With the acquisition of FantasySalesTeam, Microsoft has gamified Dynamics CRM, boosting the productivity of sales teams everywhere.

If you manage a sales team, you likely use incentives, contests, and prizes to spur competition. But you also may have seen those tools do the opposite. The top sales leaders usually always win which can result in the rest of the sales team becoming dispirited or certain they will never top the leaderboard. This leads to frustration and becomes less of a game and more of a burden.

Microsoft Uses Acquisition to Improve CRM Adoption

Microsoft is hoping to change that. In late 2015, Microsoft purchased Texas-based Incent Games, the creators of FantasySalesTeam. That game platform has been used by hundreds of companies to boost both sales and collaboration. Rather than following the old mold of typical sales contests, FantasySalesTeam follows the lead of fantasy sports, all inside a sales setting.

The game involves "drafting" players to a team, it includes non-sales groups in the mix, like managers, marketing, ops, etc. Though individual and team scores are visible, the team is the focus.

One of the big problems with CRMs is adoption. Many sales members simply refuse to use them. Gamification motivates sales representatives to use Dynamics CRM by making it fun and rewarding, it energizes Sales activities through friendly competition, and promotes team work; all of which ultimately will increase CRM adoption!

Gamification Inside Dynamics CRM

Microsoft's reason for this acquisition was to incorporate a gamification module inside Dynamics CRM. As Microsoft's announcement about this purchase stated, "We believe that motivating users of Dynamics CRM to focus on their most important metrics while simultaneously increasing usage and adoption can help drive tremendous impact on our customer’s success."

TechCrunch reports that there's a method to Microsoft's madness. The results that Incent Games achieved with their customers was the big selling point. Service Corporation International ran a pilot with 130 of their sales reps. They then compared their team's performance with 700 others. The Service Corp team closed 88 percent more deals. Another company, Wireless Zone, realized a 176 percent increase in sales and a 9 percent increase in profit in their first month alone.

Could you use a bump in sales? Do you need to increase CRM adoption? If you want to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the gamification module, contact us. Magenium can help you figure out the best way to incorporate Dynamics CRM into your business. Please contact us or call +1 (630) 786-5900.