But I have bad news if you think BYOD decreases help desk costs. It doesn’t.

"There are a lot of suggestions out there that BYOD reduces costs. In reality the costs are shifted to other areas.” — Richard English, strategic consulting director for Avaya Professional Services.

While the trend diminishes costs for traditional service desk tasks such as asset management, businesses should increase spending for security. Sensitive corporate data is highly vulnerable to theft on employee-owned mobile devices. Here are four strategies help desk administrators should implement to protect your company against BYOD-related risks and common IT headaches.

1. Encrypt All Data

According to one study, 31 percent of corporate employees who use a laptop for work will connect to their company’s network through a public Wi-Fi connection, which is most likely unencrypted. No BYOD policy can fully prevent that from happening.

To curb this security risk, IT groups should distribute and manage Virtual Private Network (VPN) solutions for all mobile devices, says Michael Buckna, a unified communications engineer at voice-over-IP provider Enterprise Systems Group. These tools–such as those offered by Cisco Systems and Golden Frog–encrypt transmitted data regardless of where or how it is accessed through mobile devices.

Establishing guidelines for remote access is also critical. “This can a be a real challenge with varying operating systems–iOS, Android and so on. Help desks should create a set of standards for what they are going to support and allow access to, or they will end up having to backtrack,” Buckna says.

2. Have a Plan for Lost or Stolen Devices

Imagine one of your employees stops at a coffee shop over the weekend. They sit quietly tapping away at emails, until they get up for just a minute to grab a refill. In an instant someone swipes their device.

Brandon Hampton, a director for MOBI Wireless Management, describes stolen devices as a “worst case scenario.” Look what happened last month when one Howard University Hospital contractor’s laptop was stolen. The company ended up contacting more than 34,500 patients to let them know their medical information was inadvertently exposed.

Hampton says IT teams should have a specific action plan in their BYOD policy for dealing with this contingency. This should include such steps as changing email, Dropbox and other passwords if they were installed on the device. Also, BYOD-ers should agree to install remote wiping and locking tools. Hampton suggested using a mobile device management (MDM) solution.

3. Monitor and Control Network Use

Help service desk managers should also use MDM to keep a lookout for network bottlenecks and ensure compliance with BYOD policies.

Granting BYOD users network access on two or three devices is great for productivity, but this can also tax networks. Axios Systems Executive Vice President Markos Symeonides recommends IT teams integrate service desk software with an MDM that delivers real-time network use data. These systems track when a device signs in, what users access, and whether it’s configured with the appropriate security software.

“MDM populates the service desk product, but the service desk is responsible for actually making sense of all that information and acting on it,” Symeonides says.

Another option is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, such as Xangati's, which equips IT teams with tools for monitoring network, server and storage performance. It identifies a device causing a slowdown and automatically notifies an agent. Depending on the issue, they can then triage the issue to the appropriate response team.

4. Install Anti-malware/virus Infrastructure and Educate Users

Malware creation hit record highs last year with a reported 26 million new strains in circulation. This malicious software can wreak havoc on your company’s security if an infected smartphone, tablet or laptop is connected to your company’s network or email.

To combat these threats, IT teams should equip devices with anti-virus and anti-malware systems. These functions are sometimes wrapped into VPN or MDM software. Others, such as the Junos Pulse Mobile Security Suite or ThreatMetrix, can be installed separately to fight exposure to viruses, malware and spammers.

Buckna recommended help desks provide ongoing information on how to identify phishing techniques, poisonous apps and other virus-spreading tactics. IT should also regularly distribute information about widespread malware and virus outbreaks, such as the NotCompatible predatory app that targeted Android users earlier this month.

The New Help Desk Investment

All of these strategies add up to a significant shift in help desk operations and spending. The cost can seem daunting, but the decision now isn’t whether to make the investment but rather how much risk you are willing to take by doing nothing.

What other suggestions do you have for minimizing the impact of the security risks inherent in BYOD environments? Please leave your thoughts below in the comments section.

Photo courtesy of Carlos Luz.

This got me wondering, did they plan for how they were going to use their iPads? And if they did, what did that plan look like?

“We talk to companies all the time where they literally purchased iPads for their team with no idea of what they were going to be doing with them,” said Matthew Suggs, vice president of enterprise sales at Mediafly Inc., a company that develops iPad sales tools.

