How Elsevier Increased Buyer Engagement by 30%

Scaling Enablement From Scratch

When Elsevier first introduced sales enablement, it was starting from scratch. As she began to flesh out an initial strategy, Ardoin began noticing inconsistencies in Elsevier’s existing sales processes. Training, for instance, lacked standardization. “Every manager taught their reps what they knew,” added Ardoin. “What they knew best is probably what that rep learned.” 

With limited support from its existing solution and little standardization in rep learning, Elsevier’s sales motion had room to grow — and Ardoin saw a clear pathway for how to do so. She and her team needed to unite the various support levers they had for their go-to-market team, honing their existing content management, buyer engagement, and training practices into a standardized strategy.

Coaching, they knew, was an essential outlet for them to do so. To unlock this, the team needed to align frontline managers to a consistent coaching cadence and strategy – which was no small feat. “Research shows that there’s no other productivity investment that comes close to coaching and improving reps performance,” noted Ardoin. “I can train reps all day. I can lead them to water. But I can’t force them to drink it.” To strategize and scale across its entire go-to-market motion, Elsevier’s enablement team sought a partner that could not only alleviate the pain of the present but also look to the future and evolve alongside them.

Evolving Enablement With the Power of AI

The team initially chose Highspot for its content management capabilities – but quickly, the enthusiastic response from reps demonstrated that the platform was capable of more than they initially imagined. “In all of my years with Elsevier, I’ve never had such positive feedback from a sales team,” shared Ardoin. “I heard so many good things about Highspot. They love it.” Elsevier’s reps led the charge for adoption — with 90% of reps actively using the platform — leading the team to deepen their use of Highspot by implementing its Training & Coaching capabilities early on in its partnership.

Now several years into this journey, Elsevier’s partnership with Highspot has only deepened. And throughout, one thing remains constant: Elsevier’s commitment to innovation. With the release of Meeting Intelligence capabilities, Ardoin and her team saw an opportunity to address a few long-term goals. “We made a decision to reduce our tech stack,” explained Ardoin. “We are now adopting Meeting Intelligence and are really looking forward to adding some coaching pieces to what we’re doing.” 

Highspot’s native call recording capabilities and AI-powered feedback helped Elsevier simplify existing coaching processes, saving time while providing personalized feedback that moves the needle on rep performance. “Debriefing, we’ve learned, is an activity that’s shown to improve a student’s skill set more than the activity itself,” noted Ardoin. 

As a team that built from the ground up to become pioneers of enablement excellence, Elsevier is a champion for innovation. With Highspot’s support, Elsevier consolidated its tech stack, leading to significant savings.

Meanwhile, rep confidence has improved by 65% and buyer engagement has increased by 30% since implementing Highspot. “Reps are working to find the content they need on the CMS side so they can communicate better with their customers, they’re able to do their training right there within the same system if they need to refresh on something and, now, they’ll be able to coach in it,” explained Ardoin. It’s a seamless workflow that became possible with a unified, end-to-end enablement solution. 

This success stems from shared values and a mutual mission. “When I think about my account team, I just think they’re true partners,” concluded Adrion. “We have the same goal, ultimately, for Elsevier: To truly improve revenue by utilizing the Highspot resources to the best of our ability.” With more confident reps and massive productivity gains, Elsevier is looking forward to continuing to shape the future of enablement with Highspot.