Simply Business Case Study

The Organization 

Simply Business is one of the UK’s largest business and landlord insurance providers. Established in 2005, it has helped over three million small businesses and self-employed people find the protection that’s right for them. The company’s key business objectives are to reduce time, hassle and jargon for its customers by introducing simplicity, choice and value – with no compromise on quality or cost. This philosophy has enabled it to innovate and grow, by building a strong team of agents to service customers and harnessing the power of data and technology and empowering its team to provide the best service possible. 

Motivation for Change 

Simply Business has a large contact center headquartered in Northampton, UK. It had the capability for hybrid remote working prior to the pandemic, but wanted a solution to help drive agent engagement and encourage them to ‘go the extra mile.’ Managers at Simply Business already carried out mini manual incentive programs that had driven positive results; however, these were hard to quantify and were not consistent across the different teams. 

The company’s Gamification journey began with a pilot program for Alvaria Motivate, putting 50% of its agents on the platform. Alvaria provided a software solution that Simply Business could ‘bolt on’ to its existing contact center solution. Gamification applies game mechanics to employee activities for the purpose of enabling the adoption and application of change to deliver increased business performance. 

Alvaria Motivate quickly demonstrated an increase in sales per hour, a key metric for Simply Business. Almost immediately, it saw a 6% uplift among agents on Alvaria, versus those not using the system. Agents can gain points for achieving goals that equate to monetary values in the company’s “Kudos” program, which they can choose to spend on a variety of incentives or take part in raffles and auctions. 

Brendan Mckee, Operations Manager at Simply Business, said, “So far we have been very impressed with the results of Alvaria Motivate and both agents and managers love using it. The business is delighted with the uplift in 6% of sales per hour and the system has already paid for itself after just a few months!” 

One of the key advantages of the Alvaria solution for Simply Business is the ability to maintain consistency across every team. Managers can quickly make changes on the fly, such as adding a user or changing a metric. Since the pilot campaign, they have seen positive results in driving engagement – particularly in the areas of coaching – enabling them to be consistent across the board, and providing a central log of what training has been completed and by which team members. 

The Solution 

With Alvaria Motivate, Simply Business uses a list of competition mechanics that can be set up in under a minute. It is a simple solution that allows its managers to create contests by inputting just five fields to launch head-to-head “duels” with ease. These duels have helped encourage buy-in from the agents, and managers are delighted that they have saved hours that they previously spent planning incentives. 

Another advantage of the Alvaria solution is the Normalization Engine that allows managers to create equity between agents on dissimilar campaigns and with different levels of experience. Whether Player vs Player, Team vs. Team, or Group vs Group, it’s all managed efficiently through the Competition Engine. Oliver Curley, Sales Team Manager (& Game Master) at Simply Business, said, “One of the main advantages of Alvaria Motivate is consistent coaching across all teams. It enables us to view the consultants via a central log and provides a consistent approach across all teams.”  Previously, agents were given their KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) each morning. With Alvaria Motivate, management are able to focus their agents on their priorities in real time. Agents are empowered to self-serve by viewing their KPIs at any time throughout the day in their individualized Dashboards. 

“We have found that Alvaria is really flexible and is not tied by rigid structures to get things done. We have a great relationship with the Alvaria team, including our Account Manager who is always willing to help and ensure that we’re getting the most out of the solution,” said Daniel Cotton, Head of Operational Innovation. 

The Results 

Simply Business embraced best practices from the beginning of the pilot trial with engagement from the top; team managers gave their buy-in from the start, which helped drive incredible results. In turn, the agents have followed this lead by enjoying the benefits of early adoption and this has also provided a positive push. 

To help optimize its employee engagement through Gamification, the company has taken advantage of the ‘Alvaria Success Program’ which includes dedicated time with an Alvaria Motivate Success Director. This program is designed to make sure all Gamification customers are getting the most out of the solution and that their agents are being correctly incentivized to meet their specific KPIs. In consultation with Simply Business’ Game Master, Alvaria delivers a program that meets their requirements to ensure maximized ROI on a sustained level. Analysis of Targeted KPIs is used to compare the historical average prior to using Alvaria Motivate with the team’s performance since its implementation. These results place a spotlight on the most impactful outcomes and help optimize ROI achievement.