Apparently this was not an isolated incident. One recent study reported that while 78 percent of employers plan to deploy tablets across their organization (83 percent of which will opt for the iPad), more than half haven’t articulated a clear adoption strategy.

With this in mind, I wanted to offer a helping hand to readers wanting a ride on the iPad-for-sales bandwagon. I asked some mobile strategists what tips they would offer sales managers looking to maximize their iPad investment.

Keep an Eye on Usage

Just as you would with any major investment, a successful iPad strategy should include clear usage goals and key performance indicators for measuring those benchmarks, according to SAVO Group Senior Marketing Director Dan Schleifer. What you measure with this “governance plan” should be led by stated goals for the roll-out, he said. For instance, first consider whether you are using the iPad primarily as a presentation and sharing tool, CRM productivity tool, or both.

“A classic example [of a situation where you would measure usage] is launching a new product. For many of our customers, this is their biggest revenue growth initiative, and one that often fails in the field due to low adoption,” Schleifer says.

His company’s sales enablement solution–recently named one of “The Top 11 iPad Apps for Sales”–offers governance tools that monitor whether a sales rep went through product launch training, viewed competitive analyses, or downloaded relevant sales assets.

“If a sales rep hasn’t done these things, I can guarantee that they’re not out pitching the new product,” Schleifer said.

Go Beyond PowerPoint

One of the iPad’s most powerful assets for sales is its vivid display. But just using it to run standard PowerPoint presentations is a “missed opportunity,” argues Gary Galusha, vice president of sales for UpSync, a content management, presentations and integrated business application developer.

UpSync offers easy-to-use and deploy apps for making and sharing sales presentations on the fly. Users can combine images, videos, PDFs, HTML 5 and other digital assets to quickly assemble a presentation that’s relevant to a particular client. Existing presentations are easily searchable with meta tags and can be readily shared with the customer using a custom link.

“One of our clients said they were in a lunch with a major corporation who asked about a particular product. The rep put together a presentation in about three minutes,” Galusha boasts. “He closed the deal before lunch was over.”

Presentations made with UpSync, or similar products like Showpad and MediaFly, should leverage the unique capabilities of the iPad. For Boston Scientific–which rolled out more than 4,500 iPads to field sales teams in 2010–the touch screen allows users to spin, zoom and rotate complicated device models and run through interactive simulations.

“Trying to show innovative therapies in a way that is easy to understand and see was challenging in the old world, particularly as health care professionals’ time was increasingly difficult to come by,” notes Rich Adduci, Boston Scientific’s Chief Intelligence Officer. “When we saw Steve Jobs walk out on that stage with the iPad, we all thought, ‘that’s it!’”

Think Big

Many companies make the mistake of thinking about their mobile strategy in pieces. First they mobilize their CRM system, then they roll out an app for sales, another for accounting, another for data storage, and so on.

“Companies that build a bunch of disparate apps find it’s not sustainable, then have to rebuild one platform and end up spending way more then they should,” Excellis Interactive Marketing Director Molly Maple explains.

Her company specializes in devising big-picture mobile strategies to prevent or compensate for this kind of fragmented development. One medical device client, for example, came to Excellis to unify processes for their 2,200-person sales team. The $3.5-billion company was using Dropbox for storing, a calendar app for scheduling, and mobile CRM.

Users were frustrated. They needed a way to integrate all three applications with activities where the sale happens in the presence of the customer, Maple said. So, Excellis created a single application that allowed reps to schedule meetings, manage account information in CRM, check inventory, place orders, collect payments and sign contracts. This centralized all of their sales activities and eliminated the manual processes of sending orders and invoices separately.

Another company, Novartis Vaccines, went to The Cement Bloc when their disconnected mobile strategy began to impact usage. The company ended up creating one solution that integrated CRM with marketing and interactive presentation tools.

"Transitioning your field sales team over to an iPad platform is more than just an upgrade of their technology. It represents a key shift in the engagement between sales representatives and their customers,” says Meghan Lopresto, vice president of multichannel marketing and sales force analytics for The Cement Bloc.

