Kao: Ironing out the training kinks

Ironing out the training kinks

Bringing the best of professional salon brands and products to stylists and salons around the world, Kao offers stylists a trusted professional relationship. But how do you deliver consistent, high-quality training that hits the mark and develops capability?

That was the question facing Kao Salon Division. Or it was until they introduced Attensi.

We met with Anders Andreassen (Commercial Lead, EMEA), Julie Winchester (General Manager UK, Ireland, South Africa), Seb Lucas (Key Account Manager), and Grant Cooper (Sales Capability Manager, EMEA) to find out more.

What did training look like before Attensi?

Trying to convey information over to employees all over the world is no small task. The Kao Salon Division was walking towards a large brand launch and decided it was time to try something new.

Where before they’d relied heavily on classroom training, presentations, and role plays, they wanted to bring something engaging, informative, fun, and fast to the teams around the world. Something that would help everyone in the team - from Baby Boomers to Gen Z.

Seb explains how traditional role-plays would end up being challenging because your colleagues ultimately knew the answers. It was difficult to replicate the scenarios you would realistically come across in a sales meeting or with a team from a salon.

And when it came to presentations, while the information was all in there, you were taking so many notes you didn’t always take everything in. And then there were the notes themselves. Seb comments that he and his colleagues had no way of knowing whether they’d taken enough notes or even taken the right ones.

For Grant, he tells us how he had historically been making sales training for salespeople. The training didn’t necessarily encompass the salon-specific knowledge required for Kao Salon Division. He needed a solution that would empower teams worldwide to self-learn skills in both the salon world and the sales world.

Attensi first impressions

For Anders, he wasn’t surprised that gamification was a success within the team. A sentiment shared by Julie. She shares how the team within Kao Salon Division is extremely competitive - both internally, but also with teams from other countries. Seb agrees - telling us that the team definitely enjoys watching as they make their way up the rankings. Who doesn’t love being number 1?

Seb had reservations to begin with. He confesses he was worried the solution might be childish or too easy. But he goes on to tell us that he has since been proven wrong - that the app has been suitably challenging, engaging, and highly useful.

The flexible nature of the app, and the fact you can repeat modules as many times as you like has hugely increased his confidence before meetings. He’s even become one of the most active users on the app.