensuring the security and protection of the personal information that we process.
We are based in Germany and exclusively store data within the European Union. We provide a GDPR-compliant and consistent approach to our data protection. Find out more about our Ethics and Privacy.
Retorio’s training platform brings an immense amount of tangible benefits for your teams, which in turn help your organization reach its goals. Some ways that teams benefit from using Retorio’s AI-powered video simulations is by: Personalized skill development: Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all training content. We understand the importance of personalization, especially when it comes to training content, and our bespoke training content ensures that each team member receives targeted training and guidance to maximize their potential. On-demand, tailored feedback: We know what the difference between good and great feedback can be, and Retorio’s AI training does so through highly personalized and timely feedback.
Retorio’s AI coach provides real-time, in-context feedback during as well as after training. With feedback given during training to your teams, learners are able to adjust and modify behavior easily to see immediate performance improvement.
High engagement: One of the biggest pitfalls of virtual training is the lack of engagement. Retorio’s training is designed with engagement at its core - our training makes sure team members are fully engaged with our interactive AI simulations, which in turn ensure learners retain the learned knowledge.
Retorio’s Behavioral Intelligence Platform is designed to significantly improve and enhance the performance of sales representatives by effectively upskilling the crucial skillset required for a sales rep.
With personal AI-powered sales coaching, trainees engage in immersive video simulation content that is tailored to their specific needs, whether it be improving their objection-handling skills, refining their negotiation skills, or perfecting their closing techniques.
The customization factor ensures that reps are only engaging in the training that they need, thus improving efficiency.
Every industry has its own specific demands and needs.
With Retorio’s AI training platform, companies have the opportunity to plug in existing content and pick from Retorio’s wide library of training content, or build new training programs for sales, after-sales, customer service, and leadership training within just a few clicks.
Furthermore, with generative AI, it is possible to create new learning material with ease. This way, training content can be 100% tailored to your industry needs, and you can make sure your talents are trained with relevant material.
This commitment to customization ensures Retorio’s training is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Organizational change has become a constant, and the ability of an organization to navigate these shifting tides rests heavily on the shoulders of its leaders.
Retorio addresses this critical need by empowering leaders with ongoing training and reflection opportunities. Through engaging AI-powered simulations, leaders can immerse themselves in realistic role-plays, mirroring the challenges they encounter in their day-to-day roles. This experiential learning approach allows them to learn, adapt, and refine their leadership skills in a risk-free environment, ultimately enhancing their self-awareness and effectiveness in real-world leadership situations.
Retorio offers a range of leadership training programs designed to empower leaders to develop effective leadership skills, gain self-awareness and personalized feedback for self-improvement in a psychological safe setting.
Our leadership training programs are carefully crafted to address key leadership competencies and can be tailored to meet specific organizational needs, such as: GROW model, conflict resolution, performance appraisals, trust management, crisis communication, and more.
Aside from our library of bespoke content, organizations have the ability to create Al-generated content with absolute ease and roll out training in a matter of hours to their leaders.
Exceptional customer support and reactive service are the cornerstones of thriving organizations, paving the way for customer loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, and sustainable growth.
Yet with escalating customer expectations, it has never been more challenging for companies to make every interaction an opportunity to foster loyalty.
With Retorio's Al-powered role-play training, customer service representatives get the opportunity to master the art of reactive support even before talking to real customers. Through interactive video simulations, tailored scenarios, and real-time feedback, Retorio's training enables customer service reps to create an unforgettable customer experience and drive business success.
After-sales training plays a pivotal role in fostering customer loyalty and driving revenue through cross-selling and upselling opportunities. When organizations train their after-sales representatives, it contributes significantly to to customer loyalty and repeat business by ensuring that customers have a positive and memorable post-purchase experience.
When customers receive excellent support, and personalized solutions, and feel valued by the brand, they are more likely to not only return for additional purchases but also engage in cross-purchasing, increasing their overall lifetime value to the business.
