Gamification: Fad or the Next Big Thing in Sales?

We recently sat down with Rajat Paharia, author of Loyalty 3.0: How to Revolutionize Customer and Employee Engagement with Big Data and Gamification, to learn about how sales organizations are using gamification to motivate sales performance and modify seller behaviors among other things.

Gamification, say the experts, is the application of gaming principles to business contexts. Recently, we have seen a trend towards sales organizations gamifying various initiatives that range from basic training, to social selling skills and CRM adoption.

CEB Sales Members—learn from your peers on how to leverage gamification in sales force training.

Many members do report seeing, at least anecdotally, significant increases in employee engagement and motivation as a result of their gamification efforts. But the question we all want an answer to is whether or not gamification is here to stay.

Paharia, at least, would argue yes. According to him, the ROI of gamification is in the lift in performance that sales organizations realize from better motivating sales reps through leveraging data. As he rightly points out, companies rarely dedicate resources to analyzing the data that they have on their employees and using it to better engage and motivate what is arguably their biggest asset.  Ask yourself: do Facebook and Netflix know more about your sales employees than you do? The sales organizations that are collecting data, learning about their employees, and using that data to design gamification initiatives that motivate better performance, are rapidly gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

And how exactly are organizations motivating their reps through gamification? What Paharia explains is that gamification takes proven motivational techniques such as leveling-up and leaderboards, which video game designers have used for years to motivate players, and applies them to sales contexts. Consider the few examples below:

Game Levels— Levels indicate long-term progress, signal achievement and show gamer status in the gaming community.
Fast feedback—Players receive visual and audible real-time feedback on actions.
Performance tracking and transparency—Players can easily track where they stand, see their progress towards game goals in real time, and review their historical performance.

In other words, what gamification does is it allows sales organizations to frame work in the fun language of games in order to engage and motivate sales reps.  As Paharia illustrates in his book, Gamification is motivating reps through data, which is made visible and digestible for users, and that ultimately informs the user experience.

CEB Sales Members, review our latest research on Gamification, and listen to our webinar on Gamification: The Hottest Trend in Sales Training, to learn about our conversation with D.E. Master Blenders 1753, and how you can design and implement your own gamification initiative.

Also, do you think gamification is here to stay? Share your thoughts with us.