When implemented into the selling process with some careful planning, the iPad can be a useful companion for a sales rep. But don’t expect the device to be a silver bullet for your team. Without proper strategy, your investment could be doomed to dormancy like our recent telecom visitors. As Barry Sherman of PEPworldwide recently noted, "a good salesperson will always outsell sell a bad one, regardless of who has the iPad."

Duke Chung, founder of Parature, says that companies need to focus on building brand advocates–ambassadors for your company or product. They go out and spread the good news about you to their friends, family and social circles, and their advocacy translates to new business. In this video, Duke outlines five ways companies can start building brand advocates today. Check it out, and be sure to leave your comments in the section below.

And so is data sometimes. There seems to be simultaneously too much of it and never enough. Take traffic numbers, for example: you can slice website traffic a number of different ways – look at new vs. returning visitors, unique visitors this month over last, etc. At the end of all that analysis though, you still don’t have a complete picture of how your marketing is doing. That’s because you have website analytics, not marketing analytics.

What’s the Difference?

Due in part to the overwhelming impact that the free service Google Analytics has had in the marketing space, when most marketers think about analytics they think in terms of unique visitors and time-on-site. While those are important indicators, today’s marketing goes well beyond the bounds of your website. It’s the intersection of what happens between your marketing channels and the outcome on the other side that provides the most insight.

Multichannel and Integrated

In marketing analytics systems, data is integrated in a way that enables you to see a direct relationship between channels. Individual views of website, social media, email and other channels alone isn’t enough. A multichannel view enables you to see how prospects are navigating their experience with you. Cross-channel questions marketing analytics data can answer include:

• How many people clicked through on your email but didn’t convert?
• Of the people who converted on your website, how many of them came from social media?
• Which results in more leads, PPC or organic search?

Customer-Centric

The biggest thing that separates marketing analytics from website analytics is that marketing analytics focuses on the full experience of prospective customers over time, from their first interactions with your company to their most recent conversions and beyond. In short, marketing analytics measures people, not pageviews. Customer-centric questions marketing analytics data can answer include:

• What first attracted people to my company?
• Was it different from what actually got them to buy?
• What are the most common marketing experiences of people who end up buying?

Tied to Sales

Finally, marketing analytics should be able to report on how each of your marketing efforts are contributing to bottom-line sales. This is typically achieved through an integration between the analytics and a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, like Salesforce.com. Knowing how many customers your marketing campaigns and channels delivered is critical for allocating your budget and time. ROI questions marketing analytics data can answer include:

• What PPC campaigns bring in the sort of leads that most often convert to customers?
• Does social media actually drive sales or is it just an engagement tool?
• Is the money I’m putting into this ad campaign resulting in sales?

Analytics tools are an essential part of marketing. Before making an investment, however, take some time to identify the questions that you need answered as a marketer. If your marketing strategy involves multiple channels and the buying cycle for your company typically relies on a number of touch-points, make sure your analytics solution can match that with a complete view of your customer lifecycle. With the right marketing analytics you can truly see how your marketing is contributing to the bottom line – that’s where all of those line graphs start to get really interesting.

Thumbnail created by Search Engine People Blog.

Those companies that do offshore their call centers do so for obvious financial reasons. It is typically more cost-effective and results in reduced overhead costs, as well as provides companies the ability to scale up or down accordingly. But what if those same things could be achieved by hiring onshore? Below, I’ve highlighted three companies that have developed smart alternatives to the offshore call center that not only keep costs down, but also prevent your company from feeling the pain of H.R. 3596.

Working Solutions Brings a New Meaning to “In-House”

Back in 1996, before freelancing or working at home were commonplace, Kim Houlne launched one of the first virtual workforce companies, Working Solutions. In 1996, they employed 2,000 home-based agents, or what they call Agents OnDemand. Today, that number has grown to over 110,000 agents whose expertise spans all verticals.

“We’ve had 1.4 million agents register, but through our targeted selection process, we end up with the best of the best,” says Tim Houlne, CEO of Working Solutions. “We attract the right agents with the right skill set to support our customers, whatever business they are in.”

Sourcing talent from contract workers who operate from home has several benefits. There is the obvious one of reduced overhead. With an at-home call center workforce, your company can easily scale without having to invest in more office space. This reduced per capita investment makes the at-home call center model very comparable to the offshoring option.

