It comes as no surprise that people love video games–kids and adults alike. Contrary to popular stereotype, today’s average gamer is not a teenage boy glued to a screen for hours. Shockingly, the average gamer is now 31 years old and in fact, more gamers are over the age of 50 than those under 18. It’s obvious that video games have incurred great momentum over the years. This shift toward gaming interaction preference has changed the most ideal ways to teach, connect with, and excite adults – including your sales team.

Here enters gamification.

Gamification is a software system that applies interactive gaming features to task management within the workplace as a way to transform everyday initiatives into exciting and manageable tasks. It takes high-level objectives and breaks them down into smaller items associated with a reward system. While video games have gradually become more complicated than old favorites like Pac-Man, certain gaming elements such as multiplayer options, points and levels still apply in gamification. Gamification takes advantage of these interactive gaming features to enhance teamwork and productivity within the workforce. The increasing popularity and complexity of video games makes gamification a unique way to increase employee enjoyment, motivation, and teamwork as well as provide a platform ideal for boosted conversions (What we really care about, right?).

Motivated Employees

Gamification accomplishes much more than adding an element of fun to work – it has a positive impact on employee motivation. Sales people, by nature, are very ambitious and thrive in competitive situations. By emulating popular video games, gamification is able toencourage sales team motivation in regards to both coming to work and increasing overall efficiency at work.

Imagine a situation where an employee comes to work and realizes they have several tasks to complete by the end of the day. What typically follows this scenario is the inevitable feeling of discouragement induced by the daunting workload. Luckily, gamification can turn that intimidating task list into a friendly, manageable competition! Gamification presents the employee with a dashboard outlining the task list and compares it to that of their employees. Not only will the employee be able to share their progress with the rest of the sales team and their manager, but he or she will also be recognized for completing the work.

Similar to the excitement felt when advancing to the next level in Super Mario Bros, employees will experience an increased sense of motivation and accomplishment upon completing each task. Gamification is a strategic way to shed a positive light on the work environment and create more incentives for employees.

Increased Engagement

Recall the thrill felt when advancing to a new level or reaching a new high score in a video game; Games are self-rewarding and encourage players to continue playing to maintain the natural high gained from winning. The same concept applies to games in the workplace. Your sales team will experience a higher level of engagement with their work, because gamification adds interactivity and competition to everyday tasks.

The increased loyalty and engagement employees will experience with gamification will motivate them to work harder, which will positively impact conversion rates. Some tools that maximize employee engagement incorporate videos, contests and leaderboards (Examples of popular technologies that incorporate gaming mechanisms into daily challenges include Hoopla, LevelEleven and Bunchball). Gamification can even expand outside of internal competitions, via social media contests and customers surveys for example, providing employees with the opportunity to become more acquainted with the company’s brand identity and the consumer experience.

Stronger Relationships

Gamification is ideal for inciting stronger relationships including connections within the office as well as with customer outreach. When a sales team is able to compete with one another in a friendly manner, they will notice more positive interactions and a higher rate of productivity. These sales team interactions strengthen the bonds between employees through two shared goals: 1) To accomplish more individually, and 2) To work better as a team for the company. Just as in video games like Call of Duty where team play is an option, employees working for the same side (or department) are more likely to help one another in their efforts towards achieving common objectives.

In addition to internal team relationships, sales companies will foster stronger connections with their customers. With gamification, employees will be more motivated, positive and hungry to meet the lead’s needs. The increased personalization and enthusiasm encouraged by gamification will drive more customer sales that will benefit the employee, lead and company as a whole.

Employees are the backbone to any successful business. Allocating resources that make work more enjoyable for your employees is money well spent, because it can only mean good things for company profitability. In fact, incorporating gaming features into sales initiatives can increase competition by over 60% and boost engagement to almost 90%. These strategies not only affect a sales teams’ attitude toward their work, but they also foster a sense of community among team members that manifest into stronger customer relationships and higher company sales.