Cropster provides software solutions for the entire coffee value chain—from farmers in Africa and Latin America to roasteries and cafes worldwide. With customers on three continents and a sales team operating across US, European, and APAC time zones, VP of Sales Martin Dalberg-Andersen faced a difficult challenge: How do you coach and develop a global team when you can't be on every call? "I was managing the European team, which was manageable," Martin explains. "But when my US colleague left in May and I took over globally, I realized I would have to work 24 hours a day to join calls and understand how my team was selling across all these time zones."
The Challenge
- Impossible scalability: 12 employees across North and South America, Europe, and APAC meant 24/7 coverage
- Administrative burden: Sales reps spent too much time on notes & follow-ups after calls instead of selling
- Lack of standardization: No consistent method to identify coaching needs within the global team
- Product feedback gap: The product team complained about insufficient feedback from customer conversations
- Discovery deficit: 70% of inside sales reps jumped straight to the demo without properly qualifying
Why Cropster chose Kickscale
When evaluating, Martin prioritized three critical factors:
- the ability to scale coaching across time zones,
- seamless automation to reduce administrative work, and
- GDPR compliance for European customers.
Martin shares: "Having direct access to the Kickscale team and knowing that I can provide feedback directly to the product team—you never get that with a larger platform. This accessibility made all the difference."
European data hosting and GDPR compliance gave Cropster’s CTO and CFO confidence in the security approach, while Martin’s existing relationship with the Kickscale team ensured he received the necessary customization and support for a complex, global deployment.
"I can't be on every single sales call. But I find it important that I can coach them and provide feedback on how they can improve. Kickscale gives us this immediate feedback loop while simultaneously helping the sales team reduce their admin tasks." - Martin Dalberg-Andersen, VP of Sales, Cropster
The Solution: AI-powered global sales enablement
Productivity Booster
🎯 Custom call types for complex sales processes
Cropster configured Kickscale to recognize different call types:
- Retention calls,
- new business calls,
- outbound calls
thereby ensuring precise scoring for every sales motion across their three different teams (Inside Sales, Customer Success, and Account Executives).
⚡ Seamless HubSpot integration
Call summaries and notes are automatically synchronized with HubSpot, eliminating manual data entry. The team is expanding this integration to automatically capture product interests, roaster types, and other key data points directly from conversations.
Coaching
📊 Personalized Performance Dashboards
Every employee receives immediate feedback on their performance after a call, including:
- speaking pace,
- talk-to-listen ratio,
- and coaching suggestions
Martin created individual monthly aggregated reports to identify consistent areas for improvement across multiple calls, rather than looking at individual conversations.
🏆 Weekly leaderboards foster healthy competition
Team calls now display performance leaderboards that highlight who is excelling in Kickscale scores. This creates transparency and motivation while recognizing top performers.
📈 AI-linked OKRs for Sales Enablement
Cropster's new Sales Enablement Manager has an OKR specifically aimed at improving average Kickscale scores by 0.5 points per employee—leveraging the platform's AI coaching insights for measurable improvement.
Reports/Insights
🎓 Cross-departmental insights
The product team accesses call recordings to understand feature feedback. Marketing analyzes keyword trends and customer language for campaign development. New team members use recorded calls for onboarding and training.
Implementation & Adoption
Martin took a strategic approach to the Kickscale rollout, starting with a trial involving 2-3 team members in July/August. The feedback was immediately positive. Sales reps appreciated the instant insights and time savings.
"No one pushed back," said Martin. "A few questioned the scoring at first, which is why we added different call types. But once it was clear that this wasn't about performance reviews, but about making them better salespeople, everyone was on board."
The key to successful adoption was transparency: Martin explicitly communicated that low call scores would not trigger performance reviews. Instead, they would identify training opportunities and provide targeted coaching to help sales reps improve.
Today, Kickscale has spread beyond the sales team. Product managers use it to aggregate customer feedback on new features. Marketing analyzes buzzword frequency and customer language patterns. Martin is even rolling out seats for the customer support team to improve how they handle support tickets and calls.
Results: Measurable impact across the entire organization
📈 40% improvement in sales meetings
Average point improvement in call quality scores from September to November
💰 Best month ever
December became Cropster's best month for new business and upsell revenue
⚡ Instant feedback
Post-call feedback enables immediate self-coaching and improvement
🎯 70% improvement
Reduction in reps jumping straight to demos without qualification
⏱️ Hours saved per week
Weekly admin time saved per rep through automated notes and CRM updates
🌍 3 continents coached
A VP can effectively coach 12 reps across North and South America, Europe, and APAC
The transformation: from product pushers to consultants who deliver value
The most significant change Martin observed wasn't just in metrics; it was in sales behavior. Before Kickscale, inside sales reps typically handled bottom-of-funnel leads who were ready to buy. This led to a dangerous pattern: they would jump straight into product demos without fully understanding the customer's needs.
"The sales team was minimizing their chances of closing larger deals", Martin explains. "If they only sold a product on day one, they were leaving money on the table. Now, we close deals faster, close larger deals, and can upsell more quickly because the reps understand the importance of discovery."
A rep based in Florida took ownership of his improvement by checking specific metrics after every call. "He looks at how long he spoke, whether he spoke too fast, and then consciously works on slowing down and articulating the value better in his next calls", Martin shares. "This type of self-coaching is exactly what we wanted to enable."
The shift from product-focused to value-focused selling was transformative. Reps now spend more time on value-based sales approaches and understand not just what customers need today, but which additional products could solve future problems.
Beyond sales: Organization-wide value
What started as a sales coaching tool has become a company-wide asset at Cropster:
Product development
The product team uses Kickscale to aggregate customer feedback on new features and understand how sales reps explain product value in real conversations. This feedback loop has eliminated the historical complaint about insufficient input from customer-facing teams.
Marketing intelligence
Martin creates reports on the buzzwords and keywords most frequently used across all customer conversations. This insight directly informs the marketing team about which language resonates with customers and which topics generate the most interest.
Onboarding & Training
New hires in sales and marketing teams use recorded calls to understand customer conversations, product positioning, and effective sales techniques. This significantly accelerates onboarding time.
Excellent Customer Support
Cropster is now rolling out Kickscale to its customer support team to help manage support tickets and calls using the same coaching methodology that worked for sales.
Summary for Sales Leaders
- Scalability requires technology: You cannot coach globally without AI-powered tools that work while you sleep
- Self-coaching multiplies impact: When sales reps can see their own metrics and areas for improvement, they take ownership of their development
- Transparency prevents resistance: Making it clear that scores are developmental rather than punitive ensures team buy-in
- Customization for your sales motion: Different call types require different scoring criteria
- Cross-functional ROI: from Sales intelligence tools benefit product, marketing, and support teams alike
- Partner accessibility matters: Direct access to the provider's product team enables faster iteration and better outcomes
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Customer story from kickscale.com. Results describe this customer’s experience.