How New Avon Company increased distributor retention and sales revenues with smart training

In the direct selling industry, revenues depend on an actively engaged and well-trained sales force. Recognizing this and the importance of good training to retention, New Avon was looking for a tool to provide efficient onboarding and training for its new sales representatives. The company wanted a smart platform combined with a training program that would improve retention, increase engagement as well as boost sales of new representatives by making their training more accessible and more enjoyable with features like gamification and on-demand information delivered in easily digestible pieces for just-in-time learning.

Rallyware helped New Avon achieve these goals with a program called Shortcut to Success that helps both new and experienced representatives reach their goals through a personalized set of activities they can access anywhere, any time on any device. With the years of accumulated big data by Rallyware, the platform is able to provide customized training content based on each representative’s individual needs—delivering specific training to the right individual exactly when they need it.

About the Client

As a pioneer in the direct selling industry, New Avon continues to impact the lives of women. For more than 130 years, the company has given countless women the opportunity to be the CEO of their own business and control their economic destinies.

The direct selling industry has changed significantly with the coming of the digital age. New Avon has embraced the changes, modernizing its brand and developing digital and e-commerce capabilities to help its sales representatives reach all-new levels of success through social selling.

Recognizing that new representatives also begin with little to no experience in sales, New Avon has also renewed its focus on efficient onboarding and training with its Shortcut to Success program.

Shortcut to Success provides new representatives with the tools and training they need to customize and launch their online store, learn the mechanics of taking and placing orders, and quickly establish their customer base through social media and other avenues. They also receive training on New Avon’s many product lines to help them sell more effectively.

The Challenge

With so much to learn, new representatives can easily become overwhelmed which, in the direct selling industry, often translates into reduced retention rates and lower sales. One of the biggest challenges New Avon faced was how to deliver all the information new representatives need in a way that enables them to more easily complete their training and immediately apply what they learn.

New Avon had existing training materials prior to working with Rallyware, but they weren’t optimized to facilitate high levels of consumption by new representatives, most of whom are trying to work their New Avon business into the margins of their busy lives.

It takes time to get familiar and comfortable with direct selling, especially for people who are new to the industry. Many new representatives join through a sponsor who can help them get started. However, those who join directly through New Avon’s website without a sponsor typically don’t have somebody to mentor them through the training process. Without consistent guidance and a clear understanding of the next steps, new representatives would quickly become overwhelmed with the massive amount of information and training materials needed to start their business. While these resources were all available online, they weren’t efficiently organized making it difficult for new and even existing representatives to know what they should focus on to start and grow their businesses.

Another challenge is that every new representative brings a unique background to their business and has different goals and strategies. Given this, and the volume of information new representatives need to succeed, New Avon needed a program that offers personalized training in a clear and consistent way.

The Solution

Working closely with New Avon, Rallyware developed a white-labeled training solution to incorporate the existing learning content into the Rallyware platform—a smart training platform that connects each training activity with specific learning objectives tied directly to New Avon’s KPIs so that results can be measured. With the use of the proprietary algorithms, Rallyware reworked and reorganized New Avon’s previously developed training materials to offer a more guided training experience that would prevent representatives from becoming overwhelmed and improve retention.

With New Avon’s revised content now optimized on the smart training platform with more effective learning, Rallyware developed a suite of programs to help New Avon streamline its onboarding process to make the training not only more personalized and accessible but also more enjoyable with features like data-driven gamification and just-in-time microlearning where training is delivered in smaller, more digestible pieces to the right person at the right time.

One of the most popular features of the Rallyware platform is its new Digital Library. With all of New Avon’s training materials and resources available in one place, logically organized and indexed, new representatives can easily search or browse through available materials and choose what they’d like to learn, such as information on a specific product, how to sell through social media or run a local marketing campaign.

The smart training delivered through Shortcut to Success is now helping new representatives reach their goals more quickly with a personalized program and set of activities they can access anywhere with any device. Now uplines can spend more of their time on strategic initiatives such as mentoring, recruiting and building their business. The system offers a customized learning experience based on where individual representatives are in their learning journey, where they might be struggling, and where they want to be.

Rallyware had the training platform up and running in just four months. And New Avon began to see results within the first six months. As a result, the average number of orders for those who completed the Shortcut to Success was 124% higher than those who didn’t complete the program. At the same time, those representatives who went through the program saw an average 88% increase in sales in their first 60 days with the company.