What’s the point of investing in one of the most highly regarded and ubiquitous customer relationship management systems if your sales force doesn’t use it?
That question spawned a million-dollar idea for Bob Marsh, who developed Sales Contest Builder (salescontestbuilder.com), a gamification app for Salesforce.com software. The app gets salespeople to use the software by creating competitions. In other words, Marsh “gamified” Salesforce.com.
Sales managers will tell you that the biggest challenge in getting the value out of expensive CRM software is getting their salespeople to use it. By some estimates, less than half of all sales reps who have access to CRM software use it.
Last fall, Marsh introduced Sales Contest Builder, an app that allows managers to turn key sales behaviors — following up leads, scheduling meetings, etc. — into a game. Instead of sneaking in a few afternoon rounds of “Angry Birds,” salespeople are completing these tasks and recording them in Sales Contest Builder. Why? To earn virtual badges (along with bragging rights).
One client told Marsh his salespeople were ignoring Salesforce.com tasks until he turned it into a game with the Sales Contest Builder app. Within nine months, sales increased and salespeople’s activity level in Salesforce.com jumped 15 percent.
“His favorite part is he doesn’t need to micromanage anymore,” Marsh says. “He creates a contest and his salespeople go to it. They don’t want to be behind their peers. The manager told me now he can focus on more strategic things.”
By “gamifying” Salesforce.com, sales managers see significant increases in use and, not surprisingly, increased sales.
