How Gamification Transforms Business

According to Kevin Werbach, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics on the Wharton School on the University of Pennsylvania, “gamification is the usage of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts.”

In other words, gamification is a strategic and thoughtful approach to enhancing non-game contexts by incorporating relevant game elements and game design techniques with the aim of addressing real-life customer problems.

What Gamification Is and How It Works

There are several key principles of using gamification:

1. Thoughtful Application: Gamification isn’t nearly tossing in game elements with out a plan. It’s more about fastidiously and purposefully weaving game mechanics right into a setting that’s not typically related to games. Let’s imagine an organization wants to extend the variety of pages customers view on their website. In this case, they might design a game that gives rewards to customers every time they visit different pages on the positioning. Or if the aim of gamification is to encourage website visitors to make a purchase order, a spin wheel may be used to realize the goal.

Therefore, when applying gamified elements the aim of their application must be considered so as to drive the perfect results.

2. Real-Life Problems: Gamification must be focused on addressing tangible, real-world issues faced by customers. It should provide solutions to their problems or needs in a way that’s measurable and impactful. If the consequences of gamification can’t be quantified or observed in the true world, it becomes less effective. Metrics and outcomes should display the positive impact on the targeted problems.

For example, encourage drivers to stick to the speed limit? Penalties? Traffic speed cameras? New Mexico Department of Transportation got here up with a greater solution. In 2014, in partnership with National Geographic Channel they installed the “Musical Highway” on a sleepy stretch of Route 66 near Tijeras, New Mexico. On the quarter-mile section of the highway the rumble strips were designed to sound just like the song “America the Beautiful” if drivers were going at exactly 45 miles per hour speed. It not only encouraged drivers to follow the speed limit but in addition created a buzz within the media.

3. Connected to the Organization: An organization’s objectives and goals are what the organization wants to realize through the use of gamification.

An organization’s objectives is likely to be to extend sales, improve customer satisfaction, reduce costs and lots of more.

For example, a gamification solution that’s designed to extend learning and development of employees in an organization should reward them for it. Some firms are using a reward bonus system that offers employees points for completing lessons and achieving set goals at work. Then, employees can exchange the points for some precious goods resembling gadgets, bonus cards to shops, etc.

The gamification solution can only achieve success if only it’s aligned with the organization’s objectives and goals.

Gamification in Business

Gamification can significantly profit businesses by adding a component of fun into the workplace. It can result in such positive results as higher levels of worker satisfaction, increased productivity and reduce the extent of work-related stress. Moreover, it serves as a robust motivator for workers to succeed in their objectives, enhance customer support quality, boost sales, etc.

• A sales team can use gamification to motivate employees to make more sales. The team can arrange a chart to maintain rating of what number of sales each worker makes. They also can give rewards to the workers who sell essentially the most. This creates some friendly competition and incentives for the sales team.

One of the examples of how effective gamification may be is a contest amongst salespeople created by the corporate called ePrize, which leveraged the facility of prizes and leaderboards so as to change the old sales habits of their employees. The purpose of the sales contest was to encourage employees to begin logging call reports through the use of Event records. The one who logged more Events would receive a $100 of price coupon for a dinner in a restaurant. Even though the competition continued for one week, it demonstrated significant results. The variety of logged Events increased from about 10 per week to 40 and made the team see how effective for the sales and customer support the logged Events are. Once the competition finished, the variety of logged Events increased much more, to 60 per week.

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• A customer support team can use gamification to enhance customer satisfaction. The team can put in place a system where customers earn points for having positive interactions with customer support representatives. These points can later be used to get discounts and even free products as rewards. 

• A training team can use gamification to make training more engaging and effective. The team could make the training feel like a game, where trainees earn points for ending tasks and getting the fitting answers to questions. This keeps trainees motivated and excited about the training.

• A product development team can use gamification to assemble feedback from users. The team could make a trial version of a latest product and share it with a selected group of users. These users can check out the product, provide feedback, and earn rewards like points and badges. This input can improve the product before it’s released to the general public in addition to create a stronger connection between customers and a brand.

In 2019, Gamification at Work Survey was conducted by TalentLMS with 526 respondents from a wide range of industries and job roles. The survey found that gamification is a preferred and effective option to improve worker engagement, motivation, and productivity. According to the survey: 

• Employees say gamification makes them feel more productive (89%) and happier (88%) at work.
• 33% would really like more game-like features of their worker training software.
• 83% of those that receive gamified training feel motivated, while 61% of those that receive non-gamified training feel bored and unproductive.
• 89% imagine they’d be more productive if their work was more gamified.
• 78% of the respondents say that gamification within the recruiting process would make an organization more desirable.

Examples of Brands Gamification

Customer loyalty programs 

Gamification may be used to create customer loyalty programs that reward customers for his or her engagement with an organization. For example, Starbucks’ My Starbucks Rewards program allows customers to earn stars for each purchase they make, which might then be redeemed without spending a dime drinks or other rewards.

