How Sleep Country built its dream sales team with innovative product training

At Sleep Country, we’re not just selling mattresses and pillows; we’re selling a better night’s sleep. And at the core of delivering that promise is our amazing team of sleep experts across Canada.

We understand that staying on top of an ever-changing product landscape can be a real challenge for our sales associates. It can be tough to keep up with the latest innovations and even more challenging to ensure that knowledge sticks. As the saying goes, the only constant is change, which means our teams need to be prepared, agile and adaptable.    

That’s where Axonify comes in.

The challenge of keeping product knowledge fresh

Imagine you’re a customer walking into one of our 280+ Sleep Country stores. You’re looking for the perfect mattress, but with so many options, you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. Do you want a sales associate who fumbles through brochures and stumbles over specs, or one who confidently guides you through the features and benefits of each product, helping you find the perfect solution for your sleep needs?

We understand that customers value knowledgeable and confident sales associates. Our associates also want to feel like they are experts and have deep product knowledge that empowers them to do a good job. When our associates help more people find the sleep solutions they need, they achieve their best sales results and feel a sense of pride in their work.    

It’s not enough to just deliver information—we need to ensure our sales associates retain that knowledge and can confidently apply it in customer conversations.    

Partnering with Axonify for sales success

When we realized that knowledge retention was key to our team’s success, we started looking for a platform to help reinforce our training efforts.  

Axonify stood out for its ease of use and the team’s support throughout the implementation process. It was clear that Axonify was the right partner to help us achieve our goals. 

Here’s how Axonify works to improve our team’s product knowledge and confidence, leading to more meaningful customer interactions and better sales results:

• Associates no longer have to take time off the sales floor for days-long workshops or peruse manuals for answers. Now we can deliver short, focused bursts of microlearning that can be completed in minutes, whenever they have a free moment for development.
• Gamified elements, like points, badges and leaderboards, make learning fun and add a dose of friendly competition. Our associates are excited to train every shift.
• The learning journey is personalized. Axonify adapts to each associate’s strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they focus on growing in the areas where they need the most support.

With this partnership, we’re investing in our people, our customers and the future of our brand. Axonify has become a key partner in our journey to empower our sales associates and create exceptional customer experiences. 

The results

Our sales team’s product knowledge has skyrocketed. They’re not just reciting facts; they’re having genuine conversations with customers, helping them find the perfect sleep solutions for their unique needs.

We’ve seen a significant increase in our sales team’s product knowledge, with a 17% jump in knowledge retention for our most technical product information and a 22% boost in knowledge across all training topics. 

Other highlights:

• We have a 75% training participation rate, with users accessing the platform an average of 12x per month   
• We’ve launched three separate very successful new products that have been reinforced with Axonify
• Much of that success can be attributed to our frontline staff’s better knowledge of the product.

But it’s not just about numbers. Our sales associates are more engaged and confident in their roles. They’re supporting customers more effectively, building stronger relationships and, most importantly, have more reason to feel proud about the impact they’re making every day.     

Axonify has improved our product training and helped us foster a culture of continuous learning within our sales team. Now, our associates are more engaged, motivated and invested in their own growth. 

Looking ahead, we’re excited to expand our use of Axonify beyond reinforcement and explore its potential for onboarding new hires and delivering targeted training to specific regions. This will allow us to personalize the learning experience even more and equip our associates with the relevant knowledge they need to excel in their roles.

Learn more about how Sleep Country boosts the performance of its sales team with Axonify’s innovative product knowledge training in this exclusive chat.