One of my favorite things is helping customers find hidden gems that unlock additional value, whether it’s an overview of sometimes overlooked functionality or a game-changing product feature the customer didn’t know existed. And if you’re looking for hidden gems, I recommend browsing the AppExchange, where there are apps for every customer and every category, from sales, to service, to marketing, and more.

This is the last installment in our five-part blog series where we’ve highlighted Apps for Admins, digging into some of the key challenges admins face and the AppExchange apps, mostly free (and a few paid), that have made some of my customers more successful.

What’s in it for Me?

“Why should I use Salesforce?” This is a question that admins sometimes get asked, and at the heart of it is another common question: “What’s in it for me?”

Having great data, providing access on the go, and making it easy and fun to collaborate are all key benefits of using Salesforce. But when you help someone get work done faster, you can boost usage; sprinkle in some fun and games, and that usage can skyrocket.

Maybe it was all those years of playing my brother’s Coleco, but I love gamification. Even Salesforce is getting into the spirit with the release of Trailhead. Now administrators and developers can learn Salesforce while earning points, achieving badges, and having fun. If you like Trailhead, you’ll love many of the apps available to help you deliver this same kind of learning experience for your users.

As you’re planning your learning strategy for your employees, consider these best practices:

• Bringing everyone together for a training session isn’t always possible or profitable; solutions that allow remote, self-guided, and mobile access can provide value and boost morale
• Guided assistance and resources are valuable, especially when provided in context
• Healthy team competition can motivate and inspire your organization
• Gamification can promote desired behaviors
• Human resources alignment on your proposed learning strategy is key, as they may have similar projects planned 

If you’re looking to inspire and motivate your users, the AppExchange can help power your learning strategy. Create and assign training plans, create a guided user experience, and explore gamification. Check out the apps below and help your users rediscover the fun of learning.

Learning and Collaboration

• Almond: Hands down my favorite new app. This is a free learning management system (LMS) app for Salesforce1. Create learning plans, assign them to users, and track progress. Users consume content, take quizzes, and achieve badges. Unmanaged version also available.
• Shadowr: Help your employees form mentorship relationships and facilitate job shadowing through this app, built for Salesforce1. Trackable and report-ready … oh, and it’s free!

Contextual Help and Assistance

• Popup Alerts: Push critical messages to your team members in context, via a pop-up message in Salesforce based on the criteria you specify. Available on Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, and Cases. Free app.
• Dynamic Inline Help: Provide scripts and guidance in context on Leads, Opportunities, Cases, and Accounts. Give your sales and support agents real-time objection responses and escalation instructions in the moment. Paid app.
• CrowdGuide: Make quick reference guides, step-by-step instructions, and helpful hints easily accessible to your teams through a context-sensitive help menu you can customize. Low-cost paid app.
• Sales Coach: Suggest activities and content to salespeople based on the opportunity stage. Drive consistent selling behaviors and provide needed content in one place. Free app.
• Customer Stories App: Ever wondered how Salesforce manages all of our customer stories and references? Check out this app, based on how we manage customer stories internally. You too can document and quickly locate success stories and competitive wins to help your teams identify best practices and share what they’ve learned. Salesforce1 version also available, and both apps are free.

Finally, don’t forget the “orange bubble.” You can also make use of the Field-Level Help feature available in Salesforce to guide user behavior, and even enforce standards with Validation Rules.

Gamification

• The Chatter Game: Turn up the fun on your Chatter rollout!  Assign points for comments, posts, and likes, and monitor everyone’s progress on pre-built dashboards. Free app.
• Ring My Bell: When an opportunity goes to Closed-Won, celebrate with a visual pop-up and user-configurable sound! Fun and motivational, low-cost paid app.
• Hoopla: Create games, contests, and showcase achievements on leaderboards. Connect remote offices through gamification. Paid app.
• LevelEleven: Define desired behaviors, set and track goals, and showcase performance on leaderboards. Integrates with Work.com. Paid app.

Conclusion

Motivate and inspire your teams with awesome learning and gamification apps from the AppExchange.

I hope you enjoyed our series, Apps for Admins. Be sure to check out all of the previous posts in the series, and get started with the AppExchange today!