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Tag : gamification

5 Game-Changing Features of the New Zoho CRM!

New Zoho CRM is back with a vengeance after its facelift

If you haven’t already heard about the new Zoho CRM interface and new Zoho CRM features that were all rolled out in earnest over the past few weeks, you’ve probably been living under a rock – or, you’ve just been really busy.  Don’t worry!  It happens to me, too.

Before Zoho rolled out the new UI, however, they very quietly rolled it out to their partner network so we could all become familiar with it before we started helping people build out their own systems.  And, let me tell you: it is gorgeous.  But, that’s not even what I wanted to talk about.

Zoho proves with this new iteration of their CRM that beauty is much more than skin-deep.  I’ve put together 5 ways this Zoho CRM changes the game completely – and puts you firmly in command of your system.

1. Schedule a script to run independently instead of as part of a workflow rule

zoho crm features

This is really nifty.  Zoho workflow automation has always been handy, but, up to this point, if you wanted the system to carry out a task for you, that task would have to be based on some other action taking place, like the creation or editing of a record.  That would make it impossible for you to run a custom script that wasn’t based on an action – like, say, to sync data from Zoho to Google Drive (or some other cloud-based system) at the end of every workday.  But, with this new capability, there’s no more limitation in that arena, and you don’t need to base a scheduled script upon performing an action!

2. Automatically trigger leads to convert based on set criteria

zoho crm features

Workflow rules now extend to lead conversion, so if your Lead record matches that special criteria you set for qualification, you don’t even have to press convert anymore.  For people who have hundreds of things going on – and might be prone to forgetting to convert their Leads to Potentials – this is a lifesaver, but, it’s also good for new salespeople who might not be sure what your exact lead conversion criteria are.  If you tell your CRM what those conditions are, it takes the work off your salespeople’s plates.

3. Set multiple layouts per module

zoho crm features

Have you ever wished you could add another layer of granularity to your record separation game?  With the new CRM, you can plan separate page layouts for any module in Zoho – even custom ones!  This comes in handy if, for example, you deal with multiple kinds of leads.  While you’ll want to keep track of all your sales activities, you probably won’t want to take potential partners down the same sales funnel as your regular prospects.  The new Zoho CRM allows for multiple completely custom page layouts so you can take every kind of Lead, Potential, or Account down the sales path that’s best for your business.

4. Gamify your CRM activities!

zoho crm features

Sales gamification is a great motivator, as I’ve mentioned before.  In the new Zoho CRM interface, Zoho takes the same great idea they’ve applied to Zoho Projects (and on which they developed an entire app in Zoho Motivator) and applies it to the CRM – and, as it is in Projects, it’s a great tool to drive proper use of the system.  If you don’t believe it, just imagine this: After starting a contest, all your salespeople start taking notes on pertinent records, converting Leads to Potentials, and completing tasks in the CRM… It might sound like a pipe dream, but with Gamescope for the CRM, all you have to provide is the incentive; the CRM takes care of the contest itself (and provides fun, encouraging notes to users who complete enough CRM tasks even if you don’t provide a prize to the daily victor).

5. See all dashboards in the mobile CRM app!

zoho crm features

Any mobile CRM app is a great idea: All sorts of working people benefit from accessing their database on the go, whether it’s technicians out in the field or executives looking to stay abreast of current happenings from outside the office.  But, from the Zoho CRM mobile app it wasn’t always possible to see all your custom reports dashboards in one place… And, now it is.  So, rather than have to thumb (or finger) through pages of data from a smaller screen, you can just do the same thing you’d do in the office – look at your beautiful reports and know at a glance how your business is running.

But, wait… There’s more!

zoho crm features

Zoho, the overachieving developers they are, have done much more than this in the new Zoho CRM design, so for a full breakdown I recommend taking a glance at the article Zoho put out on the subject.  Or, better still, if you aren’t using Zoho yet, sign up for a free trial.

Boost Team Motivation and Productivity with Zoho CRM Plus & Motivator

Looking at Zoho CRM Plus?  Time to get Motivated!

zoho gamification

If you’ve been putting off buying a subscription to Zoho CRM Plus because it didn’t include Zoho Motivator, you just might be in luck very soon.

In the coming months, the powers that be at Zoho Corporation may be planning to lump the sales gamification app in with its CRMPlus package, which already includes a veritable boatload of apps and features – and, at no extra charge, either.

