“None of the other platforms we evaluated were reinforcing learning through questions. Axonify’s approach made so much more sense to me, especially for our frontline staff.”
Todd Lucas, Director of Family Culture, Family Farm & Home
How Family Farm & Home cultivates a confident, consistent frontline team with a mobile-first solution
A new approach to training helps a specialty retailer onboard faster, boost product knowledge and reduce turnover
38%
Avg sales increase for key products
87%
Axonify participation rate
↓
Reduction in staff turnover
Challenges: Inconsistent training left staff unprepared to sell
Family Farm & Home is a family-owned retail chain based in West Michigan, specializing in products for the farm and rural lifestyle. With 1,200 frontline employees working across 80 retail locations, two warehouses and four service centers, the company’s workforce is very diverse. That diversity became even more pronounced during the pandemic when high turnover led to a dramatic drop in the average age of team members—from 53 to 38.
“We present a lot younger frontline staff to our customers,” says Todd Lucas, Director of Family Culture at Family Farm & Home. “Since we’re a farm store business, it’s not a cookie-cutter retail sale. With the change in demographics, a lot of our staff weren’t confident in their product knowledge.”
The team in charge of training knew frontline staff needed personalized content that was relevant to their specialty business. They also knew their existing task management platform wasn’t cutting it. “It couldn’t show whether staff were actually absorbing the training,” says Lucas. “We were seeing a dip in both product and operational knowledge.”
Counting on managers to deliver training was also challenging. With a single leader in charge of a whole store team, training was a big lift and led to inconsistent results.
The team set out to find a solution that would deliver consistent training to all staff working directly with customers and fit the tight schedules of busy frontline employees with limited time to train. It also needed to be easy to use and offer the ability to add in-house-produced video.
“Training our associates and building product knowledge were key goals,” says Kim Tarrant, HR Manager at Family Farm & Home. “We needed an LMS platform that would reliably ensure all teams had the right knowledge at the right moments.”
Solution: Mobile-friendly training reinforces critical knowledge
A very thorough search revealed that not all solutions are created equal “I think we demoed 14 learning management systems, and so many felt like the same platform wrapped in a different look,” says Lucas. “Axonify stood out right away. It was very clear that it was going to work best for us.”
For her part, Tarrant was drawn to the platform’s ease of use, ability to add proprietary content and mobile-friendly design. “A lot of platforms we looked at needed an IT person to do half of what needed to be done,” she says. “Plus, the majority of our workforce doesn’t have computers. It’s really important that our people can access training on their cell phones.”
The platform’s method for maintaining knowledge levels was also a key differentiator. “None of the other platforms we evaluated were reinforcing learning through questions,” says Lucas. “Axonify’s approach made so much more sense to me, especially for our frontline staff.”
Many frontline team members at Family Farm & Home have no first-hand experience with the products they’re selling, which can be as diverse as baby chicks to cutting-edge tools like zero-turn lawnmowers. Axonify, which the company rebranded internally as ‘The Back 40,’ repeatedly serves up the same questions to ensure the personalized learning sticks and directly applies to the requisite product knowledge needs. Questions evolve based on individual retention, seasonal initiatives and demand.
The organization took a crawl/walk/run approach to feature adoption in the Axonify platform with the ultimate goal of driving strong frontline performance and confidence using daily, targeted training each shift. Family Farm & Home’s L&D team relies on Axonify customer success experts to help the business prioritize where to focus its efforts.
“I would die on the hill that Axonify has helped reduce turnover. It’s allowed our frontline staff to get excited about their jobs and feel positive about their roles in the company.”
Todd Lucas, Director of Family Culture, Family Farm & Home
Results
Lower turnover, higher confidence and knowledge that just keeps growing
Staff engagement with the Axonify platform has been strong since launch, and the participation rate has reached 87%. Lucas and Tarrant believe that getting the Operations team involved early in the rollout was a huge contributor to successful change management.
“I think the biggest impact we had on implementation and getting positive participation was bringing Operations leadership on board,” says Tarrant. “They had to be invested in Axonify because they’re the ones getting our frontline workers to log on and train every shift. And even our VP of Operations answers his reinforcement questions in Axonify every day.”
Launching Axonify was meant to relieve store managers of the manual training burden. They’ve certainly noticed. Lucas spends a lot of time in the stores and says he doesn’t even have to ask about Axonify—it just comes up organically.
“Managers start talking about Axonify right away,” he says. “They’ll say, ‘It really helped me onboard staff’ or ‘It was so helpful to have this training because then it wasn’t only on me!’”
Communications feature provides fertile ground for community-building
The team also appreciates the Timeline feature in Axonify Communications—a social media-style timeline, complete with reactions and comments. “We were cautiously optimistic about the impact Timeline would have on collaboration, but it far exceeded our expectations,” says Lucas. “It’s a feature that people gravitated towards. We have a feed with 15 store managers who are heavily engaged and posting all the time.”
The initial success led the team to open Timeline up to even more staff. “Our assistant managers and team leads have done an excellent job of posting the right things on Timeline,” says Tarrant. “It’s created a sense of community across our company because people are getting in there and talking about what they’re doing in stores.”
Frontline performance blooms
thanks to training in Axonify
Reduced staff turnover
Leadership at Family Farm & Home had a goal to increase employee engagement by making frontline teams feel well supported and highly valued.
“I would die on the hill that Axonify has helped reduce turnover,” says Lucas. “It’s allowed our frontline staff to get excited about their jobs and feel positive about their roles in the company.”
Increased product knowledge boosts sales
Giving frontline staff the knowledge they need to sell specialty products to customers is paying off. Sales were up in nearly every category that teams trained on. This includes Grass Seed (+49%), Poultry Supplies (+34%) and Insect Control (+31%).
There are fewer product returns, too. “Our VP of Operations set a goal to greet every customer who walks through the door and sell them something,” says Tarrant. “Axonify 100% supports this initiative because we are giving our frontline staff the information to succeed.”
Lucas has also heard first-hand stories about Axonify’s reinforcement training impact on team knowledge. “We’ve got six different topics related to new lawnmowers in Axonify,” he says. “So, our service center manager wanted to test frontline staff knowledge on the oil change frequency for these lawnmowers. He asked 15 to 20 team members in different stores, and they all gave the correct answer.”
Stronger customer engagement
With Axonify, frontline team members get the foundation to start conversations with customers, even when they’re in unfamiliar territory. This makes a big difference to the customer experience and provides reassurance that frontline staff know what they’re talking about.
“We hire a lot of 16, 17, and 18-year-olds who haven’t mowed a yard and don’t necessarily have chickens, goats or horses,” says Tarrant. “The training in Axonify gives them the tools to start helpful conversations with customers. Our team members now have confidence they simply didn’t before.”
Lucas and Tarrant continue to grow ‘The Back 40’ training program with plans to add even more Axonify features into the mix. Their teams are ready and eager to jump in. “Axonify has quickly become part of our company culture, and that’s not easy to do,” says Lucas. “Our people took to the platform immediately and even regularly ask if I’ve got more training for them.”
It’s also common for staff to give feedback on the platform’s content because they recognize they can have a voice in shaping future training topics. “It feels good partnering with Axonify because it makes us look very innovative to our teams.”