Another benefit of the at-home workforce is that they value the convenience of working in their own space. Therefore, they are more content and more likely to provide superior customer service. I know I’m much nicer in house shoes than I am in heels. In addition to congeniality, the at-home agent model provides something you simply cannot get with offshoring: native speakers. These things all contribute to an improved customer experience, which translates to a company’s most precious commodity—customer loyalty.

JetBlue Capitalizes on a State of Stay-at-Home Mothers

Another company that has tapped into this idea of “homesourcing” is JetBlue. When he co-founded Morris Air in the early ‘80s, David Neeleman decided to test the idea of hiring stay-at-home mothers to manage the call-in reservation system. Coming from a Mormon home where the wife’s primary role is stay-at-home mom, Neeleman recognized that this would be a great way for mothers to manage the home and children, while contributing to the household income.

In 1998, Neeleman took this idea to his new venture, JetBlue. Today, JetBlue employs approximately 1,500 stay-at-home agents (80% female) in the traditionally Mormon community in Salt Lake City, Utah. Each employee is equipped to handle general questions and customer service concerns related to air travel on JetBlue, and is provided with a company computer and a second phone line to handle the call volume.

Clearly there’s something to be said for a “mother’s touch” because JetBlue has consistently higher rates of customer satisfaction than many of their competitors. Not only is satisfaction high, but JetBlue has also reported reduced agent turnover and increased productivity, two metrics that relate directly to cost-savings.

Televerde Taps Federal Prisons To Create Jobs (and Hope)

Televerde’s call center agents are in-house. To be specific, they are in the “big house.” A leading B2B demand creation solutions company, Televerde partners with the Perryville state prison to employ the female inmates as call center operators. Not only is this a cost-effective alternative to offshore call centers, but it also serves as an innovative approach to rehabilitation.

Televerde customers include high-tech giants such as Cisco, Hitachi and SAP, which means the inmate agents are charged with selling that complex hardware and software. To get savvy, the ladies undergo six weeks of training that covers the industry, as well as rules of general propriety.

Since moving to the prison call center model, Televerde boasts increased revenues, lower turnover and a highly motivated workforce, half of whom continue on with Televerde after their release. Not only has Televerde created a successful and cost-effective call center, but they’ve done so with the greater good in mind.

Location, Location, Location

The companies we’ve discussed searched their brains to come up with a creative approach to staffing their call centers, but sometimes all you need to do is search a map. While the recession may seem like a distant memory for some in the tech world, it is still very much a reality in many parts of the country. Places like Omaha, NE, Oklahoma City, OK, Providence, RI and Grand Forks, ND, are still in an economic depression, but are home to a largely well-educated population.

These cities represent a great opportunity for companies looking to establish call centers in the U.S. The labor is cheaper, but the quality is not compromised.

Asking the Right Questions

Many of you may be reading this, thinking, “That’s impressive, but government bureaucracy will likely kill this bill anyway, so why should I care?” Great question. Now I have a few for you.

The mass exodus of the call center industry to the east in the late 90s and early 2000s was largely due to the labor arbitrage. India provided educated, experienced workers at a fraction of the price. However, no one was tracking the intangible costs. How much is spent on cultural training? Dialect training? And what about customer satisfaction? Sure, your labor costs are down, but what does your customer attrition look like? A new consideration is online reputation. Are your customers praising or bashing you on social media? What is the real cost of a “Like” or a negative review on Yelp?

Regardless of whether H.R. 3596 becomes a reality, smart companies will start asking themselves these questions and begin reconsidering their offshore operations.

Thumbnail image created by Eric Fischer

In a perfect world, your marketing automation and CRM systems work together seamlessly. This is precisely what Marketo has set out to accomplish with its latest release. Now, the 32,000 Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers will have access to Marketo’s entire product line via what Jon calls, “one-click, it-just-works integration.”

In this video we discuss:

• the growth of Revenue Performance Management (RPM);
• why some companies are slow to adopt RPM, and;
• what first-time users can expect when getting started with Marketo.

I decided to take a look at the many customer service apps available for mobile devices. The list is extensive, but I narrowed it down to eight based on several factors: popularity, customer feedback, analyst reviews and the all-important “cool” factor. Check out the apps below and be sure to let us know your favorite in the comments section.

