work better together TM
© 2015 Jive Software, Inc. All rights reserved | Jive Confidential
Case Study
Bluegreen VacationCase Study
Bluegreen Vacations manages and
markets the Bluegreen Vacation Club, a
flexible, points-based, deeded vacation
ownership program that connects over
175,000 owners with over 60 Bluegreen
resorts in more than 40 popular
destinations across the continental U.S.
and the Caribbean.
No Rep is an Island:Sales Teamwork Thrives in Bluegreen Vacations’ Social Intranet Bluegreen Vacations’ Retail Marketing team consists of over 600
associates selling vacation packages in roughly 90 different locations
across the nation. They’re widely dispersed and often work solo, but
they’re one of the most unified groups in the company. That’s because
they’re together 24/7 in a social intranet called “Circles3 | Colleagues
Connecting & Collaborating,” powered by Jive in the cloud. Circles
enables formerly isolated salespeople to function as one team—sharing
knowledge, learning from each other and providing encouragement
and motivation that’s improved both performance and morale.
Before Jive: Dispersion and Disconnection Before Bluegreen launched its Jive-powered sales community,
associates worked largely on their own in store-within-store retail
locations across the country. They had little contact with corporate
headquarters or reps at other locations. There was no sense of a
cohesive team and little sharing of knowledge and information.
“At the time, our remote sales reps didn’t even have access to
2© 2015 Jive Software, Inc. All rights reserved | Jive Confidential
Case Study
corporate email,” remembers Hollie Gilbert-Arangio, Bluegreen’s
Senior Vice President of Retail Marketing. “I rarely saw reps and
only met with their managers twice a year. We were working in
silos, and everyone was having their own conversation. I knew
there had to be a better way.”
In the search for that “better way,” Bluegreen spent two months
vetting multiple vendors of collaboration and community platforms.
Jive stood out because of its demonstrated success in actual
customer deployments and use cases. Features such as Jive Impact
Metrics—which measure the reach of corporate communications—and
support for mobile devices were also big factors. Mobile access was
key because it would allow dispersed reps to log in and participate in
the community via their smartphones while on the job.
So Bluegreen’s social intranet, fondly referred to as “Circles,” in
homage to the three circles in the company’s logo, was born. It’s
deployed via the cloud, alleviating any burden on Bluegreen’s IT
department and delivering all of Jive’s latest features automatically in
quarterly updates.
Completing the Circle: Bluegreen’s Social Intranet Circles provides a single portal for Bluegreen’s entire sales force.
There are spaces for each of the company’s geographical sales
regions, where reps can easily find the content and information they
need to do their jobs, participate in group discussions, ask questions,
create and share content and collaborate on projects. There are also
spaces for home office departments: marketing, human resources,
company communications, IT, recruiting and training.
A community news feed on the home page keeps everyone up to
date on current conversations. Jive’s built-in gamification ranks and
rewards community members based on their level of engagement.
Jessica de la Torre, Marketing Manager and Internal Community
“Before we had access to
a community, it was really
hard to interact with other
sales representatives.
You’re out there alone.
Now with Circles, nobody’s
going to sink—everyone’s
swimming because
we’re working together.”
Elisa Fisher
Sales Manager
Bluegreen Vacations
3© 2015 Jive Software, Inc. All rights reserved | Jive Confidential
Case Study
Manager for Retail Marketing, manages the Circles
community. “I built it,” Jessica will tell you proudly,
referring to the countless documents she uploaded
and initial spaces she created. “We wanted to
empower the sales teams, allowing them access
to a huge amount of information within seconds,”
Jessica explains. “The less time they needed to spend
looking for information, the more time they would
have to focus on their personal success.”
Sales representatives have instant access to all
their sales enablement materials and information
wherever they happen to be. They’re also posting
questions to the community and getting rapid
answers from other sales representatives and
managers around the country.
The Numbers Don’t Lie: Rapid Results
Within months of the rollout, adoption topped 80
percent and continues to grow. More importantly,
Hollie says she’s already seen a 12 percent increase
in revenue from vacation package sales, which
she attributes primarily to the “realtime access to
everyone’s brainpower” in Circles.
“Everyone can see, for example, that an associate
sold three $699 packages yesterday, which
immediately prompts a conversation that benefits
everyone in the community such as, ‘How did you
do that? How did you transition from one offer to
another?’” Hollie explains. “It gives more credibility
to the sales techniques when the advice comes
from the associate that is doing the selling, and
everyone is performing that much better.”
A Better Way to Work Circles isn’t just making it easier for sales
representatives to sell vacation packages—it’s
affecting their entire work lives
• Self-service reduces employee support costs. Associates are able to easily find answers and resources on company-related topics like employee policies and benefits. It’s taken a big load off support people at the home office who used to field dozens of phone calls a day, often handling the same questions repeatedly. “We’ve eliminated about 150 calls a week,” says Jessica. The system has similarly unburdened IT Help Desk staff.
• Corporate communications are much more effective. Instead of sending out an email blast and being flooded with replies, Bluegreen posts company news and announcements in Circles. Jive Impact Metrics let corporate comms staff instantly see the impact and reach of their announcements. “We love the fact that we can see who has read something, who hasn’t, and the type of impact it’s having on the community,” Hollie says.
• Breaking down hierarchies. Executives take a turn each quarter answering wide-ranging questions from employees in an “Ask Me
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Anything” forum, leading to a new transparency and a sense of connection across hierarchies. And it’s not just executives getting into the spirit. One 14-year sales veteran at Bluegreen started a “Here to Help” forum where he answers sales-specific questions from co-workers.
• Motivating success. Bluegreen uses customer survey software by Medallia and posts outstanding results in a community group called “Perfect 10 Medallias,” where everyone can see and comment. “It’s a real motivator,” Jessica says. “Salespeople are naturally competitive, and seeing their peers get recognition makes them want to get recognition, too.”
Perhaps the biggest impact has been on
attitude and morale. Formerly isolated sales
representatives now have a place to go any time
to get advice and encouragement, find useful tips,
coach each other on selling scenarios and give
each other pep talks. That psychological boost
can make all the difference in a challenging arena
like sales, and team members report that it really
has helped them perform better. “Circles is a big
part of me making my sale,” says Tina Corcoran, a
Bluegreen sales representative.
“Circles humanizes people,” Jessica says. “They’re
no longer an ID number. They’re a person and
people tend to workbetter together when there’s
a relationship. It’s the perfect expression of our
company motto, ‘Share Happiness.’”
The Power of Community
Circles has become an essential part of the fabric
of life at Bluegreen, and it’s growing organically.
“People are creating their own areas and
collaborating on their own, unlike a traditional
intranet where it’s more imposed on people,”
Jessica says. “Sale representatives feel as though
they are invested in the community.”
Hollie believes Circles will improve recruiting as well.
“I already see where we are going to attract better
talent because of the accessibility to training tools, HR
materials, everything at their fingertips,” she explains.
The cumulative effect of all this has been a cultural
leap for the company: Employees have gone from
feeling scattered and separated to feeling like they
are part of one team, all pulling together. “Knowing
that you have a community of 600 people behind
you is really powerful,” Jessica says. “I really have
affection for this platform. The connections Jive
allows us to make—helping us get to know each
other when we felt so disconnected before—really
makes this a special environment.”
“Knowing that you have a community
of 600 people behind you is
really powerful.”
Jessica de la Torre
Marketing Manager and Internal Community
Manager for Retail Marketing
Bluegreen Vacations