The cool thing about Zoho Motivator is that, whereas some Zoho apps included with CRMPlus are only good for specific kinds of businesses, Motivator will improve any business that has a sales team.  It broadcasts statistics and goals on a TV monitor (which isn’t included, unfortunately), letting you know who’s in the lead.  Encouraging a little friendly competition never hurt – and, if office morale is in a little slump, you’ll be shocked at how much this little tool helps boost productivity!

zoho crm plus

Wait – What’s in Zoho CRM Plus?

Currently, CRMPlus includes Zoho CRM, your powerhouse for storing client data, especially where everyone stands in your sales cycle, as well as these apps:

  1. Zoho Campaigns – For sending out mass emails, drip marketing campaigns, and tracking open rates.  A great tool for organizing mailing lists and sending targeted content.
  2. Zoho SalesIQ – This attaches a chat bubble to your website, so you can easily engage website visitors, or leave an open line of communication for them to ping you instead.  Totally invaluable for any website meant to sell a product or educate.
  3. Zoho Social – For your social media blasts.  Social connects to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+, allowing you to blast out your social media posts on a whim, or use the calendar feature to plan ahead and “smart” post scheduler to blast at the best times for your readership.
  4. Zoho Support – Perfect for organizations that get a lot of, well, support requests.  Your clients can use a dedicated email address, and an administrator makes sure requests are routed to the most appropriate people on your staff.  Threads can be stored and transferred to a knowledge base that other customers can look at before they write in, too.
  5. Zoho Projects – For companies with complicated projects with lots of collaboration and individual tasks, Projects is the go-to.  Administrators can invite team members to different projects, create task lists, and ensure due dates are met.  The “feeds” feature allows team members to comment on each other’s work, which helps collaboration.  Pretty great tool for the job.
  6. Zoho Reports – Takes what’s possible with CRM Analytics and expands on them further.  Unlike CRM Analytics reports, Zoho Reports allows for 3rd party integrations and much more detailed reporting.  If custom reports are your game, you’ll enjoy this app.
  7. Zoho Survey – Fine tool for customer feedback.  Survey allows for custom surveys, reporting on results, and even integration with Zoho Campaigns for even easier reporting.

So, in other words, you’re already getting a ton of bang for your buck for $69/user/month (or $57/user/month if you pay annually)*. With the addition of Zoho Motivator potentially on the horizon, you’re essentially getting another Zoho app for free.  …And, in my humble opinion, it’s one of the more useful apps, so, again, if you’re one of those folks who put off buying CRMPlus licenses for your team because you thought adding Motivator would be too expensive, well…fret no more! *Prices updated June 2021

zoho gamification

Zoho Motivator’s new feature: Scorecard analytics means team building!

One thing that Zoho didn’t have to do but did with Motivator is add scorecard analytics to the mix.  Essentially, the scorecard analytics feature takes the salesperson’s activities and gauges what skills that person is best at – and, by also exposing team members who don’t excel at a particular skill, you can group team members whose skills need some work with team members who excel – according to real sales numbers! – and watch your whole team improve.

Even if you choose not to have team members work together in that fashion, it’s still good to know which people are good at which skills, as you never know when that information will come in handy:

Say you learn two of your team are great at following up with leads, and three others aren’t so great at calling, but they’re great at sending emails (and, you’ve checked metrics and see their emails get a lot of opens).  You now know who to put in the trenches when a business partner of yours shares a big lead list with you.  And, you also know who to utilize for an engaging email campaign!

zoho gamification

Now’s the time to motivate your team!

Nothing saps motivation like the heat of summer and the promise of vacation waiting just outside the door…and, conversely, nothing feeds it like the heat of competition and the promise of an awesome prize broadcast right on the office TV monitor.  You can breathe some life back into your team with Zoho Motivator and get a bargain on all your other Zoho apps with CRM Plus.  If you’re not signed up for Zoho CRM yet, give it a try for free here!

Introducing Gamescope for Zoho Projects

zoho gamescope

These days especially, we live in a society of instant gratification.  The examples of this sort of culture are everywhere: paying for goods on credit because it’s faster and easier than cash, watching hours of videos instead of thumbing through bulky books, racing to the hobby shop to get the newest gadget ahead of your friends… But, rather than decry this movement like the majority of these kinds of articles, I’m here to endorse it.  For business, it really works.

Zoho is well aware of this and wants to help spread that idea.  And, to that end, they’ve decided to add a little gratification to your tedious days behind a computer completing tasks in Zoho Projects in the form of Gamescope.

zoho gamescope

The idea is this: the payoff that comes with completing a task is great, but some things simply can’t fall into the instant gratification bucket.  Things like taking care of customer support tickets, resolving bugs, prioritizing your list of tasks, and the like.  All tedious stuff!  So, how do you make it fun to do?