Furthermore, employees feel more prepared and self-aware after relevant training and can apply their learnings with confidence in critical customer service meetings.
Retorio's Behavioral Intelligence model employs a multimodal approach to comprehensively analyze behavior. It processes both verbal and non-verbal information, recognizing that communication is predominantly visual (55%), followed by vocal (38%) and verbal (7%) elements. Retorio’s multimodal approach enhances the model's effectiveness, making it up to 14 times more powerful than solely verbal models.
Retorio's model analyzes behavior across three distinct layers. The initial layer provides a descriptive account of behavior based on video and audio analysis. The second layer interprets the impact of observed behavior within a specific context. Finally, the third layer compares the observed behavior against organizational goals and leverages comparative internal and external benchmark datasets to formulate recommendations for improvement.
Retorio's Artificial Intelligence (AI) develops and operates proprietary AI models, incl. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and transformer models. These models are strategically coupled with cutting-edge off-the-shelf and open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) to enhance their performance and to translate abstract model output into concrete feedback and recommendations.
Retorio has assembled a world-class team AI experts who have dedicated themselves to creating Retorio's exclusive Behavioral Intelligence. This innovative technology is able to quantify, predict, and recommend specific behaviors based on comprehensive video and audio analytics.
Retorio's linguistic analysis capabilities in English, German, Spanish, and Italian currently exhibit an accuracy rate ranging from 96% to 98% percent. Furthermore, Retorio's visual AI coaching models demonstrate remarkable accuracy, surpassing ninety percent in describing and predicting behaviors observed in previously unseen videos when compared to human evaluators. For more specific accuracy statistics, please refer to our whitepaper.
Retorio deploys two different approaches to open up the black box of AI models. Transparent models enable users to understand how the AI arrives at its recommendations, while interpretable models provide insights into the underlying logic and reasoning behind the AI's recommendations.
Transparency: Retorio deploys timestamps and graphs to provide transparency. Timestamps indicate when the AI made a particular observation, allowing users to track the AI's thought process over time. Graphs visualize the relationship between different variables, helping users to understand the factors that influence the AI's recommendations. Additionally, Retorio deploys text-highlighting for enhanced transparency. By highlighting key passages of text that are relevant to the AI's suggestions, users can quickly identify the information that the AI has considered in making its recommendations.
Interpretability: For some forms of analysis, Retorio offers explainable AI features (XAI) that take transparency in AI coaching to the next level. XAI provides users with detailed explanations of the AI's reasoning. XAI techniques can generate natural language explanations that describe the AI's thought process step-by-step. This level of transparency enables users to understand not only what the AI is recommending, but also why it is making those recommendations.
Retorio's fundamental behavioral models are developed utilizing proprietary datasets, scientific research, and open-source data. These models provide general descriptions and interpretations of human behavior. Notably, these models are not trained on user or client data to ensure impartiality.
Retorio offers features that enable the configuration of models and the uploading of company-specific data. Through these configuration features, clients can simulate client-specific scenarios, compare learner behavior with internal benchmarks, and generate company-specific recommendations. This customization layer is configured by Retorio's clients, who can utilize Retorio's coaching builder to customize and refine recommendations. All client-specific configurations are securely stored within the client's Retorio environment. Access to these configurations is limited to the client and can be deleted at any time.
No. Retorio has a standard practice of signing data privacy agreements (DPAs) with its clients. These agreements clearly outline the roles and responsibilities of both parties in relation to data processing and protection.
As a data processor, Retorio plays a crucial role in handling and processing client and user data in accordance with their instructions. However, it's important to note that Retorio does not have control over the specific data and learnings that belongs to each client. This control remains with the clients and their users, who maintain control over their own data, and who can delete their data at any time they choose.
When operated at scale, Retorio's AI coaching consistently demonstrates a significant cost advantage, typically ranging from ten to twenty-five times more cost-effective than conventional coaching methodologies. Retorio operates on a subscription-based business model.
Clients of Retorio procure a specified quantity of user licenses, which are exclusively assigned to specific users and are not transferable.
