How does a company that runs several in-person, internal events a year continue to bring hundreds of employees together – connecting them and suppliers – in times of home office and travel restrictions? For Advanced Turf Solutions, the answer came in the form of a three-day virtual event to ensure their sales team stayed connected and unified under one vision.

We spoke with Dawn Rigby to get the lowdown on how Advanced Turf Solutions used Kahoot! to maximize engagement and knowledge retention while also strengthening remote team culture at their first all-virtual event.

Swapping home turf for a virtual event

Advanced Turf Solutions hosts an in-person event with over 200 employees every August. “It’s a really important event for us,” Dawn explained. “We conduct sales training, share company updates, and suppliers present their new products, ” she continued.

Canceling was not an option as the event is invaluable for sales reps, who receive all the key product details required for sales in the upcoming quarter, which is their busiest of the year. “It’s a really big deal for our business, and this year, the event is more important than ever because things are so uncertain,” said Dawn. To ensure the event took place, Dawn and her team set about designing a multi-day, virtual event with Kahoot! that kept attendees engaged and energized.

Optimizing engagement and improving learning outcomes with Kahoot!

Advanced Turf Solutions streamed pre-recorded presentations from suppliers over Google Meet before hosting a live Q&A at the end of each session. “Before the event, we asked the suppliers what they wanted the sales reps to get out of their presentations. We used this information to create trivia-style kahoots at the end of each day,” explained Dawn.

The attendees played kahoots of 9 to 10 questions at the end of each day to reinforce product knowledge. The friendly competition between colleagues proved popular, and Dawn noticed how the sales reps were more focused and engaged throughout the day, as they knew they were going to be tested about the content. Plus, they had a chance to win prizes!

“We accumulated the points from the kahoots, which provided an incentive for the reps to stay focused, as they could win various prizes. For example, we gave an iPad to the winner of the grand prize, and other prizes which were gifts from suppliers such as hats and shirts,” said Dawn.

Tracking knowledge retention throughout the three-day event

Advanced Turf Solutions had never tested their sales reps during previous events. “Using Kahoot! added a lot of value, as we could find out what our sales reps had learned. We’d never previously done anything to tie up a session,” explained Dawn.

Dawn also utilized Kahoot!’s full suite of audience interaction features to gather feedback and used the insightful analytics in the kahoot reports to maximize engagement and spot knowledge gaps. “We started each kahoot with either a poll or word cloud to see how people were feeling throughout the event,” she said. “We could also look at the report and see who was struggling and reach out to them to see if they need more support. This was really helpful, as that’s feedback that we don’t usually get,” continued Dawn.

Strengthening remote team culture with trivia kahoots

Just because the event was virtual didn’t mean there was no happy hour! In fact, Advanced Turf Solutions used Kahoot! for the entire event-closing happy hour to strengthen remote team culture. “Everyone had a really good time,” explained Dawn. “We had some fun questions about the sales colleagues and our suppliers, who also attended the happy hour, and finished with a kahoot about our company’s history.” said Dawn.

Feedback shows the grass is greener with Kahoot!

Dawn is already looking at the attendee feedback to see how to improve the next event. “I shared the feedback with everyone who was involved in planning the event. My team always holds a retrospective after the completion of projects, to understand what went well, what didn’t go well, and what we will do differently next time,” said Dawn.

In fact, nearly 90% of all participants had an enjoyable experience with Kahoot!

Whether the next event is in-person or virtual, Dawn is keen to continue using Kahoot! at future events. Ensuring the sales reps leave the event with detailed product knowledge, to both save time and boost sales. “Even when we can go back to in-person events, we’ll continue to use Kahoot!, as it’s a really cool way to make sure people are actually learning and paying attention, getting out of it what we wanted them to – and it’s a great way to have some fun and win prizes,” continued Dawn.