Get Satisfaction Mobile

What it is: Online community platform
Why we like it: Get Satisfaction takes the online community support experience to digital devices. The app is built with HTML5 and operates in mobile browsers, which means no downloads. It looks exactly like the Web version, only more compact, which makes it familiar and easy to use. The social knowledgebase allows customers to get answers on the spot.
Pricing: Free for Get Satisfaction users.
Available for: Apple iOS. Android in development.

Tello

What it is: Online customer feedback tool
Why we like it: Tello captures customer sentiment in real-time. Similar to public forums such as Yelp, Tello takes it a step further. By allowing users to request a response from management, Tello creates a two-way dialogue. It also gives companies immediate insights into ratings, responses and employee performance.
Pricing: Free for companies with up to three locations. Premium version supports up to 19 locations for $99/location per month.
Available for: iOS.

Fonolo

What it is: Web-based visual dialing interface
Why we like it: Fonolo alleviates one of the most frustrating aspects of support for the customer—never-ending automated menus and long hold times accompanied by elevator music. Instead of clicking on “Contact Us,” Fonolo allows your customers to access a mapped-out version of your phone menu and connect directly to the appropriate agent. This reduces frustration on the part of the customer, improving overall satisfaction.
Pricing: Based on number of support agents. Starts at $99/month.
Available for: iOS.

Zendesk Mobile

What it is: Mobile help desk application
Why we like it: The Zendesk app provides support agents the same visibility into support ticket activity on their mobile device as they have on their desktop. Agents can create, view and resolve tickets from wherever they are. This access allows them to spot and resolve issues that may have gone unanswered for a long period of time.
Pricing: Free for Zendesk users.
Available for: Apple iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and Kindle Fire.

Gri.pe

What it is: Location-aware customer feedback tool
Why we like it: Gripe has capitalized on the growing importance of online influence, as well as human desire to whine about things we don’t like. Dubbed the “Better Business Bureau for the Twitter-age,” Gripe empowers users to resolve their complaints by wielding their social clout. Consumers use the geolocation feature to find a company, and can then choose to post a “Gripe” or a “Cheer” about it. Feedback is posted to the user’s Facebook and Twitter account, as well as the named company’s customer service department. The company then has the opportunity to claim their Gripe account and reverse that “Gripe” into a “Cheer.”
Pricing: Free.
Available for: iOS and Android.

OTRS Mobile

What it is: Mobile help desk platform
Why we like it: OTRS allows field agents to open tickets, place orders and resolve cases on-site instead of having to wait and enter the information on a desktop or laptop. The app also syncs back wirelessly to the system in real-time, avoiding duplicate tickets. With this app, businesses can increase the productivity of their on-site support staff, as well as reduce support errors at the customer site.
Pricing: Free for OTRS users.
Available for: iOS.

IdeaScale

What it is: Virtual crowdsourcing application
Why we like it: With IdeaScale, companies can create a forum where customers can provide feedback on bugs, ideas or features. Then, through a process of voting and comments, the most popular feedback floats to the top, letting the company know what their customers really care about. The mobile app extends the power of crowdsourcing, allowing companies to trigger location-based surveys, providing immediate feedback on specific events.
Pricing: Starts at $15/month, no contracts, cancel anytime.
Available for: Any mobile platform.

SmarterTrack Mobile

What it is: Mobile customer support platform
Why we like it: The SmarterTrack interface allows companies to manage service issues, customer communications and employee performance from a mobile device just as they do on a laptop or desktop – there's no app to install. In addition to the standard ticket tracking and reporting features, agents can also chat live with customers from their mobile device and push information such as product details or instructions. They can also attach a photo or icon to personalize the exchange. In the latest release, SmarterTrack revamped their mobile UI, making it even easier for agents to navigate and manage all their tasks.
Pricing: Based on number of agents. Available for SmarterTrack Enterprise users only.
Available for: Any mobile platform.

Your success with MA hinges on your starting point. If you have been struggling to manage leads because manual processes are in your way, MA might be a good solution for you. But if you are struggling due to lack of process, MA will only compound your problems. This article looks at some of the more prevalent myths and facts about Marketing Automation.