In addition, Retorio charges a base fee encompassing server hosting services, onboarding workshops, customer success initiatives, and comprehensive reporting. Pricing structures vary in accordance with the volume of users. For further information, please schedule a demo.
Please schedule a demo and we are happy to provide you with access to a free trial if we see potential for a collaboration.
When certain criteria are met, Retorio offers Proof-of-Value (PoV) projects to help clients build business cases and prepare larger roll-outs. Please schedule a demo to learn more.
Retorio can be used for assessment and hiring purposes. Retorio is for example used in pre-screening processes, where our clients collect and analyze video applications in order to give every candidate a chance to leave a personal impression.
Retorio is used in internal assessments to derive a better understanding of an organization's culture and to reveal behavioral patterns that drive performance.
Certainly, you are welcome to participate! We collaborate with resellers, content providers, and implementation partners. To learn more about partnership opportunities, kindly reach out to timo@retorio.com or schedule a demo.
What are the advantages for you?
Content partner: A partnership may be suitable if you are interested in enhancing the scalability of your coaching and training methods and expanding the reach of your concepts to a broader audience.
Reseller: By becoming a reseller of Retorio's platform, you can differentiate your offerings, providing your customers with additional value.
Implementation partner: We collaborate with consulting firms and implementation partners to facilitate global roll-outs for our enterprise clients.
Retorio hosts data on servers within the European Union (EU). Retorio works exclusively with ISO 27001 certified cloud service providers (Google GCP and Microsoft Azure).
Retorio is a spin-off of the Technical University of Munich, Germany. Using advanced AI technology, Retorio incorporates observer assessments into its assessment framework, which encompasses a range of scientific models, including the Big Five personality traits model.
This comprehensive approach evaluates individuals by analyzing video clips, providing valuable insights into their behavioral characteristics and performance. Retorio’s Behavioral Intelligence Platform plays an important role in facilitating successful interpersonal interactions, empowering individuals to navigate through a wide range of social interactions, forge meaningful relationships, and achieve goals in both their personal and professional contexts. By integrating the aforementioned principles of Behavioral Intelligence, Retorio’s technology represents an innovative approach to contemporary employee training.
By decoding the intricacies of human behavior, Retorio’s platform empowers sales, after-sales, customer service professionals, as well as leaders, to engage in more meaningful, personalized interactions, foster trust, enhance customer relationships, and create a culture of growth and empowerment within organizations.
Furthermore, this ensures that employee training programs are engaging and sustainable by delivering targeted, effective training, thereby maximizing the retention of learned skills in trainees and shaping the future of training and development.
Retorio relies on machine learning methods to analyze behavior in videos. Machine learning denotes statistical procedures that result in prediction models.
The models have neither consciousness nor intuition. They rely on data as experience. That is, an Al is an accumulation of experience (data points).
The experience base is thus crucial to the basis on which an Al later makes assumptions. It is not only the mass of data that is decisive but also the type of data, the variety of data, and the data quality.
Retorio's Al only learns under supervision. Retorio's models have been trained to predict a person's impression based on a representative dataset.
The dataset comprises thousands of videos clips of people around the world that have been assessed by observers according to the Big 5 taxonomy.
In total, we used more than 2,500 observers from five continents. The individuals in the video clips were also divided equally in regard to sex, ethnicity, and age. To promote objectivity, multiple ratings per video were obtained.
The overall dataset consists of more than 12.000 people.
Our system has a prediction accuracy of around 92%. Imagine asking thousands of people how they perceive a person on video in terms of personality.
We achieve the same results to 92%. 92% accuracy means that we can expect an unsystematic estimation error of ca. 8%. That means, the AI might sometimes be a bit off, for which reason we recommend to merely use it as an assistent system.
The Retorio observer based assessment can be expected to show higher external validity than self-assessment of personality traits.
Since personality traits are crucial predictors of job behavior, it is essential taking these into account when making hiring decisions. For more background on the validity of Retorio, click here.
