Gamification for your sales team

The concept of gamification was introduced to motivate teams, measure deliverables and promote healthy competition.

A quick search on the internet will reveal that technical support and customer care teams are loving gamification. Slowly but surely, sales teams too are moving to adopt gamification.

If you are planning to gamify your sales team, here are a few pointers.

Gamification is designed to help your team members meet their goals

Gamification is not designed to help your team numbers or improve your sales. Gamification helps your team member’s skills by making them concentrate on the prize and also on metrics that matter. A direct ‘side effect’ of this will be increased sales and improved performance.

However, choosing metrics based on sales performance alone or trying to offer incentives based on sales results is a common mistake. The entire concept of gamification is not to act as a glorified incentive scheme.

Most managers find gamification a little baffling, as parameters sales individuals are awarded on do not seem to offer direct benefits.

However, keeping the larger picture in mind helps. That caller of the week badge winner will eventually be your sales cruncher of the quarter.

Do not gamify based on BPO stats, your stats should be linked to help your sales team achieve their overall goal. For example, awarding the person who had the highest email open rate is a good parameter for gamification.

Gamification requires volunteers not subjects

Unlike other policies and procedures within an organization, gamification needs sales individuals to want to participate.

Failing to sell the concept of gamification to your team before you start will result in lack of participation and yield poor results.

Another mistake is to treat gamification like a compliance requirement, your team has to want to participate.

The correct and only fruitful way to gamify a sales team is to explain the benefits and wait for the team to participate. If you still have a list of sceptics in your sales team wait for them to participate at their own pace.

Gamification is unique to every organisation

Most gamification tools have a pre-defined parameters for rewards. However, best results are achieved post customisation of the gamification platform. There might be a list of best practices but treat them as just that.

It is important that gamification in your organisation is constantly evolving and can become boring (just like any game). So each organisation will organically grow its own version of a gamified sales team.

Be ready to change and keep it fresh

It is vital that you choose the right gamification platform for your organisation. There are multiple software online that offer gamification solutions, testing various solutions will ensure your team has the right tools to succeed.

To make sure that your sales team does not start 'gaming' your platform, you need to introduce new rewards and challenges on a regular basis.

Start out with realistic and clear goals

Every good journey needs planning, gamification is no different. Before you start investing in gamification have clear goals. Remember these goals should centre on the participants and not your organisation. Having realistic goals also ensures you can measure your success at any given point.

When it comes to being realistic we have already discussed that gamification is not a magic wand, it may not directly impact your numbers. However, by measuring and rewarding your team on well planned criteria, you can make sure that your team benefits from gamification.