Gamification For Sales Training: Does It Improve It?

Gamification For Sales Training

According to numerous studies, companies with a great sales training program have been more successful than others. A highly trained sales department means you have more sales. This will grow your business. Therefore, you should have robust sales training in your company. And gamification might be the modern solution to achieve that. Gamification just means using the mechanics of games to deliver training materials, which makes it fun. In this article, you will read about gamification and its benefits in sales training.

What Is Gamification?

Gamification is the practice of giving rewards for achievements akin to games. Most of the global workforce contains people who have grown up playing video games, and video games are fun. So creating training sessions that look like a game will make training fun. It will improve engagement, consequently improving knowledge retention.

Gamification For Sales Training

Here, you can read some ways to use gamification for sales training:

1. Use Rewards

Reward your salespeople with badges and points whenever they show a skill; these will motivate them, and they will know that the company recognizes their time and effort. For example, give them an “initiated” badge when employees close their first sale.

2. Give Feedback Immediately

Feedback is necessary for motivation and improvement. In games, you can always check your performance summary. You can employ a similar system in your sales training. After completing every task, tell the employees what you liked about their work. Additionally, you can also tell them what to improve.

3. Create Simulations

Most video games have a story; they make you feel you are the character. It is as if you are in their world. Similarly, you can use the same technique for sales training. For example, you can give your employees fake profiles and ask them how they can close the sale. But, again, ensure that you give them a detailed backstory.

4. Bite-Sized Learning Materials

No game has a very long objective. Game developers know that short, challenging levels will increase engagement. Similarly, make your content small, with rewards and certifications at the end.

5. Sense Of Competition

When you know that you are competing with others, it excites you. So it would be better to have a leaderboard. This way, your employees can track their progress relative to others. This method can also help managers choose the right person for a job.

Benefits Of Gamification

Now you know how to gamify your sales training. Read on to understand the benefits of gamification in sales training.

1. Improved Collaboration

Gamification will improve collaboration between workers. Collaboration is necessary for a healthy work environment to promote productivity. Gamification achieves this by providing a sense of competition among the employees. When employees compete with each other, there may be top performers, and the bottom performers may become inspired to improve. This makes them ask for suggestions and help from the top performers.

2. Engagement

Workplace engagement is necessary for employees to be at their top performance. According to Gallup’s State of the American workplace report, 70% of employees say that they feel disengaged while on the job. As gamification creates a sense of competitiveness, it creates excitement, and that may make a bad sales day inspiring.

3. Learning CRM

Gamification is a fun way for new employees to adapt to a complex CRM. Adapting to the CRM and using it efficiently is the key to becoming a top salesperson. You can integrate gamification into the CRM itself; there can be a tab where you can see all your points for using the CRM tools. You will no longer have any excuses for not using the CRM if you want to appear on the leaderboard, as only then will you be able to show off your achievements.

4. It’s Fun

The most important part of gamification is that it makes the job fun. People may even get a little obsessed with gamification, as they do when they play games.

FAQs

• What is gamification?
  Gamification means using the game elements in a work environment to make it more fun. For example, cleaning your house may not be fun. But you can make it fun if you award yourself a snack after cleaning each room.
• Can you use gamification for learning?
  Yes, you can use gamification for learning. It uses the same principle: give a reward after completing tasks. In the training context, this task would be to cover learning modules.
• Is game-based learning different from gamification?
  Yes, game-based learning and gamification are two different things. In game-based learning, you play a game where you need specific skills to win. So if you win the game, you have acquired the skills without trying to learn them. However, in gamification, learning the skills is itself the game. That means you actively try to learn the skills.
• Does gamification work?
  Yes, studies have shown that gamification can work, specifically if you have grown up playing video games. That is because it creates a strong emotional connection to the tasks. Additionally, you can visualize your accomplishments using gamification.
• How is traditional learning less effective than gamification?
  Most learners love rewards and recognition; gamification will give them that. Traditional learning does not integrate rewards and recognition. They depend on the tutor. Below are some features of gamification:
  • Enhancing learner engagement
  • Providing a sense of achievement
  • Helping with changing the behavior
  • Sense of healthy competition

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