How a 100-year-old company surfaced answers 60% faster and cut onboarding by 67% with Spekit

# of Employees

470

Industry

Education

Website

Go to site

67%

faster onboarding

60%

faster time-to-answer

92%

adoption in the first 48 hours

The problem

Scattered docs slowed the team.
Information lived across Google Drive, Guru, and PDFs—hard to search, easy to reference outdated versions, and often “saved” via browser bookmarks instead of a trusted source of truth.
Enablement moved into the flow of work.
Spekit delivered short, structured guidance directly inside Salesforce and across browser apps—no folder-diving, no guessing what’s current.
92% adoption in the first 48 hours.
Scholastic treated rollout as change strategy—piloting with new hires, tenured employees, and skeptics, then scaling with manager buy-in and tight feedback loops.
Answers surfaced 60% faster.
Time-to-answer dropped as teams self-served in the moment, with content discovery improving by 69% (and “find in under 15 minutes” jumping from 13% to 73%).
65% fewer peer and manager pings.
With reliable, contextual answers available instantly, managers and SMEs regained hours previously spent repeating guidance.
AI Sidekick removed the guesswork.
Instead of relying on keyword/file-name memory, teams asked questions naturally (“show me the steps”) and leaders used Sidekick to interpret metrics and coach in real time.
Onboarding cut by 67%.
Ramp time shrank from nearly six weeks to two, as new hires built the habit of self-service from day one resulting in lighter, faster, more confident enablement.

A 100-year-old brand adapting to a very modern reality

Scholastic has spent more than a century supporting schools, families, and educators. The teams behind its book fairs and customer programs are experts in their fields, but as the organization grew and the pace of operational change accelerated, they understood that the systems supporting their work needed to evolve.

Google Drive, their Guru knowledge base, and PDFs held the documentation, but as content volume grew, employees spent an increasing amount of time locating the right information in the moment or turned to colleagues for faster answers.

Samantha Reynolds, Director of Sales and Success Strategy Performance and Technology, described the real-world impact.

“Searching PDFs in a Google Drive is not fun. We had great training, but afterward, people couldn’t find the documents that reinforced them.”

Content inconsistency and limited accessibility made it difficult to discern what information could be relied on. Ellen Retterholt, Senior Manager of Sales and Success Training, said team members would actually bookmark tabs in their browser once they’d found something really helpful, so they didn’t have to go through the painful process of finding it again.

“People would download files, change them, and continue to reference those even after they became outdated. There wasn’t one place to go for information that was consistently accurate.”

Scholastic’s Fair Consultants (Sales Reps) and customer success teams needed faster ways to access accurate answers so they could stay focused on supporting schools. As Samantha put it, “It’s hard to do activity-based learning when you’re referencing a PDF.”

Before investing in another tool, they needed clarity on whether anything could solve the bigger, foundational questions.

Can we give everyone one trusted place for answers?

Can we make finding the right information the easiest part of the job?

The solution

The moment they saw what was possible

The turning point happened at a conference called DevLearn.

Samantha walked past a screen showing Salesforce with Spekit guidance woven directly into the workflow. Answers appeared where reps already worked. No folder diving. No guessing.

“I knew instantly it filled a huge gap for us,” she said.

The next year, she brought Cathy Hamilton, their Director of Sales and Success Enablement and Process. Cathy trusted Samantha’s instincts. “If Sam says something’s worth seeing, I trust that,” she joked.

When they saw Spekit in action, it was the simplicity that stood out most. “It was something I could manage without needing a programming degree,” Cathy said.

They explored other tools, but the combination of speed, clarity, and enablement in the flow of work matched exactly what their teams needed. As Samantha said, “Change was coming fast. We needed a platform that could keep up.”

For a 100-year-old organization adopting its first enablement platform, ease mattered. It had to work for every team member, including those with decades of tenure and no technical background.

How Scholastic achieved 92% adoption in less than two days

Scholastic treated the rollout as a change strategy. Their process became a model for what great enablement looks like.

They started with a pilot that validated the approach

The pilot included new hires, long-tenured employees, and known skeptics. The results of the pilot proved three things:

1. People could find answers fast: The shift toward self-service was a standout result from the pilot. Employees who often depended on peers for answers were now finding information on their own, driving a measurable reduction in repeated questions.

Ease of finding resources increased by 69% with Spekit
Reps finding answers in under 15 minutes jumped from 13% to 73%

2. Non-technical workforce could adopt it easily: As Cathy described it, “You could see people relax once they saw how quickly answers appeared.”

3. They could create a real source of truth: Scholastic partnered with Spekit’s Content Services team to rebuild content into short, structured content cards with owners and review cycles.

“They taught us how to structure it better,” said Cathy. “The governance we use today came from that partnership.” The pilot demonstrated Spekit could work for Scholastic’s content, culture, and people. It also revealed exactly how to implement the rollout.

When it was time to scale, Scholastic used the pilot learnings to shape a simple, repeatable rollout. They:

Designed the rollout around real end-user needs to ensure the strategy supported day-to-day workflows
Intentionally shared the experience of pilot participants and teased that Spekit was coming to generate excitement
Involved managers early on to get their buy-in and alignment
Created feedback loops and consistently responded to rep feedback to ensure rep voices were prioritized and heard

The goal: make Spekit part of the way work happens.

The results

Near-universal adoption in 48 hours

Within two days, 92% of users had adopted Spekit. Team members began seeing short, structured content inside Salesforce and throughout their browser applications.

The impact was immediate. Managers and subject matter experts saw a 65% reduction in questions, regaining hours previously spent answering them. End users regained time to focus on schools and customers rather than hunting for information.

Ellen saw the shift instantly: “Once people saw how fast they could find things, they were hooked.”

Spekit AI Sidekick removed the guesswork

Before Spekit, finding information often meant remembering exact file names or navigating folders. AI Sidekick shifted that completely. Samantha explained the difference:

“Keyword search means you have to know what something’s called. Sidekick lets you ask naturally. You can say ‘show me the steps’ and it gives you exactly what you need.”

“You could see the aha moment happen in real time,” Cathy said.

Sidekick also changed how managers coached. Samantha used it during reporting training sessions to decode metrics like AHT and ACW in the moment. “AI helps them interpret and coach,” she said. “They don’t need to remember everything before training.”

New hires became the strongest users. They never learned the old habits. They learned to ask Sidekick questions from day one. Onboarding and early ramp time went from nearly six weeks to two, getting team members ramped 67% faster.

But the cultural shift is just as meaningful. With Sidekick, leaders gained visibility into usage and support needs. Reps gained confidence in the moment, and skeptics became advocates.
“Spekit is efficient, versatile, and it just makes people better at their jobs,” said Samantha.

Lighter, faster, more intuitive enablement

Scholastic now has a system that supports its teams in the moments that matter. Knowledge is organized, trusted, and delivered directly inside the tools where people spend their day. AI Sidekick adds real-time intelligence that helps managers teach and helps their team members take action without hesitation.

Enablement feels lighter, faster, and more intuitive. New hires move from learning to doing in weeks instead of months. Leaders have clarity on where support is needed. Teams stay aligned even as processes evolve.

This is modern enablement in practice: clear content, contextual delivery, and AI that helps people work with confidence and without friction.

For a large, established company adopting its first enablement platform, Scholastic built a repeatable model for how non-technical teams can embrace change, use AI in practical ways, and turn just-in-time enablement into an everyday habit.

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