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