Sales Readiness Case Study

Current Situation:

A large technology company has sales professionals located all over the country, some of which work from remote locations or from home in order to be closer to clients.  Although this arrangement has been very successful in building strong relationships with the customers, the head of sales was finding it difficult to keep staff up-to-date on the latest product news and information.

In the past, the company used two main methods for informing the sales staff.  One was a yearly sales conference in which the entire sales team was flown to a location for a couple of days.  The team had to sit through back-to-back presentations regarding all the changes and updates that were planned over the next year.  While this was helpful, the staff retained very little of the information because it was too much to absorb in such a short period of time.  Also, the cost to fly everyone to the conference, along with the time away from the clients, was making the conference cost prohibitive.

The second method was to use a video conferencing service to conduct smaller informational updates throughout the year.  The sales staff tended to retain more of the information this way, but since the call was a live event, the timing was inflexible and many on the sales team couldn’t make the call – often missing out on the information or getting bits and pieces from fellow team members.  As a result, clients were getting conflicting information about changes to the products.

The company was preparing to launch a completely new version of its flagship product, a change that would affect every client the company had throughout the nation.  If the launch went well, it could move the company to the lead position in its industry.  But if anything went wrong, the closest competitor would try and steal away the best clients.  The head of sales knew he needed a much better solution to get the sales team ready.

KZO Business Video Suite

After considering different options, the KZO Business Video Suite was chosen.  Using the KZO Virtual Studio, the main office was able to record HD quality informational videos using a standard webcam and microphone-enabled computer.  Editing could be done very quickly and no technical editing skills were needed to get the videos ready for distribution.  In addition, sections of video could be updated in minutes as the development team released new details of the products.  This greatly reduced the gap in communication between the two teams, enabling sales to focus on reaching their goals.

Once production was complete, the videos were uploaded to the KZO Video Library where they could be accessed and watched.  Since the videos were on-demand, the team members could watch the videos between sales calls, adding much needed flexibility back into their schedules.  Offering further flexibility, the KZO Video Player allowed team members to download videos to their laptops and mobile devices to watch offline at a later time.

Using KZO’s metrics features, the head of sales was able to track which members had watched the videos and how much time they had spent viewing each one.  He found it interesting to compare this data with sales figures for each team member, noticing that a correlation had emerged.  Sales staff that spent more time with the videos also had higher sales numbers than members that spent less time watching the videos.

Part of the correlation was due to the inherent collaboration features built into the KZO Video Player.  Polls and quizzes could be added into the videos and staff had the opportunity to ask questions and collaborate with other team members.  Product experts could also join the conversation to help answer questions and get the sales team ready.  This helped raise information retention rates among the staff and added much needed excitement around the changes that were coming to the product line.

Team members were also more apt to know the latest information since they could be automatically notified when new updates were made to individual videos or when other team members had left new comments.  By working with other team members using KZO’s collaboration features, stronger camaraderie was built between the staff – serving the same purpose that the expensive live events had once served.

Client Results

The new product launch was a success as team members were completely up-to-date and ready when the product was released.  The efficiency in being able to record, edit and update videos meant that sales was able to keep the team informed in near real-time about the new product and how the changes would impact clients.  In turn, the sales team was able to quickly dispel any fears the clients had about the changes, and in most instances, get clients excited about the new version – further increasing sales.

Internally, the on-demand nature of the videos, along with the collaboration features had served to build a more tightly knit sales team.  Instead of being pulled out of sales calls to be lectured about new updates, the team collaborated together at convenient times to help one another understand the changes and how they could increase sales as a result.  This eliminated the need for the yearly live event and a majority of the video conference calls, saving the company additional time and money.