David Cherrie, Co-Founder The landscape of consumer retail has remained consistent over the last few decades, with a steady focus on meeting the customer’s needs. Retailers have long understood that without satisfied, loyal shoppers visiting their locations, businesses, and sales suffer immensely. In a world of growing competition from online stores and other outlets, it is imperative that retail managers have a strategy for keeping revenue flowing in the doors. Sustaining a high-level salesforce is part of the solution, but ensuring retail sales employees are truly engaged in the work they do is often easier said than done. Arcade, a technology-driven platform focused on empowering sales teams, lends a necessary hand toward inspiring engagement throughout a retailer’s salesforce.
David Cherrie, Co-founder of Arcade, explains his passion for retail sales engagement solutions, stating, “We started the company based on the real-life problems we saw and experienced working as sales reps in retail. When I first started in sales, it was exciting – a new challenge, a new team. Only a few months in, it stopped being enjoyable and became more like groundhog’s day.” Cherrie realized the disconnect between performance and the enjoyment he felt doing the work, and he wanted to create a method to remedy this common issue. Cherrie recognizes that retail sales people are one of the most integral aspects of a thriving retail business, but without engagement, stores have no upward trajectory. Arcade, Cherrie explains, works to infuse the retail space with fun by utilizing relevant technology that meets the needs of sales teams and managers in the current retail environment.
Through gamification, the team at Arcade offers a unique way to boost employee engagement through its platform that works on any web-enabled devices—mobiles or desktops. The number one goal of the company is to sustain a high level of motivation among retail sales employees to do the work they were hired to do. By keeping sales targets fresh and exciting, sales teams experience less burnout and are equipped to perform at their highest level. Arcade’s platform consists of various components to accomplish greater engagement in sales. Through their software, the retailers can instantly launch competitions that drive sales, recognize performance of salespeople in real-time, and incentivize the best performers with attractive rewards such as gift cards, movie tickets and more. Also, salespeople who perform well receive the recognition they deserve, not only from management, but from their peers. In addition, the management can see in real-time which salespeople are hitting their targets, or those who are improving over time, and managers and other sales reps can recognize their team’s progress. Arcade also facilitates instant communication between salespeople and teams; its social features helps build workplace community and discussion channels. Cherries states, “It’s like a FitBit for sales. We have a competition engine built into the software that allows management to turn sales targets into a game. This motivates each sales person to win, but provides much-needed transparency in the process.” “Salespeople want challenges, rewards, and recognition. Each of these components is encompassed in our platform to keep motivation and engagement high.”
We have a competition engine built into the software that allows management to turn sales targets into a game
Also, Arcade understands the importance of ongoing training in the retail space. Cherrie states, “We’re all about making training and learning fun and engaging because we believe that sales people should feel like they have resources they need to succeed.”
Through Arcade, managers can build out training in the way they believe will best meet the needs of their sales teams. Gamification of training through Arcade comes by way of leaderboards, prizes, and rewards, and recognition, all seamlessly connected through the company’s integrated platform. The data from these tools feeds into the Manager Suite which empowers managers in assessing how employees are working, if their performance is improving over time, and how interactions with the software are leading engagement. Cherrie explains, “We have the ability to collate information on how engaged each employee is, and the factors that play into that engagement. Managers can use that information to make appropriate decisions on what’s working and what’s missing, and ultimately, work toward retaining the best sales people on their team.”
Arcade has proven successful in practice throughout several retail companies – one of the more notable being a large consumer electronics retailer. They came to Arcade for help engaging their salesforce as the company began a significant expansion. Cherrie states, “We approached the issue by focusing on providing an onboarding tool distributed to new sales reps as an initial training. Sales people were able to learn what steps they could take to fit into the team quickly, and what to expect as they started their sales journey.” The company also implemented a sales channel through Arcade’s messaging system, giving new and old reps the opportunity to interact, share best practices, and provide recognition when due. The retailer experienced up to a 37 percent increase in store sales by tapping into the power of Arcade’s platform over a three-month period.
The team at Arcade is successful because of its fun-infused culture and hyper-focus on sales people as a formidable force. Cherrie states, “Ultimately, we want to foster a healthy, engaging sales culture for our customers while assisting with efficiency and retention. Each customer has a dedicated success manager who's key focus is to ensure clients are maximizing ROI." Moving forward, the company is excited about its expansion within the U.S. and integrating predictive analytics into its suite of products. Cherrie concludes, “We’re working to provide retailers with an all-in-one solution for optimizing their sales people in a way that is proactive, not reactive.”
