TruGreen, America’s #1 lawn care company, trains nearly 4,000 contact center agents each year to support and sell to more than 2.3 million customers. These associates handle critical frontline conversations ranging from customer service to complex sales.

Historically, new hires completed about three weeks of blended training followed by live shadowing alongside tenured agents. While effective, this approach required significant investment and meant new associates spent extended time in training before they could confidently represent the brand.

Ahead of the hiring season, TruGreen set a goal to dramatically reduce training time, boost new hire performance, and modernize the learner experience through scalable practice and coaching. To support this effort, TruGreen partnered with Bright (now part of Zenarate) to redesign the learning journey and place immersive practice at the center of onboarding.

Building a Practice-First Training Model

With Zenarate’s simulation and coaching platform, TruGreen transformed its onboarding from three weeks of blended instruction (plus a full week of shadowing to just 1.5 weeks)— with no live shadowing at all. New hires now gain hands-on system experience and conversational practice inside a simulated environment before speaking to customers.

This shift generated over $3M in cost savings and cut training time in half — while also improving customer-facing performance in the first month on the job.

New Hires Performing Faster — and With Greater Confidence

Despite the significant reduction in formal training hours, performance increased across key metrics:

• 5-point increase in Month-1 sales closure
• 8-point increase in Month-1 NPS
• New hires began successfully saving cancellations within hours, compared to 2–3 weeks previously

New specialists also reached near-veteran system proficiency within 5 days, demonstrating strong readiness to navigate Microsoft Dynamics CRM and other tools early in their ramp period.

Simplifying and Modernizing the Learning Experience

TruGreen also streamlined its training content, eliminating 800+ PowerPoint slides previously used during instructor-led programs and webinars. This shift enabled trainers to focus more time on hands-on coaching and simulation, leading to an evolution in trainer roles — including opportunities to develop skills in simulation design and AI prompt writing.

With less time required in the classroom, TruGreen required fewer full-time trainer resources while expanding career pathways inside the learning organization.

Supporting Performance and Retention

Beyond performance gains, TruGreen saw improvements in early and long-term retention.

The immersive format helped new hires self-identify role fit earlier, increasing 2–3-day turnover but reducing later attrition. TruGreen experienced:

• 29% reduction in Specialist turnover
• 42% reduction in Service Manager turnover
• 343 fewer seasonal hires needed, due to more seasonal staff returning

TruGreen notes that training was not the only factor contributing to these results, but that learning leaders believe it played a meaningful role in strengthening employee readiness and engagement.

A Scalable Foundation for the Season Ahead

By placing immersive practice and personalized coaching at the heart of its onboarding program, TruGreen created a faster, more effective, and more scalable path to agent readiness — reducing training time, lifting performance, and improving operational efficiency across one of the nation’s largest contact center environments.