Scale to the Summit Incentive Program
These folks know their stuff and know how to deliver a fabulous product… The entire student and administrator experience was flawless.
Background & Problem
Hacking engagement with a tech leader.
Dell EMC is a tech giant who needs no introduction. However, even giants need help.
How could Dell EMC best incentivize sales reps to engage in trainings to learn more about the products they're selling?
Dell EMC partners with IT companies like MicroAge, Insight, and CDW to sell Dell EMC products in conjunction with their broad IT solutions. The more these channel partner sales reps know about Dell EMC's specific hardware solutions, the more capable and successful they'll be at selling those products. Unfortunately, Dell EMC's internal training portal did little to engage channel sales reps. How could Dell EMC best incentivize sales reps to actually engage in the trainings to learn more about the products they're selling? This was the challenge Caryl Sullivan, Dell EMC's Senior Advisor of Partner Training & Enablement, brought to User10.
Why come to User10?
One would think Sullivan would use the in-house resources at a large company like Dell EMC but, due to high demand on internal teams, they are not always able to keep pace with marketing and sales. They needed iterative builds, the ability to move quickly, and pilot programs in order to adapt to what works and what doesn't. User10 is a nimble, creative, and responsive group capable of keeping pace with Dell EMC demands.
Working alongside Sullivan throughout the entire process, we developed the Scale to the Summit incentive program.
Solution (and What Makes It Cool)
Automating incentives.
Scale to the Summit is both a digital mountain for channel partner sales reps to climb and the helpful Sherpa providing rewards along the way.
Trainings are grouped by level, and completing each group moves the users up of the mountain until they completely scale the summit. As they ascend, users earn points for each training they complete, with more points available for more difficult trainings. These points aren't for digital badges and avatar upgrades though; at any time, users can redeem their points for prizes, including high end prizes like drones, Bose headphones, and even an automated gutter cleaning robot. To date, channel partner sales reps have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes, all while boosting their product knowledge and overall sales.
User10 didn't invent the incentive program, but we made one that worked better for its users and our client.
First, it's automated. We improved the prize redemption system by communicating directly with the prize fulfillment partner, so no one from Dell EMC needs to act like a Chuck E. Cheese employee at the prize counter. Additionally, since the incentive program is synced with Dell EMC's proprietary training system, trainings are automatically marked as finished as users work through them. With freedom to leverage the latest technologies, we automated repetitive tasks and lifted a huge weight off the shoulders of the program's management team. Everything is covered. In fact, our automation tracks and reports prize redemptions and prize values for Dell EMC's accounting team so they (and the participating sales reps) can stay on top of their tax obligations too.
Everything is covered, so no one from Dell EMC needs to act like a Chuck E. Cheese employee at the prize counter.
While so much is automated, we know that management still needed to oversee its use. The Content Management System gives administrators full control over the program's users, trainings and prizes. More importantly, the CMS provides a data-rich dashboard report with high level analytics of the program's performance and users' progress, which has streamlined weekly reporting to leadership.
Since sales reps tend to be competitive, Scale to the Summit taps into that spirit. Channel partners can track their standings on the leaderboard to see who will be the first to complete all the trainings and stand atop the mountain. On top of the normal prizes, scaling the summit can net users a chance to win select Dell EMC products and some rad grand prizes, including trips to musical events like Lollapalooza in Chicago and Austin City Limits Festival in Texas.
Technical Specs (If You're Into that Sort of Thing)
- Fully custom web application build using PHP and the Laravel framework
- Front-end engineered using HTML, CSS, jQuery, and the Bootstrap framework
- Custom UX/UI design and mobile responsiveness
- Custom API integrations that connects with:
- Dell EMC's proprietary online training system SABA
- Mailgun for transactional email notifications
- Semi-automated connection with BDA, Inc, a 3rd party prize fulfillment partner
- Deployment and hosting:
- Uptime monitoring (99.9% uptime SLA)
- Automated security updates
- DDOS protection and mitigation
- Daily backups of files and databases
The Results
Reaching the peak.
From the moment I met User10, my problems and headaches seemed to melt away.
Dell EMC came to User10 with quite the challenge, and we responded with a cool, fun design that is miles away from what Dell EMC typically does. However, that wouldn't have been possible without viewing this as a joint venture. From beginning to end, we listened. "From the moment I met Brad and Josh, my problems and headaches seemed to melt away," says Caryl Sullivan. "…the process was smooth, well thought out and trouble free. I felt completely listened to, totally understood and like I was their only customer. Dell EMC can sometimes be a bit intimidating but not to User10. These folks know their stuff and know how to deliver a fabulous product/end result. The entire student and administrator experience was flawless. And if there was a problem or something that needed to be fixed, it was done promptly and right the first time." Prior to developing anything, we prototyped the platform to ensure it would work for Dell EMC's needs. Over the past three years, we've provided support services through each iteration of the program. We interact with Dell EMC's channel partner sales reps directly listening to their concerns and problems, so we can implement enhancements to make the program better.
Dell EMC asked us to incentivize sales reps to actually engage in the trainings to learn more about the products they're selling. Scale to the Summit has become the most successful channel sales incentive program Dell EMC has ever run.
2016 [Year 2]
1,605
Registered Users
5,102
Trainings Completed
$160k
in Prizes Awarded
2017 [Year 3]
2,092 30%
Registered Users
8,320 63%
Trainings Completed
$209k 30%
in Prizes Awarded
More than meets the eye.
While on the surface, this is just a sales incentive program, to us it's more. Dell EMC wants educated sales reps that not only sell more, they sell better. They're able to provide better IT solutions for their end client because they have a more intimate knowledge of the IT's capabilities. The benefits of our web-based training application ripples out to help other companies. We at User10 value any role we play in helping businesses grow and succeed. That's why we do what we do, and we're grateful for the chance to help Dell EMC.
