Case Study: TruGreen cuts training time in half + grows new hire productivity
Updated: Mar 2, 2023
The Background
As Americas #1 Lawn Care Company, TruGreen trains and engages over 15,000 associates annually, including lawn technicians, customer support representatives, sales managers, and more. Following the COVID pandemic, the leadership team recognized a business mandate to modernize and digitize the company's learning function. The company's challenges and approach to training were comparable to those of many large-scale enterprises:
Heavy dependence on live training delivery, typically delivered over 3-4 weeks
Inconsistent training experiences based on location or facilitator
High new hire turnover, particularly during the first 30 days
5-6 month ramp times to full productivity
A Modern Learning Solution Beginning in Spring 2022. the team partnered with Bright to transform the L&D function and address these challenges across 4 TruGreen divisions. The solution included:
Digital lessons that helped convert 80+ hours of live training and hundreds of PowerPoint slides into asynchronous, on-demand training.
Conversation simulations that replaced outdated role play, giving associates practice applying policies, showing empathy, handling complaints, and overcoming common sales objections.
PC, tablet, and mobile-optimized software simulations for TruGreen's Microsoft Dynamics-based CRM and home-grown apps.
Human and AI-powered Coaching that helped scale meaningful practice, and enable training professionals to spend more time performance coaching.
The Results
Within weeks of launching the new program during the 2023 hiring season, TruGreen saw dramatic shifts in business outcomes including:
Reduction of onboarding training time from 3 weeks to 1.5 weeks, resulting in $2M+ in hard cost savings from avoided unproductive wage hours.
5-10% improvement in Month 1 new hire sales closure and NPS metrics, despite having received 50% as many training hours!
TruGreen leaders share more on the transformation: "We had agents making live calls and saving cancellations in week 2 who needed no support to navigate our CRM in the process. They were getting better results out the gate with half the training. We didn't just update our program - we literally moved a mountain. As much as we're proud of the business outcomes, the overwhelming feedback from our new hires is that they are confident and ready to represent the brand. Bright's platform helped us deliver practice and coaching at scale and invest in our people in a whole new way."