Fact: Marketing Automation is One Big IF/THEN Statement

The notion that MA will fully automate your marketing efforts is a myth. MA provides insight into buyer behavior, activities to support that behavior and workflow-type rules for lead scoring. The “automated” part of that equation is the equivalent of saying that a nail gun automates building a house. It might make building a house easier and faster, but without a blueprint as a starting point, you still don’t have a house.

The real challenge for most marketers in implementing MA is having the knowledge of what to do IF and what content to provide THEN. MA does little for marketers if they haven’t developed buyer personas or have insufficient relevant content at their disposal. Many marketers starting out with MA will often take whatever content they do have and use the MA software to force it down the throats of the buyers they know little about. This is the wrong approach. In order for MA to work, you need to have something good to “automate” in the first place.

Fact: There is More To the MA Price Tag Than the Software

Marketing Automation is often justified as a way to reduce headcount or cut expensive marketing initiatives. In reality, MA comes with a fair amount of sticker shock. The price tag of MA is not limited to the software itself. It normally takes about three months for marketers to realize that from a content perspective they are unprepared for an MA system. And they discover that they need to assemble progressive nurture paths, develop a scoring methodology, segment content throughout the pipeline, and use a variety of mediums to stimulate interest. These are hard to do. They take time and cost money, and in many cases require more people.

Some marketers are not strong writers, or they don’t have the means to produce video. Perhaps their execs don’t blog, and the internal buy-in just isn’t there to embrace the edgier forms of content like games and surveys. Unfortunately, there really is no shortcut if you want to get your money’s worth from the software you purchase. The good news here is that after that first year of proper MA implementation, you should be able to report on ROI down to the penny and begin to predict what spending a dollar will result in.

Fact: Results are Multifaceted and Aren’t Always Immediate

Many marketers hear they should start seeing results from MA soon after implementation. All it takes is CRM and to start sending out the messaging. Then the leads will start rolling in. Right? Myth.

Most marketers will list goals for MA such as “more leads,” “better leads,” and “better reporting.” None of those will be realized within six months of implementation. The results that organizations do see from MA within six months are often overlooked. The immediate value of MA—if implemented correctly—is the revision of process. Marketers who us MA to establish a process are doing it backwards. You need to have something worth automating before buying MA.

In the first months of implementation, marketers should take the process the team already has in place and streamline it by using MA technology. This also is a great time to re-align sales and marketing on lead management, the definitions of a qualified lead and how that plays into scoring, and the different touch points along the lead success and detour paths. This time should also be used to identify holes in the content pipeline and make sure there is a plan to fill them. Also, revisit buyer personas to make sure they are still relevant.

Success with MA takes time. I tell customers that if you have all of your content in place and a solid plan, you will start seeing different (better) leads around the six-month mark as nurturing starts to precipitate leads out of the funnel and into sales.

Now that you know some of the facts and myths, here are four ways to make Marketing Automation work for you:

1. Get executive buy-in for the purchase you’re about to make. This will not only help you align sales and marketing, but you will build a solid case for why Marketing Automation is needed. MA can get complicated and take a while to show results. You need the executive suite to fully understand this or they will get impatient, fast.
2. Assemble and assess your content. Chances are you have a good stash of content you can utilize or modify. You also probably have a lot of content that you need in order to make this process work. Determine what that is. Then build that content right into your lead scoring by shaping it around the buyer personas you’ve created. Your MA software is built for this.
3. Determine milestones. What will the major milestones be? What results do you want, and by when? How will you set expectations properly and who will be responsible for communicating internal success and failure? This is a trial and error process so the plan will probably change quite a bit in the beginning.
4. Be stingy with your leads. Don’t hand off every single lead to sales. Your MA software is designed to nurture leads intelligently. By the time they do get passed off to the sales team they are so hot they’re ready to sign. The sales team might protest this at first, but when they start to get credit for astronomically high conversion rates they’ll be pleased as punch.

The Bottom Line

Good marketing is hard. Nothing will change that. Marketing Automation provides the much-needed platform for marketers to carry out their lead generation and management plans, but their own expectations get in the way of results. The more preparation marketers make prior to purchase, the better prepared they will be in terms of actual returns on their sizable investment. MA doesn’t represent a shortcut; it represents a change in the marketplace. Buyers want to learn in a trusted setting, and in order for marketers to respond with relevance they need a system that will assist them in measuring interest and responding according to the organization’s lead management plan. MA won’t assemble that plan for you, but it will make it better when best practices are applied.

