Driving sales with store merchandising best practice

“One of the things we recognized was the need for experiential learning to support our remote sales teams. We wanted them to not only apply the skills they’d learned, but be able to play around in a virtual environment to understand the impact of their decisions. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Mark Christianson

Ex-Delivery Senior Lead, Digital Workplace at Mars

In this customer story

Increasing employee performance

Driving retail sales with a process-driven training

Standardizing training for remote teams

Reducing costs

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The Perfect Store strategy helps Associates adopt a scientific approach to selling, whether pitching displays or advising stores on where to place products to maximize sales.

However, training Associates in a physical store is time consuming and expensive. It also requires experienced Associates to take time out of their day to help onboard new Associates or guide reskilling. E-learning isn’t practical in this environment either. Digital training modules or training videos don’t provide the experiential, hands-on learning that can help sales associates make the right layout or merchandising decisions.

A customized learning experience in a store virtual replica increased associates performance globally.

Mars was looking for an interactive training solution. Immerse worked with Mars to create a virtual replica of the store environment where Associates could be measured and assessed on how well they followed Mars’ best practice guidelines for store merchandising. The solution had to scale, too, so that it could bring consistency to training for Mars’ Associates around the world.

 



Results

  • Increased employee engagement: implementing the innovative VR training approach led to a significant rise in employee motivation and job satisfaction, as evidenced by overwhelmingly positive feedback.
  • Scalability: the successful worldwide deployment of the program showcased its adaptability, ensuring consistent skill development across Mars global workforce.
  • Customized learning experience: tailoring the VR environment to each trainee’s specific sales area resulted in a substantial boost in training effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Streamlined learning process: by employing VR modules, sales representatives were able to independently learn ‘Perfect Store’ principles through self-guided VR learning, without the need for an instructor.