Acquire new customers and gaining more business or sales is the ultimate objective of every business organisation.While there are various ways an organisation tries to achieve these objectives, channel partnership still promises to contribute a big volume of business.
According to CSO Insights 63.5% of companies say their channel partners contributed to their annual revenue. This points out to the fact that like an in-house sales teams, channel partners can make the numbers ring and may be able to do more when they benefit from proper training and coaching. By proper training and coaching , it doesn’t mean the organisation needs to start training the channel partners often with their products and services alone, instead, a proper training program should start with a structured on boarding process.
Partner onboarding is one of the most important steps in the relationship with the channel partners and it is the responsibility of the organisation to ensure that the process is effectively smooth and engaging.
The on boarding of channel partner involves various process from simple to complex form filling and ensuring that they are trained on the various products and services. Sometimes the organisation requires training their channel partners on the company policies, rules, ethics , the service delivery standards etc. Larger manufacturing companies have a more complex process to train their channel partners like managing and tracking the delivery, reducing the wastage etc and even to train them properly on entering the records on the systems.
Hence as we see onboarding is not a single process anymore and it is becoming increasingly difficult to train and engage the learners or the channel partners. A classroom training may not work as the best solution here and hence i recommend you to use gamifying the onboarding process for channel partners and in this blog, I am sharing four tips which can be used while planning the onboarding process.
1.Break up the onboarding process to smaller modules comprising of small tasks, challenges with gamification.
While gamifying the onboarding experience, I recommend to break up the onboarding program to small tasks and challenges and then use the game elements in it.
A lengthy onboarding process is sure to make the channel partners feel disengaged. From the point of view of the organisation, they cannot afford the risk of disengagement among the channel partners as they require the channel partners to be effectively trained and about the organisation and their policies and regulations, products and services etc. A channel partner with partial knowledge is very dangerous to the organisation.
Smaller achievable tasks,challenges etc included in the gamified onboarding process can raise the engagement level and keep the learners hooked.
2.Reward the onboarded channel partners.
In my previous blog, I have discussed the importance of rewards in the learning process. A successful onboarding program should include clear and trackable objectives and milestones.
Once the objectives and milestones are achieved the learners should be rewarded. Presently most of the rewards are now extrinsic in nature.
For example, the organisation rewards with cash incentives or exclusive discount coupons etc. This is apart from the regular rewards used in the gamified modules like badges, points and leaderboard points etc.
By earning the rewards the channel partner gains the confidence that they are not only gaining valuable training, but their company is benefiting from onboarding as a channel partner.
3.Include a Virtual Coach to guide the onboarding process:
Including a fictional character can turn out to be beneficial. A mentor who explains, guides, supports, celebrates and corrects each learning aspect with the player.
This helps the channel partner to feel a personal and instructor led-style of learning approach blended with the elearning modules.
New employees feel comfortable in being in touch with their virtual mentor on the go for the quick clarification.
4.Allow easy tracking of the learners progress in a fun and engaging way.
Gamification applied to the tracking progress creates a fun and visual way for partners to track the users progress. With the use of progress bars, the user is able to understand how much he has progressed in completing the courses
This has a psychological benefit for the learners as it gives them a sense of control over the module.