Thumbnail image created by Micky.!

As the saying goes, if you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.

The field of sales is fast-paced, aggressive and dominated by men. However, there is a burgeoning group of female sales professionals who are looking to empower women to take charge of their sales careers:

• Jill Konrath is an author, trainer and sales strategist focused on teaching sales professionals how to survive and thrive in today’s business environment.
• Kim Duke is a former sales executive and current owner of Sales Divas, where she offers training and consulting to women in sales.
• Kristine Scotto is an executive with more than 25 years of experience in sales and marketing roles.

I spoke with each of them about which actions and behaviors they’ve seen women display that can unintentionally sabotage their success. Below are the top five we identified.

1. Being Afraid of Self-Promotion

As young girls, we were taught not to brag. It was a behavior perceived as boastful and improper. However, Duke points out that there is a difference between bragging and self-promotion: “Bragging is when you’re saying something that’s untrue and has absolutely no relevance to the audience that’s hearing it. With self-promotion, you’re sharing things that are true, and can build credibility.”

This behavior is most noticeable in networking and professional development. Women believe their accomplishments should speak for themselves, and many are hesitant to discuss things such as their education and reputation, erring on the side of modesty. Therefore, when a more senior position opens up, they assume they will be considered based on their accomplishments and credentials, despite having been reluctant to voice them.

While modestly is an admirable trait outside of the workplace, it is foolish in the professional world. Konrath compares it to the tree falling in the forest: “If no one knows about your accomplishments, they don’t exist.”

2. Undervaluing Themselves and Their Services

When pitching a prospective customer, many women make the mistake of trying to mind-read their buyer. They make an assumption that their prospect will reject them if their price is too high. By making this assumption, they leave money on the table.

Women are scared of compromising the opportunity, but in reality, they have nothing to lose. If you don’t currently have the customer, you lose nothing if you don’t win them. It’s better to go in confidently with a more ambitious proposal. If the customer gets sticker shock, you can carve back some of the value and work within their budget. Scotto points out, “No one determines our value but ourselves.”

3. Not Asking for Directions

Men aren’t the only ones who are bad about this. Many women in a male-dominated business like sales make every effort not to appear weak. Therefore, many women, particularly those who are newer to sales, fail to ask for help when they need it.

“There’s a way of asking for help that can be done such that it’s not a sign of weakness, but a sign of great strength,” says Konrath. “It’s about sitting down with someone and just saying, ‘Here’s the fact—I’m struggling with this right now.’ You need advice and support from people who have been around, whether it’s asking about the sales process or understanding what you’re selling better, it’s all stuff you need to learn. The key is to not feel weak in the process and to remember that you’re just a learner and that it’s a process.”

4. Making Relationships the Priority

Developing relationships is important when selling. But when the relationship gets in the way of the transaction, you have a problem. As Scotto explains, women tend to be more sensitive, placing a higher importance on creating a positive relationship than on chasing the desired business result.

But Scotto says that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. “When a prospect says no, women will tend to accept that answer focusing again on the relationship. Instead, they should focus on educating the prospect. This ultimately adds more value and will get you to yes almost every time.”

5. Being Afraid of Making a Mistake

Women tend to be perfectionists. We don’t want to let anyone down—including ourselves. Above all, we don’t want to look foolish. As a result, many women in sales tend to play it safe. They pitch the safe pitch. They use the same tried and true ideas because they know that they work. But while you are playing it safe, your male counterpart is throwing the Hail Mary and scoring big.

“Being willing to bring in big, creative ideas and take a chance on your customer is completely win-win,” says Duke. “Even if they hate your idea, it could potentially have a domino effect where there’s some brainstorming with the client and the idea will change into something you both love. That also allows them to see that you are thinking for them and that you’re a part of the team.”

Writing this article turned out to be both a professional and personal exercise for me. I realized that I am guilty of several of these things, and now that it’s been brought to my attention, I can start making an effort to adjust my behavior for long-term success. What about you? Are you guilty of any of these behaviors? Have you observed them in your coworkers? Please share your thoughts, experiences and feedback in the comment section below.