By making it into a contest, of course!

[caption id="attachment_1833" align="alignnone" width="635"]zoho gamescope chess Like this, only faster-paced and with a better plotline.[/caption]

Much like Zoho Motivator, Gamescope allows users to create contests out of normal workday scenarios, making the mundane not only more palatable, but even fun for you and your staff.  Whereas Motivator focuses on sales goals, Gamescope expands the playing field to engineers and other taskmasters, allowing for time-based awards (how quickly did you get through 5 tasks or solve 5 bugs?), activity-based awards (how many tasks did you complete today?  This week?), and even company-wide user profiles complete with badges, perfect for gloating about achievements with teammates.  I mean, coworkers.

Based on the kind of work you do, the number and types of games you can set in Gamescope is extensive, and employees don’t have to partake – although, as a team leader, I’m sure you can think of a good prize to go with the virtual badges (team members with the most badges gets free lunch!), or a good punishment for the day’s loser (maybe he has to buy pizza for the whole team!).  Hell, I’d even be okay with losing once in a while if pizza were part of the punishment.

Here are a list of the trophies available with Gamescope:

zoho gamescope trophies

So, we see that there are respective trophies for task-masters and for bug-solvers.  Gamescope trophies are awarded for each time a team member does a number of different actions, such as add a task or bug, resolve a task or bug, re-open a task or bug…etc.  Everything can be scored, essentially, and games can be won based on total points or number of a certain type of trophy.  Of course, the Projects administrator can set the number of points available for each trophy, or whether a given trophy is turned on or off for a certain day – great for getting the team to focus on certain objectives and not others.

Along with trophies, team members can earn badges:

zoho gamescope badges

Badges are earned by completing broader, less immediate tasks (completing 10 tasks in a day, for example).  As team members earn these over longer periods of time, adding these up is great for determining the winner of a weekly, monthly, or even quarterly contest.  And, as with trophies, your administrator can turn badges on or off, or set the requirements for each Gamescope badge.

Custom badges are also available, and you can base awarding those on custom requirements, of course.

So, why use Gamescope?

Well, if the prospect of pizza wasn’t enough, I don’t know what’s going to sway you, but, here’s what I’ve come up with:

  • Increase office morale.  Even if you like your coworkers, nothing’s worse than coming in to the same battery of assignments or tickets day-in and day-out.  Adding the prospect of a reward for achievement to the mix with Gamescope will get people excited to do the tasks they once thought menial because of the potential payoff at the end of the road.
  • Increase camaraderie or competition – and fun.  Enjoying coming in to work is one thing; pitting your employees against each other (in good fun, of course) is another entirely!  With Gamescope, you can add an entire dimension of competition to your workplace by giving prizes only to the top daily or weekly task- or bug-closer.  (Scarcity makes us want prizes even more.)  Or, pit the taskmasters against the bugcatchers and see who comes out on top!
  • Increase productivity.  This should go without saying.  Adding a spirit of competition and fun to the workday at your office will make people want to do the tasks they’re supposed to do, whether it’s because they get to face off against their friends, help each other towards a common goal, or just earn a merit-based prize because they completed a number of tasks.  Either way, you win.
  • Increase correct Zoho Projects usage.  Often you’ll see that tasks are carried out and customers seem happy enough, but when you run the numbers they look absolutely terrible.  This can usually just be attributed to bad record keeping, but when your record keepers are your staff, it can be hard to get them to adopt your method of tracking things.  Rewarding your staff in Gamescope for doing things the way you want them to be done – assuming you like when tasks are completed and bugs are resolved, which is what Zoho Projects was meant to track – is a great way to increase correct Zoho Projects usage.

Time to get gaming!

In summary, if your engineers or project managers aren’t using Zoho Projects, go ahead and start!  It’s a great way to organize and prioritize tasks and keep everyone on the same page.  And now, with Gamescope for Zoho Projects, you have another way to keep your team members engaged and on task (in Zoho Projects and at work in general).

[caption id="attachment_1835" align="alignnone" width="1028"]zoho gamescope Already more engaged than my teammates.[/caption]

Zoho says they plan to roll Gamescope out in a few more of their apps in the future.  I’m thinking Zoho Support, SalesIQ, or even Zoho CRM in general would be good candidates, but we’ll see what they end up doing.

With that in mind, if you need help with Zoho Projects or want to know more about Gamescope, give us a call (888) 207-4111.  Or, just contact us and we’ll get back to you.

Cheers,

Jeremy