How Hunter Douglas Boosted Rep Engagement by 59%

Sales Complexity Introduces New Challenges to Consistency

Aligning dealers across North America was a familiar challenge for Hunter Douglas, which operates on a B2B2C model. However, as its number of available product lines grew, it found that the resources required to support all these product lines was gradually adding inefficiency to reps’ workflows. Every dealer had different needs, preferences, and levels of engagement, which meant that the content reps shared needed to account for this variance. Plus, dealers were not required to use Hunter Douglas’ content, which made it difficult to verify that dealers could position its products correctly. “Dealers don’t have to take training for us,” explained Denise Romero, director of learning and development at Hunter Douglas. “They don’t have to really do anything that we’re putting out into the world. We have to be really creative. That starts with our partnership with our sales team because they’re truly guiding our dealers to help them market and sell Hunter Douglas products.”

Efforts to develop content that might engage disinterested buyers were hindered by the fact that the company had no single source of truth for sales collateral. “We had regions throughout North America doing things very differently,” noted Romero. “It’s almost as if they were operating as their own unit and their own business. We wouldn’t see consistency in how products were being talked about and how content and resources were being shared. A lot of it was homegrown, and there was a lack of governance.”

The lack of a consistent, repeatable process for dealer education and rep operation was problematic for Hunter Douglas. It left reps isolated, forced to tackle dealer education in their region on their own, which led to issues with poor user experience and inconsistent messaging. To equip its reps to engage disconnected dealers, Hunter Douglas chose Highspot, confident that the platform could empower its governance, content personalization, and engagement initiatives. 

Unified Platform Simplifies Dealer Engagement

With the goal of creating a consistent and repeatable process for knowledge development, Hunter Douglas turned to Highspot. Following implementation, its first order of business was to standardize foundational knowledge across its dealers. “We wanted to ensure first and foremost that we had very prescriptive Plays and messaging to ensure that there wasn’t confusion,” explained Romero. “We want our consumers to know that when they’re talking to a dealer, they’re being given accurate information with confidence.” With a single source of truth for product content directly at their fingertips, Hunter Douglas’ reps turned to the platform in droves, resulting in an 89% recurring usage rate. 

After achieving near-perfect adoption, Hunter Douglas turned its focus to dealer engagement, using Highspot to simplify the content personalization process. “We’ve created consistent templates, no matter the content,” said Romero. “Whether it’s a pain point, whether it’s a company initiative, whether it’s product information – we don’t stray from that.” With Sales Plays and well-governed templates to guide them, reps understood precisely how to engage disconnected dealers. More than that, they had strategically aligned content that could be tailored to the specific product lines each dealer carried, ensuring dealers received prescriptive guidance relevant to their business.

New guidance and easily personalized content created strong scaffolding that made it easy for reps to engage dealers. Plus, with 77% of reps using Highspot to share content with dealers, reps now had full visibility into dealers’ engagement with content — and, therefore, their ability to position Hunter Douglas’ products accurately. A single source of truth, native analytics, and a disciplined team determined to uphold Hunter Douglas’ brand integrity eased the challenges of operating on a B2B2C model, introducing new consistency across a once-disconnected sales force.

Newfound Consistency Improves Customer Experience

With clear guidance for engaging dealers — and customizable content to help reps do so — Hunter Douglas has simplified the process of educating dealers. Instead of starting from scratch for each dealer, Plays offer a single repository for relevant content and contextual guidance on how to use it — materials that its reps find invaluable. This has helped lead to a 59% increase in rep engagement in enablement programs. “We’ve been able to really wrap our arms around Highspot, earn the successes, and build our confidence and trust in the tool,” shared Romero. “That’s why we continue to have the adoption we see.”

Order and consistency have replaced regional differences and dealer discrepancies. With every seller, internal and external, reading from the same product sheet, Hunter Douglas can feel confident that its customers share the same high-quality experience, no matter where they are buying from. “We have made Highspot part of our day-to-day world,” enthused Romero. “That’s really the secret for us to be successful.”