Increase CRM Usage & Sales Team Motivation with Sales Gamification

Gamification has some proven benefits to increasing customer engagement, but what can it do for your sales team? In many industries, risk aversion and market volatility mean slower sales cycles, lack of clarity on how to sell in a changing environment, and general sales malaise. Adding an element of fun and competition might be the answer to jumpstarting your sales team’s activities and helping them hit sales quotas.

Around here, we’re reluctant runners. It’s cold, snowy, and we’re tired. Running is a lot like sales: it’s about the activity itself that yields the benefits. Sure, you can improve on form and speed, but real results come from making the first step, doing the first mile, every day. Gamification helps team members by setting a step goal, getting a reminder from your smartwatch, checking it off as done, and sharing your route map. All of these are principles of gamification:

• Point scoring
• Competition with others (leaderboards)
• Rules of play
• Teammates/sense of community

There’s no shortage of apps and tech for sports performance, but for sales gamification, you likely already have some of the tools you need. While the annual quota may feel overwhelming, the activity leaderboard gives sales reps full visibility into something they control: their own daily sales activities.

Fostering a sense of community and teamwork helps drive sales results as well—especially in Millennial and Gen X sales reps. Commission plans typically reward the individual—make sure yours accommodates team selling and collaboration. Whether you split into two teams that compete, or work toward a goal together with a prize that benefits the group, recognize and incorporate teams into the game.

How to Apply Sales Gamification 

Identify micro goals (or ‘badges’). Gamification isn’t about just winning the game, it’s about the prizes along the way. There’s a psychology to this. Cash is king, but vouchers, charitable donations, and the most enticing the cracker jack mystery prize can create motivation, often more than its face value. These can help to involve a broader team outside of just sales. Our most successful referral program involved sales and service in a 2-week race to hit a target, with each referral earning a sticker, and a group shared prize if we hit target. Have you ever seen a PhD scientist race in to add a turkey sticker to the chart? Friends, it happened.

Referral campaigns also lend themselves to relay races—you don’t have to own all of it...just participate in the sales process. As long as there’s clear hand-off and next steps, this may fit your sales process.

Introduce the streak. If you’re committing to daily activity, the forced yes/no and tracking of days in a streak can create momentum and make it hard to get distracted by other day to day demands that cut into prospecting.

Add an element of fun. Think novelty, playfulness, and surprise. All can help to spur activity without driving up the cost of sales. Like the mystery envelopes as prizes or the sticker chart, sometimes a return to play can help take the fear and paralysis out of sales. Some of the appeal of playing cards is the physicality—the tactile act of shuffling (ask us about our sales cards) and the random selection. A well-designed sales system is anything but random, so this is where you may need to be creative. Mix up your outreach tactics, try a surprise incentive.        

5 Ways Your CRM and Sales Tech Stack support Sales Gamification

1. Activity-Focused Dashboards. Increase the visibility of your data to team members. Aside from your reports that focus on the big picture (are we on track to hit our revenue numbers?), set up reports that focus on team performance. Everyone can track their activities and even compete.
2. Automate News to Celebrate. Maybe it’s a ‘ringing the bell’ email to the team when a deal hits the closed-won stage. Or maybe a notification goes to a sales manager when a deal of substantial size is added so that they can celebrate the win with a rep – you can automate several notifications using workflows.
3. Track Daily or Weekly Challenges. If you’re implementing small challenges or missions, use CRM tracking to measure these activities (call, tasks, etc.) and review the reports together at meetings.
4. Training & Coaching. In addition to using your performance-based dashboards to help coach your team, encourage usage of academy and training videos. Most CRMs even offer badges and certifications for these courses that team members can collect.
5. Collaboration. Use the @ tag features and chat to discuss and work deals with an accountability buddy or sales partner.

Learn more about ways to optimize your CRM and tech stack usage in our recorded lunch and learn series.