Top 10 Ways Wireless Dealers Motivate their Teams to Maximize Performance Using Gamification

Gamification has made a significant impact on how wireless dealers and wireless store owners operate in the current world. Facing high competition for market share, maximizing the performance of distributed teams is no longer an option for any wireless dealer that aims to achieve success. Gamification has revolutionized the performance engagement of employees, maximizing productivity while increasing employee motivation in the workplace.

So what exactly is Gamification, and how does it work?

Gamification revolves around the idea of making mundane and repetitive tasks at the workplace more exciting. It turns routine activities (ie new box sales, accessory sales, service plans, etc.) into structured play, keeping the team engaged in achieving the highest possible rewards, breaking the latest records, and moving up ranks on the leaderboard. Gamification introduces fun, amusement, cooperation, and mental stimulation to tasks that would otherwise be monotonous.

We play games even when we have nothing tangible to gain from it. We can think through the most complex challenges in a game setup and come up with the most innovative solutions in a game setting just for the satisfaction of going up a level or accumulating more points. What if that is what work looked like every day?

Tasks are broken down into challenges and daily goals. Employees are then rewarded for every challenge that is completed with tokens that are redeemable for actual rewards. Individuals and managers can share success and achievements with peers and across the organization to receive commendation and recognition, increasing positive interactions, healthy competition, and employee motivation.

Here’s Why Wireless Dealers Should Gamify

Companies prepare business plans and strategies that end up collecting dust on the shelf waiting for an occasional quarterly or annual review. Gamification, on the other hand, brings your business strategy to life, breaking your long-term goals into achievable daily goals that are measurable and achievable by your team. If you run wireless stores, below are some of the reasons why you should consider gamifying your work operations:

• Employee Engagement and Retention: Gamification is a brilliant way to keep your team motivated and maximize performance engagement. Research has shown that engaged employees are 87% less likely to quit their jobs. By providing individual rewards for every progress an employee makes, they can attain not only a feeling of accomplishment but also a great incentive for their productivity.
  ‍
  
• Increased Productivity: A gamified solution breaks down goals into challenges, time-bound competitions, games, tournaments, and leagues that are engaging and immersive. Productivity is maximized when distractions are minimized, and work feels more fulfilled. Since every challenge takes you up a level and awards you a different reward, there is the constant need to aim for the highest achievable standard and surpass the records set by colleagues. As a result, gamification is a guaranteed way to ensure an exponential increase in productivity consistently throughout your company’s life. With productivity levels heightened to over 20 times, wireless dealers stand to gain over a 20% increase in sales, putting them at a much greater competitive advantage over their rivals.
  ‍
• A measure of Progress: Gamification provides an amazing platform for measuring the real-time progress of your company goals. From evaluating the performance of individuals against their set deadlines to the monthly performance of the teams and the long-term goals of the company, gamification allows you to visualize real-time progress and therefore make informed decisions as to the actions to take.
  ‍
• Customer Satisfaction: A fulfilled and enthusiastic workforce makes for an unmatched customer service experience. When your team is working at maximum productivity and feels appreciated, there is efficiency and enthusiasm in addressing customer needs. This leads to customer satisfaction and loyalty.
  ‍
• Increase in Sales: The end goal of every company and business is to maximize sales and profits. With a significant increase in productivity, efficiency, and customer satisfaction, gamification is the competitive edge you need to have your company’s sales and revenue going through the roof. Studies reveal that increasing the investment in employee engagement by only 10% can increase business profits by $2,400 per year, per employee.
  

‍

Features of a Gamification System

Several features are necessary for making a truly engaging and effective gamification system for your workplace. Regardless of the key performance indicators and metrics of your wireless dealership, the following elements are essential in achieving maximum productivity in your operations:

Integration with your Company’s Point of Sale & Customer Relationship Management Systems

• An effective gamification platform should automatically integrate with your company’s entire POS or CRM. This includes your collaboration platforms, communication channels, the company’s sales funnel, and entire workflow processes. The integration allows for an automated measure of performance and gamification of all administrative and mundane tasks in the company
  ‍
• An advantage of a gamification platform is that it simply integrates into your already-existing systems to measure progress. Sales and service data are then integrated from your systems to the gamification platform.
  

Recognition 

• Even in small organizations, it is easy for an employee’s efforts to go unrecognized. Not with gamification. Every individual milestone achieved receives a shout-out, which builds the motivation of your team. Gamification allows for the appreciation of every member of your team, at all levels of the organization. Employees do not need to wait for recognition through a promotion. Every single day is a chance for them to work towards an incentive that is fair and accessible to each one of them. The immediate reward and instant gratification keep them self-fulfilled in their various roles.
  

Leaderboards

• To motivate your team to maximize their performance, gamification incorporates a leaderboard that displays a comparative measure of success against peers and teams. Leaderboards foster healthy competition, motivating every employee to work towards the top performance status. Individuals can see their contribution towards the team performance, and the company’s success, which gives them a sense of purpose. 
  ‍
• Management can set new challenges, deadlines, and tournaments with an ultimate prize for the top employee who breaks the record and leads the charts.

Rewards 

• A game is not complete without rewards. Rewards are the main incentives for employees to improve their performance and feel appreciated for their achievements. A gamification system allows your team members to accumulate tokens, which they can redeem for rewards in the online store. Just like in a game, an individual can opt to use their tokens to purchase their choice of rewards in the marketplace or save them up for a bigger and better reward (like a trip to Disney). Therefore, it gives your employees direct control over their rewards. Rewards range from gift cards from restaurants and shops to trips or electronics.
  

