1 | 4

Case Study

Information Technology & Services Company

Channel Sales Operations Gamification boosts sales training participationFor two years, an iconic tech company had in place an array of digital training resources to help sales employees of its channel partners learn about its products, and how best to sell them. Yet they occasionally engaged with the learning content or social collaboration platforms intended to be places where channel sellers could share best practices.

Centrical’s platform was applied to motivate partner personnel to engage with the online learning capabilities to become more agile about the company, sell its products better, and do it all more efficiently.

“By harnessing Centrical’s advanced gamification, we’re able to have our

channel partners engage more, learn more, and perform better.”

Sales Operations & Digital Partner Experience Manager

31% 50xof channel employees engage

with training twice/weekgreater completion of all assigned activities

improvement in number of courses taken

Case Study

20x

2 | 4

Case Study

To drive sales, drive engagement

Salespeople with the company’s channel partners have plenty of tools to access information and training on how to sell its products that they could have accessed more. That meant this lack of engagement with the sales portal translated into missed sales opportunities generated through the channel. Even though awareness campaigns had been run to engage partners with the portal and all it offered, the online university had modest engagement. In the gamification proof of concept that the company is running with one partner fewer than two dozen courses had been taken by its 120 Sales Reps over two years.

The company came to realize that to raise engagement levels with content, materials, and services among channel partners’ salespeople needed to engage with the portal and the contents in a way that was relevant, exciting, and fun for them. The company realized that could be achieved by utilizing gamification.

Seeking a return on a training investment

The company’s product and service portfolio serves the needs of of consumers and public and private entities, from small businesses to the largest global enterprises. Its track record, since its founding has been impressive.

Nonetheless, the company found its online university service, available through its sales portal, could have been more broadly used by sales personnel with its channel partners. This online training presence and community is far more than a repository of sales enablement tools, analyses of competitors, and product datasheets. It is a place where partners can engage with the company and each other to share best practices and the like - to help drive up sales for those partners.

Centrical is customizable, draws from different data sources, and offers lots of ways to create engagement. Plus, it provides plenty of flexibility in the number and types of KPIs to be tracked.

Sales Operations & Digital Partner Experience Manager

Case Study

3 | 4

Case Study

Approach

To make the portal more intriguing and intrinsically able to motivate channel sellers to learn and get better at its products, the company selected Centrical. They felt the advanced gamification capabilities went beyond the short-lived “sugar high” of the classic points, badges, and leaderboards to attain a more sustainable participation level. They saw the Centrical platform is designed around a holistic view that to improve performance, personnel need to engage with personalized learning activities which, in turn, is facilitated by advanced gamification.

Further, the company opted for the Centrical platform because of the high number and types of KPIs that it tracks and could be customized to include different data sources for superior analytics as

Advanced Gamification

Using a superhero-themed game narrative, the company created missions,

challenges, and activities to drive desired behaviors and interactions. Each activity would gain sellers points. Teams

participated in weekly competitions on total points and winners could exchange

them for swag at a virtual store.

Personalized Microlearning

Learning missions were linked to courses which the company wanted sellers to focus on. Certifications were highlighted with the added incentive of higher points awarded for their completion. Bonus points where added to anyone’s score if they took additional courses on their own.

Real-time Performance Management To drive knowledge sharing, three different KPIs were created to track logins, click-throughs, and other actions. Performance against these KPIs were rewarded with points based on personalized benchmarks and goals.

well as offer a multitude of methods to create engagement. In addition, Centrical integrated seamlessly with other company portals as well as its learning management system, where the learning content resides.

“I’m more willing, ready, and able to sell their products.”

ERICSales Rep

4 | 4

Case Study

ResultsPartners’ salesforces were segmented by profile attributes, such as field sales or inside sales. This was done to serve two needs:

• Ensure each segment received the right courses and certification recommendations.

• Allow for automatically triggered personalized communications based on salespersons’ behavior.

This meant salespersons who didn’t download any training assets for two weeks received personalized notifications urging them to check out the relevant asset. Those messages were tailored to cover what should be done, why it was personally useful, and

what will be gained by participating. By making it all highly relevant to the sellers’ actual needs, the company is able to get and sustain significantly better engagement levels and develop more knowledge, more capable channel partner sellers. This was indicated by:

• 31% of sellers logged in to the portal at least twice a week, with the rest doing so at least once a month, as evidence of continued growth of participation.

• Those actively engaging – connecting with the portal at least twice a week – were more actively selling the company’s products.

Working with the Centrical team is fantastic! The level of professionalism and responsiveness to our needs is great. We’re very happy with the engagement levels and the impact we’ve achieved.”

Sales Operations & Digital Partner Experience Manager

About CentricalCentrical helps the world’s leading companies make employees the center of business success by improving their engagement, learning, and performance while enhancing the coaching abilities of their managers.

Its holistic platform simply works Better Togetherbecause it blends advanced gamification,personalized microlearning, and real-timeperformance management to sustainably motivateemployees to challenge themselves and strengthenskills while providing data-driven feedback in theirquest to reach their full potential.

info@centrical.com+1-800-538-4263

centrical.com

• Engagement and completion of assigned learning activities rose 50x among channel sales employees in three months, compared to a lower level of engagement with the portal recorded in the two years before implementing Centrical.

• During the same three-month period, 445 courses were completed. In the two years prior just 22 courses were taken, a 20X improvement.

31% 50xof channel employees engage

with training twice/weekgreater completion of all assigned activities

improvement in number of courses taken

20x