Every industry is working on the best use of apps for the iPad across its enterprise. In healthcare, IT security professionals are worried that the incredible popularity of iPad with physicians is causing them to lose “control” of security, because iPads are so flexible and easy to use. On the other side of the enterprise, sales professionals know that a tool their customers are familiar with and like is a great way to get on the same page with the customer.
Overall, the idea of turning work into play with rewards is catching on, especially with the iPad. In July, the most popular presentations at the Mobile Health World Conference in Boston covered “gamification” in mobile healthcare apps for iPad. Gamification is the idea that you can include the elements which make games fun and addictive in work that isn’t traditionally thought of as a game. Great iPad apps for healthcare or sales can use game play mechanisms for non-game applications to make the app for iPad stronger and help people to accomplish more.
Use Carrots not Sticks for the iPad to Build Sales Performance
Traditional methods of incentivizing or motivating sales reps for better performance include “stick” methods like “walls of shame” or using basic statistics from their Salesforce to identify sales “winners” and “losers.”
ISM is focused on creating relevant apps with great data that reps can share in a way that makes it easy for them to use. When we give data to a rep in a CRM system, including Mobile CRM HD for iPad, we’ll automatically build in quick, easy ways to know whether it’s valuable for sales reps to pay attention to or not. You’ve got talented salespeople and employees. In a lot of cases when you look at what they’re actually doing, you find they spend too much time on things that aren’t really important. You can make it easier for them and more fun to perform by offering a lot of different “carrots” combining information and incentives. We’re big fans of “carrot” concepts at ISM.
Making a Great Sales App for iPad
According to motivation/performance guru Daniel Pink, “Gamification could go either way — toward 2.0 if the rewards are the point of the exercise, towards 3.0 if the rewards are a form of feedback, information, and a way to make progress and achieve flow.” In other words, the “game” part of the App should fit with the work that’s being done and make it easier, not harder, for sales reps to do their jobs.
This is where ISM’s experience comes in. We’d like to hear how you see the iPad working to improve your sales and work for your sales reps. If you have any stories about “walls of shame” or a “gamification” of your sales process where the sales reps came out as winners, post a comment below, or we want to hear from you. We’re gearing up for Dreamforce, August 30 – September 2 in San Francisco, where we will showcase our Mobile CRM HD iPad App. Let us know if you are going, we’d love to meet you.
To learn more, please visit our Mobile CRM page. Or call us at 877-553-0485, or email us!