Real-time communication

• Effective communication is a fundamental aspect of building a productive team. As such, Gamification platforms allow real-time communication of employees with the other members of their team, as well as announcements from management. The newsfeed allows individuals and managers to share accomplishments - instilling instant gratification from the compliments and encouragement from peers and leaders.
  

Team Collaboration

• In a solution that fosters collaboration and a healthy level of competition, no one will be left behind. Each individual strives to beat their personal target and contribute to the success of their team. Gamification allows you to create productive teams for your wireless stores, appoint team leaders, assign tasks and challenges, and allocate team budgets. It provides a platform where every team can communicate, upload and share files, share ideas, and provide mutual support.
  

Reporting

• An effective gamification solution should offer a feature for instant reporting and visualization of the performance metrics. Every input into the system provides a real-time update on the progress against the set goal, allowing you to monitor just how far you are from achieving your targets. This eliminates the need for manually generated reports, which take from the productive hours of your team.
  

Convenience and Versatility

• The convenience of gamification solutions allows for operation across various platforms, devices, and channels in the organization. This level of compatibility makes it flexible and efficient for employees and management to access the data they require on-demand.

Maximize the Performance of your team using Gamification

As a wireless dealer or wireless store owner, how can you make gamification work for you? If you’re wondering just how to get started, the following are tips and tricks to get the most out of gamification in your stores and motivate your team to an exceptionally greater performance than ever before:

1. Gamify your Training Modules - A great place to start with gamification is to include it in your company’s training or onboarding modules. New staff can go through a gamified orientation, measuring their performance, and attaining rewards for every training module they complete successfully. This is also a great way to incentivize your existing employees to upgrade their skill level, stay up-to-date with the industry trends, and learn new organizational policies. 
   ‍
   For instance, consider introducing a gamified training module for employees to learn how the company’s sales funnel works or a short course on store management skills for team leaders to undertake. Studies have shown that providing employees with opportunities for growth and development through training is a great motivation for feeling engaged and fulfilled in the workplace.
   

2. Build Teams - It is important to create a collaborative work culture by grouping your employees into teams and departments. Mutual collaboration provides for a highly engaging workplace and innovation of creative ideas. Integrate a gamification solution that encourages teams to work together towards a common goal and celebrate collective accomplishments.
   

3. Design a Mobile Responsive System - Mobile responsiveness is a fundamental aspect of every digital platform and system. According to Google, 75% of individuals agree that mobile devices make them more productive. Over 90% of phone use has been attributed to productivity apps. This means that allowing your employees mobile access to the gamified platform in and out of the office, and away from their desks is an effective way to increase productive hours of operations.
   

4. Game Layering - Incorporate gamification in all levels of the organizational operations. Gamifying individual goals is just the first step to increasing productivity. Creating inter-departmental challenges and team tournaments can increase motivation among various teams in your wireless stores. Extending the same principle to different teams within your company in different locations will consequently lead to a substantial increase in your company’s annual productivity, hence exceeding your long-term goals.
   

5. Switch up Competitions and Game Styles - The whole point of a gamification platform is to keep mundane repetitive tasks fresh and engaging. Working with a single competition format will over time become routine once again and the level of employee motivation will plateau. Therefore, keep your employees guessing with occasional new challenges, keeping the adrenaline high with time-bound games and competitive deadlines, bounty games for individual achievement, race games that allow them to compete for first place against co-workers, tournaments among teams, unique one-time games, and the everyday incentives for continuous employee motivation. You can even create leagues in various branches for your long-time goals, allowing different teams to view their progress on the leaderboards.
   

6. Motivating Incentives - The incentives you put up as rewards for your team should be worth fighting for. This does not necessarily have to be expensive but should be proportionate to the work they put in. Higher productivity should be appreciated with a higher reward. Therefore, allocating a realistic budget to your teams for different challenges, levels, and tournaments will keep everyone on their toes.
   

7. Offer Validation and Commendation - Provide validation and commendation for employees that maintain a consistent increase in productivity, sales, or output. Appreciating the work of your teams in the newsfeed as well as annual bonuses will increase engagement and motivation. It also allows for validation and peer-to-peer recognition that goes a long way in creating a positive work environment.
   

8. Create Different Metrics and Benchmarks - Outside of sales numbers and profits, there are many Key Performance Indicators that you can set as metrics for performance. You can go above employee sales to reward handset sales, inventory turnover rates, five-star customer reviews, average spend, customer retention, number of transactions, and traffic, among others. This allows various employees to excel at their strong points, and receive recognition for them.
   

9. Reward Employee Engagement - How can you ensure that your employees stay engaged after the integration of your gamification system? Gamification allows you to reward employee engagement by receiving recognition stars from their colleagues, building up experience points, and earning badges for engagement on the platform. This provides a measurable means of attaining engagement statistics of your employees and teams, keeping them involved every step of the way.
   

10. Manage the Gamified System - Gamification gives you a more hands-off approach (no more SPIFF bank or store trips) to managing your teams wherever they are. Performance is measurable, and employees are highly self-motivated to achieve their targets. Taking up the management role will also allow you to create challenges and competitions, and allocate monthly token budget limits to team leaders.
    

Conclusion
‍
‍Gamification offers the ultimate productive solution to every modern-day business. It goes beyond crushing sales goals, motivating your employees to unparalleled productivity, and measuring their performance. Arcade is readily designed with every component you need to keep your team engaged, motivated, and fulfilled every single day at the workplace. The real-time communication, the various gaming styles, and the wide range of incentives will allow you to focus the daily efforts of your employees in attaining the long-term needs of your organization. Schedule a demo to see how we can help your stores.