Homebase uses Thrive to increase sales revenue

A strategy in need of renovation

The majority of Homebase's 5,600-strong workforce are frontline. As their previous LMS was not mobile-enabled, busy team members were pulled off the shop floor to use the store's designated computer, wasting their own time and keeping customers waiting.

Plus, the interface was clunky and difficult to navigate, with onboarding compliance courses that left learners feeling uninspired. For an industry as fast-paced as retail, in a shop as popular as Homebase, this slower way of doing things just wasn't going to cut it. The L&D project team knew that Homebase's platform should be as fluid and adaptable as its workforce. Frontline training needed to work around shifts, not against them, and product knowledge had to be accessible at the point of need.

A fresh coat of paint

Homebase chose Thrive for its ease of navigation and mobile app. Store teams could finally learn on the shop floor between serving customers. Structured pathways delivered consistent product and service training while campaigns kept the whole network aligned on seasonal priorities and new ranges.

A design for success

The success of Thrive is easily quantified thanks to Homebase's continuous collection of customer feedback. Every time a customer shops with Homebase, there's a link to complete a satisfaction survey on the back of the receipt. Analytics dashboards connected employee training completion to customer satisfaction scores, proving that investing in product knowledge and customer service training delivers measurable commercial results.

What the team found from this data since launching Thrive has been eye-opening: stores with more team members trained to "expert" level within Thrive consistently gain 35% higher satisfaction scores than those who don't. This made it clear that the more knowledgeable the customer service teams are, the higher the rating customers tend to give for that visit, and it even increases the average customer spend.