Training sales teams who are constantly out in the field, with very little available time and sometimes little appetite for digital tools, is a challenge many industrial companies face. At the Tech For Industry Show, Olivier Jacob, Head of Customer Training Centers (Isover, Saint-Gobain) and Jérémy Trenteseaux, Head of Sales (Beedeez), an LMS (Learning Management System) vendor, shared their case study on the topic.

Isover Placo mainly supports technical-sales representatives and the wider sales force who travel to meet customers: distributors and resellers, as well as installers who apply the products on site. These traveling sales reps have very little administrative time — roughly half a day per week — and work mainly on phone or tablet, with no fixed desk.

At the other end of the spectrum are more office-based populations, such as sales assistants, who work only on PC. In between, profiles with varied skill needs: account managers in contact with architects, or systems specialists working directly on construction sites.

The main challenge identified concerns the technical upskilling of technical-sales representatives, who need to be able to inform installers about new products and regulatory changes. Product ranges evolve once or twice a year, while regulations change on average once every ten years — requiring training content to be updated at least once or twice a year.

Isover Placo already had a solid in-person training setup, with technical trainers who came from the installer trade, as well as an e-learning platform launched just before Covid. Heavily used during the health crisis, this platform then saw gradual disengagement once the constraint was lifted — except among new hires, who remained more inclined to use it.

The training team went from around ten people at its 2021-2022 peak (only one dedicated to digital) to five people today, covering a mandate of at least 350 employees. The arrival of a Digital Learning Manager on the team helped speed up the shift to a new tool.

After benchmarking several market solutions, Isover Placo chose Beedeez, notably because Saint-Gobain's building distribution division was already using this platform — an opportunity for synergy and content sharing. The solution offers several login modes (SSO, employee ID for staff without a professional email address) and an offline mode, suited to environments with limited network coverage.

Content created on Beedeez falls into two main families: theoretical paths on the fundamentals (thermal, acoustic) and "product pitch" paths, designed to help sales reps master their talking points rather than general sales techniques — an important issue given the tens of thousands of references in the Isover and Placo catalog.

A typical path is structured around five modules: the 20-second product pitch (a 3-to-4-minute game to memorize the key message), the in-depth talking points for longer conversations, best practices for handling customer objections, a bonus module (videos, tutorials, podcasts), and a final "battle" in quiz format. The latter randomly draws six questions from a bank of around twenty, which limits answer-sharing between colleagues and keeps a genuine level of rigor — everyone, including senior management, can be challenged in these battles.

The program relies on a points-and-badges system built into the platform, along with themed challenges organized throughout the year (Halloween, May), rewarded with gifts — including on-site visits to personally congratulate teams who completed an entire learning path.

Launched in mid-June of the previous year, the platform now covers around 300 sales reps across the entire sales force, with good completion rates for content started. A minimum pass rate is required to validate quizzes, which, according to the speakers, ensures a meaningful level of rigor rather than a mere formality.

A new format is being rolled out: short "tips" videos, reusing content already produced by the communications team for social media (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram), enriched with a learning question tied to the video's content.

For over a year, Beedeez has offered an AI tool to help create content, capable of automatically generating a training module (text and visuals) from a business procedure in PDF format, always with a required human review.

Since January, Beedeez has been rolling out a new generation of AI agents, this time aimed at end users:

Isover Placo is currently focused on rolling out the simulation agent, linked to product pitches, with a launch planned for learners in early September after a testing phase with a representative panel of users with varying levels of comfort with digital tools.

This case study clearly illustrates the conditions for success of a digital learning project aimed at hard-to-mobilize field teams: short content adapted to real time constraints, gamification designed to build engagement rather than obligation, strong manager involvement, and now the support of artificial intelligence to personalize and speed up upskilling, while keeping content tightly controlled to avoid inaccuracies.

Watch the full session, along with the other Tech For Industry Show replays, on our dedicated page.