Sales Onboarding That Works: Fortune 500 Telecom Increases Quota Attainment by 20%, Delivering $45M in Additional Revenue Annually

This case study has been anonymized at our customer’s request.

Success Metrics:

8-12 weeks

sales coaching and mentoring workflow built in Enboarder

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The Challenge: 1,000+ New Sales Reps Annually, 3 Overlapping Cohorts

Picture this: You’re one of the world’s largest telecommunications providers and tasked with managing the entire sales mentoring and coaching process end to end for every new hire joining the company. Some new hire cohorts include up to 150 new sales reps and there are three staggered cohorts overlapping on any given day. 

How do you manage all the coordination and communication needed to run a successful program?

With such a large influx of new sales people, the learning and development team was challenged with providing a personalized learning experience at scale. They tried giving hiring managers coaching and mentor guides, but had no visibility as to whether the guides were being used. They then implemented an informal mentoring and shadowing program, but had no way to hold participants accountable. Even worse, sales turnover was becoming a big issue. 

They knew they needed a more efficient and scalable way to support new sales team members in their onboarding by providing the right connections and resources – at the right time – to ramp successfully in their first 90 days.

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The Solution: Empowering New Sellers With the Right Support From Day One

That’s when this large telecom provider turned to Enboarder for a solution. The team had assessed other tech solutions, but “they all seemed more transactional and we needed a tool that is more conducive to connecting humans together,” says a senior manager of instructional design. Enboarder was able to provide that, along with “robust data capture and versatile design.”

The team created one sales coaching and mentoring workflow that every new sales rep (either external hire or internal mover) participates in their first 8-12 weeks in their role. With support from their manager through coaching and a peer for mentoring, “it provides that extra layer of individual support to get them ramped up very quickly.”

In a world where most learning and development teams just don’t have the resources to focus on personalized learning for each new hire, Enboarder’s onboarding workflows allow them to do “a lot more with less.”

“When we do design thinking, we think about, ‘how is the new hire feeling through the journey? What do they need?’ Enboarder has helped us automate a lot of those capabilities, which is great,” says the senior manager of instructional design.

Running the coaching and mentoring program through Enboarder allows the team to capture data following the Kirkpatrick Model, a proven framework for evaluating training programs through five levels: 

• Level 0 (completion)
• Level 1 (reaction)
• Level 2 (learning gained; knowing)
• Level 3 (learning application; doing)
• Level 4 (business impact)
• Level 5 (ROI)

“The reference guide for coaching kept me on schedule to ensure we touched on the most important topics up front.” – Hiring manager

Enboarder has also made it much easier for the L&D team to deliver the program and provide more transparency:

• Giving the manager accountability to assign a peer mentor for the new employee
• Delivering materials, assessments, assignment completion forms, and motivational messages
• Gathering feedback between the trio (manager + mentor + mentee)
• Keeping the cohort on a schedule together
• Identifying who is on track, falling behind, or entirely disengaged

“Enboarder gives us the visibility we didn’t have. With Enboarder forms, it’s really giving us insights to make the program more successful. It would have been so hard to get those insights with focus groups every week or every month. That would have just taken so much admin time. It’s been a time saver.”

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The Results: 20% Increase in Sales Productivity

Through the streamlined coaching and mentoring program, new sales reps are being introduced to the right people to help them be successful in their roles: “They all really appreciate that connection.” 

More importantly, the L&D team compared sales targets between those new hires who participate in the coaching and mentoring program and those who do not, finding that program participants are exceeding their sales targets by 20% in comparison to non-participants. That delivers an estimated $45M in additional revenue annually.

The hiring managers also appreciate the flexibility in their ability to choose the topics covered in the coaching and mentoring sessions: “They can shape how they onboard, what discussions they have, and L&D is here to support and make sure they have the autonomy to lead the way they want to lead.”

“I would 100% do this again. It boosted my confidence to lead and share best practices.” – Peer mentor

Ultimately, the automated milestone checkpoints at 30, 60, and 90 days paint a clear picture of how individuals within cohorts are progressing in their ramping journeys. “We have checkpoints with the learner and we also have the manager rate the learner on 10 key capabilities of their role.”

Managers are sharing that “they’re thankful there’s a checklist, a step-by-step process so they don’t miss a beat … They also appreciate how when the mentor fills out their feedback form, it automatically copies the manager, because they don’t always have time to schedule a call.”

What’s it been like partnering with Enboarder to build this mentoring workflow? “It’s been a good relationship. [Enboarder] has always been super responsive and we appreciate that.”