5 Reasons Retailers should think beyond GroupMe Chat

GroupMe has so many benefits. It’s fun. It’s easy to use. It caps off endless debates over whether Apple or Android has a better text system (it’s Android). But what if GroupMe is just the beginning? What if you could harness the fun and accessibility of GroupMe and use it to boost productivity around your whole store? Here’s how the GroupMe concept can be taken even further.

In any workplace, communication is key. British author and leadership theorist John Adair calls communication “the sister of leadership.” Every good manager should know how to communicate effectively with his or her team, and that includes streamlining the process with the latest tech.

GroupMe is great for this. It’s a cross-platform app, which means you can use it to chat on both Apple and Android phones without the clunkiness that comes in group threads of traditional texts. This makes it perfect for phone retail stores. It’s also a quick and easy way to keep the workplace fun with memes, gifs, and birthday announcements. Fun is important. In 2015, the University of Warwick found that happy employees are 12% more productive.

But fun can also be distracting, pulling your team’s attention away from work. How can you have fun while boosting productivity? GroupMe is on the right track, but one app takes the concept further.

1. Arcade brings the chat thread fun to every aspect of the workday.

Arcade is a unique, customizable gamification platform with a chat thread built in. Workers can effectively communicate while building up points for their everyday tasks. Once they earn enough points, they can spend them on real rewards in the arcade store. This brings the chat thread fun to the entire workday, with employees pushing each other toward higher productivity, setting new high scores, and recognizing each other’s achievements— all through a smooth and focused chat platform.

2. Fun can be a factor in productivity, rather than a distraction from it.

Chat is fun. It’s a great way to encourage the two biggest influences on team-building: inside jokes and shared experiences. But it can also be a major time suck. Arcade keeps your team focused on meeting their daily goals without losing the benefits of chat. You might set your Arcade program up to award points to employees who recognize the achievements of others on the store feed. Everyone loves a high-five, of course, but this also keeps the employee focused on meeting her own goals. Arcade keeps your team’s minds in “work mode,” rather than the “social mode” that usually comes with chat functions.

3. Chat can be used to actively recognize star employees.

As we learn more about workplace psychology, peer recognition is emerging as a crucial element for any business. A 2012 study by SHRM and Globoforce found that peer recognition is 37.5% more likely to impact a company’s bottom line than recognition from management. It can be done over any platform, but Arcade is specifically designed to encourage and reward peer recognition over the chat feed. Your team will earn points just for recognizing each other. This won’t only keep them focused on work, it will build a deeper sense of harmony and camaraderie among your people.

4. One app, with a chat feature included, can provide constant performance tracking.

You can’t meet with people as often as you’d like. Not even chat provides that level of communication. So it can be difficult to know who your star players are and who could use more encouragement. Arcade tracks your employees’ performance based on parameters that you set. You can use it to track sales per day, customers engaged, specific units promoted, or any other task. Since an employee earns points for these tasks, he’ll enter them manually via smartphone. This frees up the time you would’ve spent performance logging. You can also be notified whenever an employee makes a sale, so you can recognize them directly via the chat function.

5. Translate emotional rewards into real rewards.

According to a study by Asurion, the average American looks at his or her phone 96 times per day. (That figure might be even greater for your employees if they use their phones for office chat.) What’s the motivation behind all that screen time? Catharsis. Checking social media provides an emotional reward. This can be a distraction, or it could be your ticket to greater productivity and happier employees. Take it one step further with Arcade and translate those emotional rewards into real, tangible rewards. If your employees are picking up their phones on impulse anyway, they can use them to log their tasks and earn points. They can spend those points on any prize you set in the Arcade store, from gift cards to prime parking spaces. That’s a real reward felt for hard work. Your employees will love it, you’ll love it, and best of all, your bottom line will love it.