If you’re a B2B go-to-market leader, you’ve probably had someone pitch you on “gamification.” Maybe you’ve even tried it before and wound up with a dashboard graveyard and a bunch of eye rolls from your sales team. This review is for you: the practitioner who actually cares about outcomes, not just shiny features. We’ll break down exactly what Bunchball really does for B2B GTM teams in 2024—warts and all.
What Is Bunchball, Really?
Bunchball is a gamification platform. At its core, it lets you add points, badges, leaderboards, and challenges to your sales, customer success, or marketing systems. The point is to nudge people—your reps, your SDRs, your CSMs—to actually do the stuff your business needs: make calls, log data, finish training, update pipelines, etc.
You can bolt Bunchball onto CRM tools (Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics), support desks, learning platforms, and more. It runs mostly in the background, tracking what users do and serving up game-like rewards.
Cutting through the noise: Bunchball isn’t magic. It’s not going to “transform” culture or turn underperformers into A-players. Instead, it’s a toolkit for nudging behavior—if you know what behavior you want, and you have the discipline to maintain it.
Key Features (and What Actually Matters)
Here’s what Bunchball offers, and what’s worth paying attention to:
1. Points, Badges, and Levels
- Points: Awarded for actions you care about (e.g., logging calls, updating opportunities).
- Badges & Levels: Visual ways to mark milestones or mastery (e.g., “Pipeline Pro”, “Follow-Up Fiend”).
- Reality check: These work for some, but don’t expect your senior reps to care about a new badge. Still, for new hires or routine tasks, it can make a difference.
2. Challenges and Quests
- You can set up time-bound challenges: “Book 5 demos this week” or “Complete onboarding in 5 days.”
- Team-based or solo: You can pit teams against each other, or have everyone work toward a shared goal.
- Pro tip: The best challenges are clear, time-limited, and tied to real business impact—not just activity for activity’s sake.
3. Leaderboards
- Public rankings: Who’s booked the most meetings, closed the most deals, or finished the most training?
- Private leaderboards: Show only to managers or individuals, to avoid embarrassing folks.
- Worth it? Leaderboards motivate some, but can demoralize others. Use with care—especially if your team sizes or territories are uneven.
4. Rewards and Recognition
- Digital rewards: Points, badges, progress bars.
- Physical rewards: Gift cards, swag, or team outings (you’ll need to manage fulfillment).
- Peer recognition: Sometimes, letting teammates give “kudos” is more motivating than boss-driven prizes.
5. Integration with CRM and LMS
- Native Salesforce integration: Bunchball’s Salesforce connector is solid, but not foolproof—you’ll probably need admin help to get it humming.
- Other platforms: Integrations exist, but the deeper your customizations, the more brittle things get.
- Heads up: If your CRM data is a mess, gamifying it just pours sugar on top of junk.
6. Analytics and Reporting
- Dashboards: See who’s earning what, which challenges work, and where engagement drops off.
- Custom reports: Decent, but don’t expect Tableau-level insights.
- Takeaway: Use these to tweak your programs, not as a substitute for real management.
Where Bunchball Shines
Driving Routine, Repeatable Behaviors
If you have a process that needs relentless attention—like pipeline hygiene, inbound logging, or onboarding—Bunchball can help. It’s not about “fun.” It’s about nudging people to do the boring, necessary stuff.
Onboarding and Training
New hires get a sense of progress. You can lay out step-by-step onboarding quests, with rewards for hitting milestones. For learning management, it’s a way to make “mandatory” training sting a little less.
Spot Recognition
For companies where recognition is rare, Bunchball’s simple peer-to-peer “kudos” can give a quick morale bump. Just don’t expect this to fix deep cultural issues.
Where Bunchball Falls Short
Engagement Drops Off Fast
After the initial excitement, many users tune out. Senior reps in particular may see gamification as patronizing or childish. If your culture’s not bought in, expect participation to nosedive after a few months.
Complexity Creep
It’s easy to over-engineer your gamified programs. Too many badges, endless challenges, and a spaghetti mess of point values just confuse everyone. Less is more: focus on 2-3 core behaviors at a time.
Doesn’t Fix Broken Processes
If your CRM hygiene, KPIs, or training are already a mess, Bunchball just adds another layer of noise. It’s not a silver bullet. You’ll need clear processes and management discipline first.
Integration and Maintenance Overhead
While integrations are a selling point, keeping Bunchball humming requires ongoing admin work. If your Salesforce instance changes, expect to tweak your gamification logic. The more you customize, the more brittle things get.
Common Use Cases for B2B Go To Market Teams
Here’s where I’ve seen Bunchball actually move the needle (and where it flops):
1. Sales Activity Management
- Works for: High-velocity teams (SDRs/BDRs) where call, email, and meeting volumes matter.
- Doesn’t work for: Enterprise sales cycles, where quality trumps quantity.
2. Pipeline Hygiene
- Works for: Nudging reps to update stages, close out zombies, and keep data fresh.
- Watch out: If managers aren’t vigilant, reps will game the system for points.
3. Onboarding and Training Completions
- Works for: New hires, compliance training, or rolling out new sales playbooks.
- Don’t bother: For seasoned reps, “learning badges” usually land with a thud.
4. Internal Competitions
- Works for: Short, focused sprints—think “Q1 pipeline blitz” or “year-end renewal push.”
- Burnout risk: Don’t run back-to-back competitions. It gets old fast.
Pro Tips for Actually Getting Value from Bunchball
- Start simple: Pick one behavior you really want to drive (e.g., updating next steps in CRM).
- Set clear rules: Make sure everyone knows how points are earned—and what really matters.
- Reward publicly, but keep stakes low: Swag, shoutouts, and lunch gift cards are enough. Don’t turn it into Hunger Games for commissions.
- Get manager buy-in: If frontline managers don’t care, neither will their teams.
- Iterate relentlessly: Kill off badges that don’t matter. Retire stale challenges.
- Watch for gaming: People will find loopholes. That’s on you to fix, not them.
What to Ignore
- Overly complex point systems: If it takes a spreadsheet to explain, it’s too much.
- Random “fun” features: Virtual pets and avatars don’t move pipeline.
- Vendor promises of culture change: Recognition helps, but it doesn’t fix disengagement or mistrust.
Pricing and ROI: The Real Talk
Bunchball doesn’t publish pricing, but it’s generally a per-user, per-month deal—plus extra for premium integrations or services. For a 100-person team, expect a few thousand dollars a month.
Is it worth it? Only if you’re committed to maintaining your gamification programs and have a clear idea of the behaviors you want to drive. If you’re hoping Bunchball will “fix” engagement or magically boost results, save your budget.
Bottom Line
Bunchball is a solid toolkit for nudging B2B go-to-market teams on the basics—call activity, training, and data hygiene. Used with discipline and restraint, it can help drive the right behaviors. Just keep it simple, ignore the hype, and don’t expect it to do your management job for you.
Set up your core behaviors, keep rewards modest, and iterate based on what your team actually does—not what you wish they’d do. That’s the real game.