Microsoft Dynamics CRM users may have a new way to monitor sales activities. Tech Crunch recently reported Microsoft acquired Incent Games. The Texas-based company offers software that turns sales departments into superstar athletes with CRM gamification.
Incent Games’ platform is called FantasySalesTeam and it works with an office CRM system to score sales reps’ performances against company-defined metrics. The numbers recorded create stats for each individual in a sales team. Other members of the company can back certain players and overall progress is charted for office display and shared with participants and management.
Wireless Zone, a mobile phone provider, increased its total sales by 176 percent after implementing FantasySalesTeam. Many companies have posted similar results.
Implementation and competition
Microsoft has acquired Incent Games’ technology to encourage adoption of CRM solutions. Using data in fun and creative ways may motivate companies hesitant to expand their current operations for fear of employee disinterest.
Even small businesses work with a lot of data. The modern marketplace forces companies to stay on top of consumer preferences, inventory numbers and employee performance. Microsoft Dynamics CRM helps capture all the data associated with customer interactions and other daily activities.
The problem is, once a company has compiled its information into a data warehouse, it doesn’t always know what to do with it. A sales competition can be a great first step for new CRM software users. It is a business activity that requires invested monitoring of statistics and practical application of results.
Thinking outside the box
Sales competitions like the one facilitated by Incent Games are effective if managed properly. Microsoft Dynamics CRM software ensures all competitors work with the same materials and accurately record performance.
Creative company-wide events are a great way to practice defining software applications. The company gets to design the metrics for competition. Managers also create rules about how to score points and assign prizes for certain benchmarks. Small-business managers can design a sales competition that’s right for their procedures and resources.
Recording the competition in CRM software keeps the game fair. There won’t be any complaints of underhanded tricks or inflated numbers if employees are constantly reporting actual client conversions. The information visibility provided by CRM solutions demonstrates which sales tactics are the most successful. Competitors can watch the numbers to adjust their strategies and managers can use the recorded data stream to create new training programs.
Companies may discover data metrics they hadn’t thought of recording before. Business News Daily shared the story of a tech company that awarded a prize to the sales rep who got the most no’s in a week. This may seem counterintuitive, but management believed in encouraging as many outbound calls as possible and softening the blow of rejection.
Competition leads to collaboration
FantasySalesTeam allows employees to build teams with people besides sales reps. A user could pick a team composed of sales agents, marketers and managers. The idea is to see how all the moving pieces of a company work together.
Sales agents want their fellow workers to promote products online. Production managers need sales reps to push the merchandise created by manufacturing teams. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a company-wide solution. It demonstrates how the improved function of one aspect of a business is beneficial to the infrastructure as a whole.
Inc. suggested the competitive nature of employees could be put to better use by picking an opponent outside the company. A small business could create numbers associated with beating competitors or meeting consumer needs and plug those statistics into the CRM software. The entire office could work together to score points, and the system shows them how successful they are or if it’s time to create a new game plan.
Competition is just one of many strategies companies could utilize to get employees invested in a new CRM solution. Software providers can partner with a small business to decide what tactic would be best for their operations and teams.