We ensure that Retorio does not systematically discriminate against people based on their ethnicity, age, gender, religion or culture. We do so by by checking the estimates in our datasets for possible systematic biases (e.g., discrimination).
"Algorithm-based differentiations become discriminations in particular if they constitute an unjustified disadvantage of persons characterized by protected characteristics (in particular age, gender, ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability)"
(Source: German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency)
Retorio ensures that only factors that are within the applicant's control are included in the results. For example, in our datasets, we compare mean scores on the Big5 dimension Extraversion between Caucasians and Blacks. When we discover significant mean differences attributable to group membership, we adjust the mean and distribution to compensate for discriminatory bias in the training and test sets.
We regularly test the corrected models against large, scientifically sound datasets, such as UCLA's Fairface dataset, which contains approximately 100,000 individuals from different cultures, age groups, etc. We publish our results transparently. Our research clearly indicates that Retorio assesses applicants regardless of their skin color, gender, or age.
Retorio's AI does not need specific training to provide helpful output. Send out assessment links and receive video applications from day one. Over time you can add more data about your teams and your culture to increase the precision of Retorio's predictions.
Learners
Voluntary participation and acceptance rates vary depending on the use case, industry, and engagement concept. Retorio helps clients in finding the optimal engagement concept.
Voluntary participation rates in Retorio’s AI coaching programs typically range from 75% (leadership training) to 93% (retail sales setting) with six to twelve coaching average sessions per user per quarter and recommendation rates of 80-91%. These values are far above common activation and recommendation rates of conventional e-learning platforms, which typically show activation rates below 30-50% and completion rates between 10-30%.
For Candidates
Usually, a Retorio assessment shouldn't take longer than 5-15 minutes, with roughly one minute scheduled for each question and several trials per question. However, the length of the assessment depends on the number of questions posed by the recruiter.
You will need a recording camera, functioning voice recording and quiet environment, preferably a white the background and sufficient light.
Just like there's no right or wrong personality in a partner or friends -they either fit your character or they don't-, there is no right or wrong personality for a job in general.
Most importantly, Retorio will assess a fit between the candidate's personality and job tasks, as well as the company culture and existing team. Performing well therefore means attaining a high fit.
But here it gets very individual and candidates should at all costs avoid faking responses, gestures or mimic. It is most important to try and behave naturally, lean back and relax. As a fit that's not based on your actual personality will neither be helpful for candidate nor company.
We make it our objective to assess candidates' personality as objectively as possible. We guarantee high objectivity and reliability by removing single observer-based bias from the data and using multiple observer ratings.
We also set value on removing any biases resulting from gender, age, ethnicity or skin color.
The combined rating of the AI makes use of visual input from facial expression and gesture, as well as auditive information like speaking speed, language sentiment and engaging language.
Just like humans, any AI can be tricked. For you to cheat, there would have to be an ideal state the cheating aims at. In personality assessment, there can be multiple ways to reach a goal. In general, we do have a high test-retest reliability.
That is, if the same person takes the test in the morning or evening, only a deviation of around 9% occurs.
However, if you decided to intentionally act in a different role from your own personality, reliability can be hypothesized to be somewhat lower, just like in a face-to-face interview or on the job itself.
No test procedure is 100% reliable and every human being makes mistakes. A certain error is therefore always to be expected.
When using Retorio, this measurement error is even desired to a certain extent. In both recruiting and training contexts, it is quite desirable that participants try to leave as good an impression as possible.
Accordingly, factors that you can actively influence are sometimes taken into account in the AI's evaluation.
For instance, if you apply in a suit instead of an undershirt, this may allow important conclusions to be drawn about your future behavior.
The background of your video is also in your control and thus you should avoid backgrounds that might make a bad impression. For instance
Empty beer bottles in the background may leave a different impression than a bookshelf. A video application from a bathtub may create a different impression than a video application in front of a beautiful painting.
Accordingly, you should take these factors into account and ensure a neutral background and decent clothes.
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