How Crestron Electronics Increased Play Adoption by 92%

Tool Limitations Stalls Seller Execution

Crestron Electronics supplies a wealth of solutions for a wide variety of industries. “We have almost 2,000 unique SKUs — we offer a super wide range of products across commercial, residential, marine education, government healthcare, and hospitality,” noted John Hesseltine, senior manager of sales enablement at Crestron Electronics. With so many SKUs and unique applications, sellers needed to be able to quickly refresh their knowledge. However, the limitations of its previous solution meant sellers were unable to surface the resources they needed to position each SKU consistently. “Our previous instance looked like a folder structure, no different than SharePoint,” continued Hesseltine. “That was the biggest hurdle: Our sales team needed to find resources to use.” 

Weak search features and the inability to take bulk actions with content made managing items for Crestron Electronics’ global audience next to impossible. Although the enablement team had built key resources, their previous solution meant sellers had no reliable way of accessing them. Additionally, sellers lacked a clear way to speak proficiently about products and solutions specific to each market. Previously, this was done through spec sheets, which often failed to resonate with decision-makers. “Some people can understand or read spec sheets, and they prefer that, and that’s fantastic,” added Hesseltine. “But a lot of people making purchasing decisions in our industry find value in other aspects and don’t care to learn specifically about what the product or solution does.” Relying on spec sheets alone was quickly becoming a limiting factor for sellers. 

Over time, these frustrations compounded. “It reached the point where our previous solution was being spoken about negatively,” shared Hesseltine. “What we had wasn’t working, all the way up to the top of the company.” To accommodate the scale and complexity of its offerings, Crestron Electronics made the switch to Highspot.

Unified Platforms Introduces New Consistency

The switch to Highspot soon proved essential for Crestron Electronics. “It made a massive difference,” enthused Hesseltine. “We didn’t know what we were missing.” As its enablement team migrated existing material into the platform, they relied on the robust governance features their previous solution lacked. By implementing search tags, for instance, they ensured sellers could surface content instantly — and could now find the helpful content available to them. 

“The next thing was actually telling people how to use the content they found,” shared Hesseltine. “Sales Plays were an epiphany. We didn’t have anything like a Sales Play prior to that.” Previously, the team would rely on regular announcements to share new marketing collateral, however, only 20% of the sales team usually saw these announcements. With Sales Plays outlining how to land the value of a particular SKU, the team ensured sellers knew how to talk about a product — and had access to the most up-to-date content about it. Now, 92% of sellers have adopted Sales Plays into their daily workflow.

High Sales Play engagement meant it was easier for Crestron Electronics to align sellers to the strategies that worked best for decision-makers. No longer reliant on spec sheets, reps had the guidance they needed to take a value-first approach to every SKU. “We don’t tell our sales team to go in there pushing X, Y, and Z products,” Hesseltine explained. “We want them to sit down with the customer, understand their needs and problems, and have a meaningful conversation. Highspot has allowed us to organize those conversations in an easy-to-follow way.” Now, 87% of Crestron Electronics’ sales force regularly use the platform, with high adoption rates leading to improved execution and more consistent messaging from sellers across the globe.

Empowered Enablement Team Looks to the Future

Since implementing Highspot, Crestron Electronics has not only organized its internal resources but also sharpened how its teams utilize them to provide the best possible customer experience. With external sharing adoption rising to 75%, Crestron Electronics is confident it has found the right solution to best support its sellers — and its buyers. “We’ve been with Highspot for a little over three years at this point, and it’s been great,” shared Hesseltine. “We’ve been learning so much and iterating what we do with it. We just weren’t able to get that with our previous platform.” 

As its enablement function continues to evolve, Crestron Electronics is looking for new ways to supply sellers with the support they need to message every SKU consistently and effectively. After seeing the impact of Sales Plays on seller performance, it is imagining new ways to scale the impact and is excited to harness AI to build out more robust guidance for every SKU. “AI is just going to take a load off our backs so we can focus more on what is impactful for our teams, which is Sales Plays,” concluded Hesseltine. “That’s what I’m looking forward to. AI is going to be a massive help.”