Drive

Many companies describe themselves as operating in a changing business and under the pressure of the market. An automotive company is an excellent example. A single car has about 30 000 parts. There are different models of cars, each of them needs different parts. Market is divided by different suppliers… so you can imagine how abundant an offer of automotive company can be. The company’s structure is dispersed. The owner of the car parts store branch is a private entrepreneur (franchise system). He must see business sense and justification to enable the development of his employees, and himself. To take care of it and effectively reach the group of 250 managers and 2000 employees we have created the Development Highway – Route 66.

Development Highway

Route 66, one of the most famous motorways in the World stretches from East to West coast of USA. Eight states represent eight missions. It takes you on one year adventure through online learning, mobile learning and classroom learning.

Each salesman should know 1 000 000 products. Now you can imagine how complicated cars are these days. Let us add internal processes, promotions and special events. That is why onboarding takes approximately over a year. Your wage depends on your sales results and apart from your knowledge about the products you have to possess the sales skills to implement your sales goals.

Managers are aware that huge amount of material can be difficult to learn. The situation requires constant reminding and consolidating of acquired skills, which generates next recurring costs. What is more, the traditional training form requires eight-hours of participation and the knowledge is conveyed in a static, stationary way – which isn’t very attractive for the participant.

The concept is simple – meet employees where they are, not where you want them to be. We needed a solution that would enable us to moderate activity and give everyone an individual context. Each participant is on a different level of knowledge and has different set of skills so he or she needs tools to catch up with the information in their individual way. Instead of flipping through stacks of books, this must be short and rich in useful information and available at the click of a mouse button. Solution, which eliminates time and space constraints. If an employee is at home and would like to spend some time studying the product specification before the morning meeting he should be able to do it quickly by logging into the platform using a phone or a computer.

To connect this whole task we run a project called “Drive”, a fictional form of travel on legendary Route 66.

Illinois – the history

The program is divided into eight stages – respectively to the number of states through which Route 66 goes. Illinois is the beginning. Inside the state there is a city in which the participant moves around.

At the start of the project each participant received from us a phisical licence plate with a number, project logo and website address. It worked as a teaser to attract people and was an innovative form to invite them to our website. When they logged in there was further information how to create an account and join the gamification program.

Missouri – Individual development paths

One of the biggest challenges which company had to face was creating individual paths for over 2000 employees. Cost of an assessment centre for such a big group would be too high. That is why it was decided to be done through the gamification platform.

In order to diagnose the level of sales skills, a role-playing competence game was created. Seven most important competences were chosen including prospecting, needs analysis, cross-selling etc. Each participant experienced an adventure in the style of Route 66, on the platform of course (in the form of simulations, quizzes and fictional tasks). He served customers, sold products and tested his knowledge of using the service. In this way, the company verified his level of sales competences. In addition, internal knowledge tests of automotive company were used.

Combination of these two elements allowed us to build individual development paths for each user. After logging in to the platform, the employee receives materials tailored to his needs. They supplement his knowledge in areas that have been identified as competence gaps. This is how one employee sees different material on the platform than the other one. However they both learn on the same platform and can still compete with each other in the ranking.

Kansas and Oklahoma – Game mechanics

Our solution consists of a few mechanisms. Some of them are hidden from the player, because they blend with each other, so that they create a unique gaming experience. Let’s have a closer look at one combination of them.

So what makes gamification work? It is the use of game mechanisms that motivate participants to be active. Each participant receives a portion of knowledge dedicated to him. He completes competence gaps diagnosed during competency gaming and during internal certifications.

One task says: “I will give you a container of gasoline if you tell me twelve features of a good leader and answer my questions.” You have to read a short piece of material to get theoretical background:

Afterwards, you have a short test consisting of three questions. It is a form of assessment of your knowledge about the material.

Correct answer to each of the questions gives you points and gasoline. After a few days, we ask you again about the twelve principles of a good leader in some different form – crossword, puzzle, quiz etc. in order to check how well you remember this material and to keep reminding you about these twelve features.

On average, new tasks are added to the platform every two weeks. Their implementation takes no more than six minutes. Tasks cannot be boring – that is why they are presented in an attractive form: interactive e-books, infographics, feature films, quizzes, crosswords and puzzles.

Each task ends with a short test with a maximum of five questions. If the participant makes a mistake, he will get fewer gallons of fuel, but he will always know what the correct answer was – because it is all about development.

Texas – Stationary training

The platform itself is not everything. You can gain knowledge there, but can you learn new skills only by reading
e-books and solving tasks? To help accomplish it, stationary trainings were also prepared. What kind of stationary trainings, you ask? After all, participants’ needs are already known. We got this information thanks to the competence game at the beginning of gamification. After this stage, the employee is invited to trainings dedicated to him. They were prepared according to the specifics in which he works. He can register for training through the platform. He just has to choose a date and a place.

On the platform, he can also get information about the training, materials and contacts to trainers. On his path he can also find new tasks – including survey on his expectations about the training, training assessment and the trainer as well as extra points when we confirm that he was at the training, and “knowledge pills” – short movies presenting techniques from training.

New Mexico – The boss’s panel- Stationary training

We believe there can be a real change and the employee can sell more, but three following elements are crucial:

Only how should a supervisor monitor the progress? We have prepared a tool for this – the boss’s panel which allows him to see which areas of the employee expertise need to be strengthened. He can also support him in the implementation of new skills. Thanks to this tool he knows which elements from the knowledge of automotive market his employees have passed. He can see their positions in the ranking as well as how his team has coped with different challenges. The supervisor also approves their participation in stationary trainings.

Arizona – Successes

The project team emphasizes that the project is greatly popular among sales representatives. Managers and directors of the company began to fully understand the importance of the project, because it translates into sales results. Those who actively participate in the Drive project have, on average, two-digit percentage points increases in sales dynamics.

We currently have around 350 sales representatives among the participants. About 200 of them had never sold one product. New owners of the company see that as much as 33% of them started selling and they are very active on the platform. They have 100% completed activities.

California – Commitment and statistics

Thanks to gamification platform, access to statistics became very easy. We can see tasks, progress, how much time users spent on the platform, which materials were useful for them, which were too hard. The results are immediate, and we can react instantly.

On the gamification platform you can measure practically every movement of the participant. Thanks to that we know that:

The gamification platform statistics: