How The North Face® EMEA used Wranx to improve product knowledge and sales, with a 50% increase in items per basket

The North Face® EMEA were looking to improve product knowledge and brand awareness among store associates across Europe. The aim was to enhance the customer experience and increase sales. They worked with Wranx, a microlearning provider, to deliver product knowledge training digitally to associates in six different languages, resulting in a 73% increase in knowledge.

Enhancing the customer experience and increasing revenue growth

Built on innovation, The North Face® brand offers unrivalled, technically advanced outdoor products, with an extensive line of performance apparel, equipment and footwear. With such a range of products and technologies, they needed to ensure that product knowledge among store associates was at a high standard to deliver the best instore experience for customers and improve sales. As a result, The North Face® were looking for a solution to deliver product knowledge training to their disparate workforce who were located across Europe. The training also needed to be provided in six different languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish.

Delivering product knowledge training to a disparate workforce

The North Face® chose Wranx – a microlearning platform that facilitates personalised learning through Spaced Repetition. This learning technique automatically identifies knowledge gaps within learner groups and provides a tailored learning path for each individual based on what they do and don’t know. This was the ideal tool to help associates fill knowledge gaps, taking learners just 2–3 minutes per day to use at a time convenient to them. Having an app which was available on all devices meant that training could easily be deployed to associates across stores in different countries.

After implementing Wranx, The North Face® saw a 73% increase in knowledge retention amongst employees, and also noted a 50% increase in items per customer basket.

 

A bespoke service matched to The North Face®’s requirements

Wranx worked with The North Face® to create a project plan that was built around their training initiatives and goals. As part of the onboarding process, Wranx’s Support Team were able to categorise learners into team and division hierarchies, whilst also providing store managers access to the admin portal to and analytics for their team members and download reports. Wranx created a bespoke ‘Media Hub’ for The North Face® to use on the platform, where learners could access a variety of on-demand resources in a number of formats. The Media Hub included athlete and brand videos, product training videos, archive modules and their own Explorer Magazine. Wranx were also able to white label the platform, creating a dashboard that reflected The North Face® brand. This provided a more familiar, learner-centric experience for store associates.

An in-house content team working on behalf of The North Face®

Wranx’s Content Team converted The North Face®’s existing product content into modules that were released monthly to associates. The training modules covered a wide range of information on their products, including new technology launches such as VECTIV™ and FUTURELIGHT™ With any new technology launches, Wranx’s Content Team would share a draft of the module among a large number of The North Face® technology experts to ensure it was of the high standard needed to demonstrate the features and benefits of the technology. It was imperative that Wranx communicated the information as accurately and effectively as possible, as store associates across Europe were learning about these proprietary technologies for the first time on Wranx. Training modules were delivered in the form of ‘daily drills’ – 10–12 questions a day that take no longer than 2–3 minutes to complete. This bite-sized approach worked well for The North Face® associates, who were also sent daily reminders to complete their training. The North Face® also incorporated Certainty Based Marking (CBM) pre and post-assessments within their strategy to accurately identify employee knowledge gaps and prove the return on investment of training. They completed CBM assessments on the ‘New Explorer’ module, which taught staff the most effective selling techniques for a range of brand new products and technologies.

We’ve had a really positive experience with Wranx. Not only do our employees enjoy completing the short drills, they have been motivated by the gamification features on the app. Using this platform has had a direct impact on our customers, as a higher level of training has ensured they have an enjoyable experience in store. The uplift in sales is clear, as customers have said that their purchase decisions were influenced by our store colleague’s advanced product knowledge!

 

Manager
Senior Brand Education Manager , The North Face EMEA

Improved knowledge and sales among associates

After implementing Wranx, The North Face® saw a 73% increase in knowledge retention amongst employees, and also noted a 50% increase in items per customer basket. They saw 80% of learners improve their CBM scores, meaning they could answer retail-based questions more accurately and confidently after completing their module. Feedback from associates stated that they found it easier to retain product knowledge due to Wranx’s unique use of Spaced Repetition, which came in useful, particularly when communicating with customers. This in turn had a positive impact on customer experience in store as they associated a higher level of product knowledge with helping customers make purchase decisions.