ChowNow Revolutionizes New Hire Training with Mindtickle

Overview

ChowNow is an online food ordering platform that connects customers with local independent restaurants in the US. The marketplace helps with fair ordering for restaurants and diners and provides restaurant partners with key customer insights and marketing support.

The Challenge

When the pandemic hit, local independent restaurants were in need of a fast and easy solution for customer online ordering. ChowNow began receiving a multitude of inbound inquiries about its platform and their go-to-market organization needed to catch up.

As the sales team continued to grow, there was a recognition of the need for impactful training with remote reps all over the country. Cole Lindbergh, Sales Enablement Manager, Revenue Operations at ChowNow recognized the need for an impactful training program to get new remote reps on board and ramped up quickly, while trying to maintain the energy of the in-office sales floor.

The Solution

In an effort to reduce the time it takes for a new hire to close their first deal, Cole and his team implemented Mindtickle to develop a robust — and fun — new hire training program that didn’t only impart company, product, and competitive knowledge, but also pushed the newest reps on the team to connect and collaborate with their peers. Feedback and lots of internal meetings helped to maximize training impact and retention.

Working with sales managers, Cole pulled documentation and feedback across teams to create a cohesive narrative that ultimately shaped learning paths.

Supporting hypergrowth during a pandemic

While many organizations were scaling down their workforces due to COVID-19, ChowNow experienced growth during national lockdowns, especially within its sales team. To support the influx of inbound leads, the company was hiring new reps and trying to get them up and running as quickly as possible.

As restaurants began opening again, the competitive landscape had also expanded exponentially. The pressure to differentiate ChowNow when working with potential restaurant partners was greater than ever — so honing a rep’s consultative skill set needed to start on day one with the company. “These restaurant owners have put their blood, sweat, and tears into keeping their business afloat,” Cole said. “Reps have to go into a conversation as a consultative sales approach, but also convey empathy for what these people are going through.”

This challenge, coupled with the obstacle of selling remotely, meant Cole needed a way to get new reps inspired, up to speed, and connected to their teams ASAP.

Onboarding to make new hires feel at home

Prior to using Mindtickle, ChowNow didn’t have a formalized new hire training for sales reps. “When a seller came into the company, they had basically two days of employee orientation, one day of manager and peer meetings — and that was it,” said Cole. “From there, it was trial by fire.”

With sellers working from home, this especially created a challenge for new reps who can’t simply turn to colleagues in the office for help or clarification. “When you’re in your home or apartment and those little questions come up, who do you turn to? That’s not a fun environment to be in.”

Mindtickle was the solution that provided what the ChowNow sales team needed. Using Courses and modules in Missions, he established ChowNow University, which consisted of traditional instructor-led training and coaching, videos and assessments, scheduled meetings and role plays with peers, and self-serve content. The platform enables individual reps to learn about certain topics through the format that best suited their learning preferences, then follow up on those topics in coaching sessions.

The fun isn’t over when training is complete

Interested in learning more about how Mindtickle gets sellers ready for the moments that matter? Get Started Cole and sales leadership know that reinforcement is a critical element of sales training. By engaging salespeople with fun content and then putting their knowledge to the test, it sets the stage for relevant and productive discussions between ChowNow reps and their managers to identify strengths and areas of improvement moving forward. Two weeks after new hire training is complete, reps are assigned spaced reinforcement exercises through Mindtickle, called Quests. These exercises are automatically delivered to a seller’s inbox or mobile phone and help leadership confirm that the information they learned during training is sticking.

Additionally, Mindtickle helps sales leaders quantify results by tracking training and assessment completion. “If a rep isn’t doing well in their training, we can check and see if they have completed their tasks — and provide some inspiration by pointing them to a rep who did finish it and aced the quiz,” Cole said.