Learning and Productivity

Gamification may be used to make learning and development more engaging and effective. One of the preferred education apps Duolingo is an ideal example of how learning may be gamified in essentially the most efficient way for each users and the corporate. By combining the sport elements with a reward system, badges, and achievements Duolingo proved to be an efficient tool to encourage people to learn languages. 

Another example is a productivity tool called Rabit, a habit tracker app that helps users construct good habits and achieve their goals. One of the fundamental peculiarities of how this app gamified the user experience is growing your individual garden. Just imagine flowers and plants growing and blossoming in your garden each time you achieve your objective. Seeing your exertions turn into something as beautiful because the garden is actually an attractive and fun experience.

Health and Wellness

Gamification may be used to advertise health and wellness by making fitness tracking, healthy eating, and other healthy habits more fun and rewarding. There is unlimited access to a wide range of different apps that reward users for a healthy lifestyle resembling FitBit. Fitbit is a wearable fitness tracker that uses gamification to encourage users to get more lively. The tracker tracks users’ steps, distance, calories burned, and other fitness metrics. Users can compete with family and friends for points and badges, they usually also can unlock latest features as they reach fitness goals.

Marketing and Sales

It goes without saying that gamification makes marketing campaigns more engaging and interactive. From gamified landing pages to social media campaigns, brands are utilizing the facility of gamification so as to increase the interest in brand and/or product.

Gamification in Marketing

Gamification is certainly one of the strategies that may be applied for marketing campaigns and the one which is getting used an increasing number of often nowadays. Gamification is proving to be efficient and effective when it comes to attracting latest customers, improving customer loyalty, increasing conversion rate, purchasing intention and so forth. Moreover, gamification has turn out to be such an integral a part of many brands’ promotion campaigns that we barely notice it anymore; reward and loyalty programs, points and badges are the best way of communication with brands that we use on a every day basis. However, gamification in marketing is just not just basic loyalty programs, it’s knowing integrate different gaming elements into campaigns so as to drive customers/users to interact more deeply with a brand/product/service.

Domino Pizza is certainly one of the examples of utilizing the facility of gamification to the fullest. 

For the indecisive customers they created a special tool that appears like a pizza slot machine – just shake the phone and the app will randomly select a pizza for you. For the purchasers who appreciate the non-public touch, there may be an app that may give you the likelihood to create your individual personalized pizza. The app’s name is Pizza Hero and it may literally turn customers into virtual pizza makers. For customers who love interacting with game elements, Domino’s introduced a mobile app that may do cool things with billboards. When you point your phone at these big outdoor ads, the app makes a special computer-generated world in your screen. In this world, you’ll be able to order a pizza from Domino’s or go to their Facebook page, and much more fun stuff like that.

Big Mistakes to Avoid when Applying Gamification

Gamification is all about fun and the power to take part in the fun, so so as to keep the purchasers/users entertained, particular mistakes must be avoided. According to the book “Gamification Marketing” by Zarrar Chishti, essentially the most serious mistakes to be avoided are:

1. The gameplay is simply too complicated. Who desires to spend your entire afternoon attempting to work out how the loyalty program works or get a reward? Simplicity is vital for the reason that point of applying gamification is to make customers more engaged moderately than create a gamified challenge. Take educational applications for instance resembling Kahoot and Quizlet. Even though their point is to challenge people when it comes to learning, the badges/rewards systems and gameplay are very clear making them the preferred ones amongst tens of millions of individuals.

2. The next mistake generally is a surprising one – making a campaign that may’t be played at work. Gamified elements shouldn’t contain loud music or unexpected loud sounds – no person desires to be caught browsing web sites and playing games at work. It will immediately scare people away and make them close a tab/app, which can result in losing many potential customers, page visitors and users.

3. Assuming your audience understands the games. Yes, it’s difficult to assume a one who doesn’t understand the fundamentals of gamified elements, especially in a highly digitalised world that we currently live in. However, if an individual doesn’t understand what they’re imagined to do, their interest fades at the identical moment. According to Yu-kai Chou’s “Actionable Gamification” book, “A product that makes users feel silly, irrespective of how great the technology, is commonly a failing product. From my experience, if a user spends 4 seconds on an interface and may’t work out what to do, they feel silly and can begin to disengage emotionally.”

4. Relying too heavily on gamified elements. If only there was a magic element that might make any marketing campaign go viral, what a tremendous world we can be living in, wouldn’t we? Unfortunately, gamification is just not a magic wand that may turn anything into gold. It is inconceivable to regulate the final result, so try to regulate all other elements of the gamified campaign: design, development and launch; combined with gamification, the campaign is destined to drive the outcomes.

As it may be seen, gamification has turn out to be certainly one of the tools that’s utilized by a wide range of firms and types for each employees- and customers-oriented purposes. It is not any surprise it became so popular since gamification is showing great ends in motivating customers and employees and drives results.

However, like several other tool, gamified elements should be finely tuned so as to reach the goal and present expected results. There are quite a lot of different firms like Multiplayer that provide gamification solutions for business and help achieve the specified outcomes. By gamifying business. Whether you’re a business aiming to spice up worker morale or a brand looking to interact your customers effectively, gamification offers exciting possibilities for achieving enduring success.