Customer since: August 2015 Size: 9500 employees, 300 locations Industry: Entertainment Headquarters: New York, NY and Evanston, IL

Schoox catapulted our training to a different level. Everyone saw the power in using this Schoox system and we quickly expanded our content. Because of the success of the user experience, we have endless requests to develop and position content on the OnLine Academy/Schoox platform.

Company description

Bowlmor AMF is the largest owner and operator of bowling centers in the world. Bowlmor Lanes founded Bowlmor AMF, the company, in 2013 following the successful acquisition of AMF Bowling Worldwide. Starting as a single bowling alley established in Greenwich Village New York in 1938, Bowlmor Lanes invented the concept of high-end, event-centric bowling and grew to six properties within a decade; it’s flagship venue was the highest grossing bowling alley nationwide in the early ’00’s.

The acquisition of AMF Bowling Worldwide, who at the time was the biggest name in the industry with hundreds of centers globally, was truly monumental and expanded the new Bowlmor AMF portfolio to over 270 centers. In 2014, the company acquired the Brunswick Corporation’s bowling center business, adding an additional 85 centers to the portfolio and solidifying Bowlmor AMF’s reputation as the worldwide leader in bowling entertainment.

Bowlmor AMF

The Business Challenge:

  • Our biggest challenge was that we grew from six to over 300 locations in a very short period of time with acquisitions. We found ourselves with three different brands, three different approaches to training and 300 plus geographically dispersed centers. Each location seemingly had a different training approach and different techniques to developing associates.
  • Sending trainers out to the field efficiently was not an option as we had some locations with 60-100 employees and others with 10-25.
  • At the time, we were using one system for testing and compliance reporting and our company intranet for housing courses, but we did not have a Learning Management System (LMS).
  • In the early summer of 2015, our CEO and founder, Tom Shannon, created a new emphasis on uniformed training for all centers, The training team was tasked with developing engaging and meaningful content using video as a medium to demonstrate what a great job looks like. The subjects ranged from venue ambiance to amusements, the perfect event, and loss prevention to hiring great people & motivating them to thrive. In order to provide a learning experience that matched the company’s values, we needed one system to deliver our training content, courses and completion.

The Solution: Why did Bowlmor AMF choose Schoox?

  • The main two reasons we chose Schoox were:
    • The simplicity of product, operations. It was extremely user friendly from an admin perspective as well as end user perspective.
    • The ability to implement the system in a very short timeframe. Schoox promised 1-2 months’ implementation timeframe and other LMS(s) we reviewed quoted 3-6 months to implement.
  • We had a sense of urgency to get the content out to field and Schoox lived up to the commitment and implementation. In fact, it was better taking approximately a month and a half to get our system up and users engaged.
  • Our biggest challenge was not the Schoox product but our own corporate security parameters and use of internet explorer. We ended up having to switch to Google Chrome. The implementation was very smooth after this change.

The Results: How did Schoox Solve Your Business Challenges?

  • Yes, Schoox gave us a powerful singular system to deliver consistent training across 9500+ employees and over 300 locations.
  • We customized our academy to our needs and named it the Bowlmor AMF OnLane Academy.
  • Now, all of our associates have a common understanding of our business, its imperatives and easily deliver on doing a great job. At Bowlmor AMF, a critical piece of our mission is to create a workplace where people can thrive. We believe this partnership with Schoox helps get us there.
  • When our CEO visits locations, he can use terms like “guest recovery” and every associate understands what he is referencing.
  • Schoox customer support has been extremely responsive to any and all of our inquiries during implementation and post implementation. We know we can count on the team to deliver on our needs.

The Surprise: Were there any benefits of Schoox that were unexpected?

  • Schoox catapulted our training to a different level. Everyone saw the power in using this Schoox system and we quickly expanded our content. Because of the success of the user experience, we have endless requests to develop and position content on the OnLane Academy/Schoox platform. We’ve realized that Schoox is a powerful collaboration and communication tool for us. It’s helped us bring associates up to speed quicker and create the sense that we are all working to build the brand, together.
  • Schoox also fostered feedback from our frontline. We found associates communicating back to us through the Schoox platform. It’s even made them start thinking of innovative ways to make the business better through training.
  • We know that better communication and training leads to increase employee satisfaction, which will lead to increased guest satisfaction. We know if an employee feels educated and valued that they will help other co-workers thrive and they will stay at the job longer. It’s the service profit chain that differentiates our brand from not only competitors – but also internally – where people who are talented and ambitious stay and grow their careers with us.
  • That’s rare and a privilege we take to heart!
As told by: Vickie Frisbee, Senior Director of Training & Development and Mike Hogeorges, Instructional Designer