Help desk software came to mind. The support team environment is a demanding one, where support agents can get easily burned out, leading to a high turnover rate. Richard White, CEO of customer support software vendor UserVoice, conducted interviews with some of the biggest support teams in the nation to find out more about this issue.

“We found that part of the reason for the high turnover rate is that there’s no sense of accomplishment for the agents. If you ask a guy in support, ‘What did you do today?’ He'll say, ‘I answered support tickets.’ If you ask him, ‘What are you going to do tomorrow?’ He'll say, ‘I'm answering support tickets.’ They have no concept of, ‘Am I getting better at this? Am I achieving anything?’ Many feel like they just get on a treadmill and run every day.”

In this article, I focus on how adding gaming elements can can boost employee retention by providing help desk agents with a sense of accomplishment. I look at three processes that appeal to what Ray Wang of Constellation Research identifies as the core pillars of gamification: measurable action, reputation and incentives.

Below are some sketches that illustrate what those processes might look like. These are simply meant to be food for thought. Please let us know what you think in the comment section below.

1. Accomplishment Metrics

Because the focus is on providing a sense of accomplishment, I chose the three metrics that I believe matter most to the individual agent: number of support ticket resolutions, number of “quick” resolutions, and positive customer feedback. The sketch above is a typical UI for an agent’s queue, with navigation to the left and tickets in the center. But across the top, we added a counter tracking those metrics.

Every time the agent resolves a ticket, the Resolutions tally increments by one. Quick Resolutions are a variable metric that will differ from help desk to help desk. When UserVoice conducted their research, they found that the majority of customers left favorable feedback when the resolution took 15 minutes or less. So, maybe you set your Quick Resolutions metric to be those tickets resolved in under 15 minutes for Tier 1 issues, 30 minutes for Tier 2, and so on. Or you could set times that are relative to the average resolution time for tickets of that category.

“Thumbs Up” indicates how many people left positive feedback. A great way to track this is to add a link to the bottom of every resolution ticket that invites customers to leave feedback, e.g., “Was your issue resolved properly and in a timely manner? Give us a thumbs up!” For every person that gives a “Thumbs Up,” the agent will see the Thumbs Up counter increase. Adding this element will show the agent exactly what they are getting done, and with the added Thumbs Up feature, they will be motivated to continually improve their performance.

2. Leaderboards

A little bit of healthy competition can be a great motivator. Above is an example of a leaderboard. The leaderboard aggregates the metrics of every agent on the team and sorts them from highest to lowest.

We also added “Score,” an aggregate value of the three metrics. Similar to the Quick Resolutions metric, the Score will be variably weighted based on what is most important to your organization. For example, if your team is focused on quick close rates, you would want to weight Quick Resolutions more than Resolutions or Thumbs Up.

Another idea is a team leaderboard. Most organizations have parallel help desk operations. For example, customer service superstar Zappos has multiple help desk teams that are all working to answer service tickets across the organization. Each team tracks their own metrics, and most of the team leads choose to make their metrics public because they enjoy the healthy competition it creates.

The team leaderboard takes this idea and puts it into a help desk UI. This would allow teams to benchmark their performance against their peers, and compete to be at the top of their game. Organizations could opt to provide some sort of reward to the top-performing teams.

3. Training

Instilling a sense of accomplishment should start from the beginning, with training. The benefit of this is twofold. Gamifying the training process allows new agents to feel like they are making progress in their onboarding process. It also addresses one of the major concerns for all help desks: agent training time. When agents are training, they aren’t serving customers.

We imagine turning the training process into a timed game. Use gaming terminology, refer to training modules as “challenges.” Then, add a timer to each challenge, letting the agent know they only have so much time to complete it, and need to prove their mastery of the material at various stages. Because everything is tracked in the system, the manager can go back, identify issues and errors, and review them with the new agent.

To be sure, you cannot simply add gaming elements to a system and expect success. You have to take a closer look. Who is your user? What is their motivation? How does that align with the success of the company? When coming up with our ideas, this is where we started, and as software vendors begin to embrace the idea of gamification, this is where they will need to start, too.

Special thanks to Tony Ventice, Lead Game Designer at Badgeville, for lending his expertise to this article.