Streamlining Onboarding & Boosting Performance

Seed Sasa, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a registered Agritech company that specialises in distributing agricultural inputs through an innovative mobile money savings platform. This platform allows farmers to make small deposits into a mobile money wallet over four months. After this period, they receive a redeemable SMS voucher that can be exchanged for hybrid seeds at a nearby agrovet during the planting season. Farmers also have the option to add funds to their wallet through a ‘top-up’ feature.

Seed Sasa sought to revolutionise its approach to employee onboarding, up-skilling and selling. By partnering with Hailr, a gamified advertising platform, Seed Sasa aimed to enhance operational efficiency, reduce onboarding cycles, and improve employee performance. This collaboration focused on addressing key business challenges, including high acquisition costs, low conversion rates, and limited customer lifetime value.

Campaign Objectives

Goal 1: Reduce Onboarding Cycles

This objective aimed to streamline employee onboarding, cutting down the time required to mobilise and train agents.

Goal 2: Improve Employee Performance

Seed Sasa prioritised providing better product knowledge and incentives to agents to enhance their performance and customer interactions.

Goal 3: Increase Customer Value

The campaign sought to increase initial deposits and top-ups by optimising agent-customer interactions through education and gamification mechanics.

Purpose of Campaign

The purpose of the Seed Sasa initiative was to empower sales agents through targeted education and incentivisation strategies. By doing so, the campaign aimed to improve customer acquisition rates, reduce onboarding drop-offs, and drive higher customer engagement and value. The ultimate goal was to create a sustainable cycle of improved agent performance leading to increased customer satisfaction.

Take to Market

Seed Sasa’s take-to-market strategy leveraged Hailr’s gamification platform to address key pain points. The platform introduced the following components: 

• Education Modules: Interactive training sessions with an average engagement time of 15 minutes and 45 seconds. 
• Incentives Tied to Performance: Agents received rewards based on completing onboarding milestones and hitting sales targets. 
• Quizzes and Surveys: Engaging activities to reinforce product knowledge and collect valuable feedback.
• Customer Onboarding Incentives: Tools to enhance customer interaction, such as reward mechanisms tied to deposits and top-ups.

This approach optimised the training process and motivated agents to exceed performance expectations, ultimately improving customer engagement and acquisition metrics.

Results of Campaign

The Hailr powered solution delivered measurable results across key objectives:

Goal 1: Reduce Onboarding Cycle

The campaign achieved a significant 33% reduction in agent onboarding cycles, allowing Seed Sasa to train and mobilise its workforce more efficiently. By introducing gamified education modules and structured incentive programs, employees were not only onboarded faster but also retained the information needed to perform effectively in the field. This streamlined approach enabled Seed Sasa to address its high cost of acquisition by ensuring agents were ready to engage with farmers in less time.

Goal 2: Improve Employee Performance

Gamification had a profound impact on agent productivity and performance. Agents were able to onboard more than 1,400 farmers within just 40 days, compared to slightly above 1,900 farmers over 60 days in the traditional setup. With access to better training tools and clear performance-based incentives, agents demonstrated improved product understanding and stronger engagement with customers. This led to a noticeable increase in agent effectiveness, with more agents achieving the target of onboarding 150 farmers each within 40 days. The campaign’s emphasis on education and incentivisation ensured that agents not only met but exceeded expectations, creating a more motivated and skilled workforce.

Goal 3: Increase Customer Value

Seed Sasa experienced a marked increase in customer value during the campaign, with higher initial wallet deposits and frequent top-ups by farmers within the first 40 days post-gamification. The introduction of performance-based incentives and customer-facing educational tools strengthened the relationship between agents and farmers, resulting in a 28% reduction in customer acquisition costs. By improving customer conversion rates and reducing the sales cycle, the campaign successfully delivered measurable value for both the business and its customers.

Conclusion

The collaboration between Seed Sasa and Hailr successfully addressed critical business challenges, delivering exceptional results in employee engagement, customer acquisition, and value generation. By leveraging gamification mechanics and incentivised training strategies, Seed Sasa was able to optimise its workforce and create a more sustainable and impactful customer value model. This partnership highlights the transformative potential of gamified solutions in driving business success.