Companies and CRM leaders have realized that the old belief of “do what the boss tells you to do” doesn’t apply anymore, thus the low CRM adoption rates. A statistic from Gallup reveals that 15% of employees in the U.S. as of 2020 are actively disengaged, lacking in motivation. Expecting users to perform excellently and be efficient just by ordering them to do something will surely disappoint you.

This is why Gamification in the workplace has been on the rise and according to TalentLMS’s survey, it makes users happier and more productive. Various companies can significantly increase employee engagement, adoption rates, and better knowledge retention, including those in the CRM industry. When gamification strategies are relevant to the business objectives, and ideal behaviors are properly rewarded, the idea that quality output and performance create a positive impact, is reinforced.

However, CRM gamification isn’t without drawbacks. It may create an unhealthy competitive environment, or cost a lot of resources to set up. It may also come off as a nuisance, some other task that the users are forced to comply with. Improper implementation of gamification may yield little to no results. This is why it’s important to be aware of what could go wrong as well.

Planning to have a gamification strategy for your teams’ CRM training is good, but just like any major company decision, make sure to do your research and strategize. Here are the pros and cons of CRM gamification.

PROs

Meeting Quotas and Achieving Goals

Gamification is one of the most effective ways to hit those weekly, monthly, and annual targets. Rewarding completion or speed is a very basic aspect of gamification. For example, when a CRM user completes a certain amount of tasks within a given time frame such as 100 new prospects in a week or a 50% call to close ratio for a month, they get recognition. It doesn’t even need to be a physical reward or incentive, even a badge, or leaderboards can help motivate an employee to reach those quotas.

Employee Satisfaction

Games are fun because it feels fulfilling when you play and win. However, the science behind it is that when you play games, enjoy something or expect a reward, your brain produces dopamine, a hormone that makes one happy. This concept explains why CRM gamification is enjoyable, and as users accomplish things and are given positive reinforcement, their satisfaction and engagement will continue to increase.

Enhanced Learning

Because CRM gamification is fun, users will want to utilize CRM, which in turn allows them to gain more knowledge through experience. Gamification enhances CRM learning. Instead of simply knowing how to enter data, manage the pipeline or create email campaigns as they are, offering incentives anchored on a strategic game model, can help users with their attention span as well as their retention of important processes.

Clearer Performance Insights

Gamification allows managers and supervisors to easily identify both excellent outputs, as well as performance gaps. This data is important because it gives management the insights needed to tackle areas that need to be improved. And while the goal is always to rise and be better, it is inevitable for a company to have weaknesses, but what’s important is being able to identify them early on, and help mitigate the issue. It also gives chances to those who may not have met certain expectations for the first time, to learn from feedback and improve. Gamification gives everyone a chance to shine in their field.

CONs

Gamification becomes the main focus

For both the management and the CRM users themselves, it can be tempting to focus on the output rather than the process. If users are too engrossed with winning the prize, chances are, many of them will resort to dishonest tactics like submitting false reports, cheating the game, and unhealthy competition between users, etc. Similarly, if the management is too focused on the results, the pressure that comes with their demand for excellence may end up hurting instead of helping. Always remember that gamification is to aid learning by making the process more enjoyable along the way, it is not to create an overly competitive environment.

Ineffective game design

In 2012, Gartner released a statement saying that for gamified business applications in 2014, 80% will not meet business expectations and will fail due to poor game design. The most difficult part is making sure that the “game” aspect of the CRM gamification helps achieve the long-term goals of the company, which is usually not to have the most contacts and the most sales. It’s creating productive and satisfied employees that see the value in CRM usage as a means to grow the company and themselves. However, gamification designs often focus on simplistic methods such as leaderboards and top tens, without considering other factors such as game theory, and how the design affects the competitive atmosphere, work dynamic, and collaboration.

Oversimplifies the business process

With gamification, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the business process should be as simple as playing Tetris or Farmville. Poorly implemented gamification strategies can dumb down the work that a CRM user needs to do, which shouldn’t be the case because business is complex. Gamification doesn’t mean you’re literally going to turn workflows into a video game. It does, however, use game aspects such as incentives, recognition, and challenges, to motivate users to learn the complexities of the business easier.

Complex Rules and Dynamics

In contrast to the last point, gamification can sometimes be set up to be overly complex. It becomes too complicated to the point that CRM user adoption rates will decrease even further. This is especially disadvantageous to CRM users because the goal of gamification is not to add a new set of complicated rules to understand, but rather, to aid in learning what’s already considered difficult to adopt, and that is the CRM.

The purpose of CRM gamification is simple: to ease CRM learning and increase user adoption. However, gamification if it still results in low adoption rates perhaps you can take it a step further by considering the use of Voice to CRM services. It will significantly reduce manual data entry by using voice recognition technology to enter data into CRM allowing your users to ditch manual data entry and make the gamified experience even more optimized to reach your company goals.