Admit it, guys and gals. You collected one of those Starbucks Christmas stars to win a Starbucks Planner. Or, how about the time your boss organized a challenging and fun game where the team who gets the highest sales will get rewards?
These activities are what we call ‘Gamification’.
Gamification is everywhere!
To know more about it, read our full guide below.
What is Gamification?
The term gamification was coined back in 2002 by Nick Pelling. He was a British computer programmar and inventor.
By 2011 it became a buzzword that more and more entepreneurs are gamifying different aspects of their business to motivate their employees and increase consumer engagement.
So, what is gamification? Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game contexts. It’s about taking the things we like on games and using it in real life to prompt you to do an act or certain action.
An example of which is receiving points for filing paperwork or brushing your teeth.
Gamification is basically a marketing technique that encourages you to engage with a specific product or service. It can be seen everywhere such as businesses, education, application, more.
Why is Gamification Important for Business?
As a business person, you would want people to take action. Whether they are your employees or customers, you would want them to engage with your product or service.
Through gamification, you can CHANGE their behaviour.
You will create a gamified system that shall both stimulate and entertain them to use your product or service.
Take for example, DevHub.
DevHub is a platform that helps users build websites.
Back when they were starting out, they noticed their users were only visiting their pages but not finishing the websites.
They changed the system by making tests, adding user points for each tasks and building websites with friends, their user engagement increased.
They gamified or made a narrative for each submission that hooked and grabbed the interest of their users.
Why is Gamification Important for Employees?
You can also use gamification for your employees to boost their working techniques and motivation.
According to a study by the American Psychology Association, 50% of the surveyed employees stated that they did not feel their efforts and hardwork are not being value, so they look for a new job.
Gamification is the preferred training method that increases productivity and innovation with employees.
It helps employees retain knowledge and acquire new skills.
Entrepreneurs can use this for employees to work together to reach a goal and feel more involved with the company’s goals.
They can apply a new strategy of using game techniques to improve motivation, team effort, concentration, shared values, and loyalty throughout the game.
It also offers motivational ways for employees to grow and become more involved in the company’s goals and their self-growth.
Through gamification, workers would feel valued. This solves the recurring concern of employees.
Why is Gamification Popular?
Gamification is popular to a lot users, because it is the answer to the number one problem of businesses — user retention.
It is a proven and well-tested solution for businesses, education, work, etc.
Through gamification, it offers incentives to users so that they can encouraged to collect rewards and points.
The longer they stay and interact with your brand, the more likely they can get to know your business and promote it to others.
Plus, its easy and fun!
Since gamification is rooted on motivating users to do certain actions for the rewards, endorphins and dopamine are released in our brain.
Dopamine is responsible for the feeling of pleasure and happiness. It always comes out during a positive game-playing experience.
Hence, gamification is a source of happiness.
What Gamification is NOT?
- Gamification is not a game.
It is different from a game.
A game is a competitive play where there are sets of rules while gamification takes out the best parts of a game and applies it to non-game contexts.
- Gamification is not a badge
Gamification is not just a badge or loyalty points.
The badges, points and levels are only game mechanics adapted to increase engagement.
Gamification helps in teaching skills, motivating people, building loyalty, and giving recognition to employees and consumers.
- Gamification is not a magic pill for your business
You might have seen a lot of success stories from businesses who used gamification.
But its not the magic pill for your business if your products or services are flawed.
It’s only a tool to help you increase user engagement and worker productivity.
The Psychology: How Does It Work?
The answer is simple.
It trigger the emotions that links to a positive experience.
Gamification works so well because it encourages users to engage and put action to behaviors, and taking advantage of the psychological predisposition to engage in the game.
An example of which is that businesses would reward the consumers with points for a specific engagement such as signing up to newsletter, buying product or filling out their profile.
Once done, they would be given access to exclusive deals and rewards.
Gamification Principles
The secret of gamification are the following:
- Motivation
- Mastery
- Triggers
The Fogg Behavior Model was created by Prof. B.J. Fogg, an experimental psychologist of Stanford University.
The model states that in order for a behaviour to occur, these three elements: motivation, ability and trigger, must occur.
These three elements must converge at the same time to create a reaction.
Motivation is the “Why?”
Motivation is what prompts people to act or behave in a particular way.
You can use it to motivate your employees to take training, or motivate consumers to buy from you.
No matter what the circumstance, you can use Gamification to engage with people.
Mastery is the “How?”
Mastery or ability is the knowledge and skill to finish a task.
The game mechanics applied should be based on skill and not on luck.
Through Gamification, a user will feel they are learning and mastering a skill with each level or step.
Since human brain always liked to be challenged, each level should be difficult than the next.
Triggers are the “When?” and “Where?”
The triggers will help actual your motivation and skill.
Often times people have the ability and skill but lack the trigger to finish it.
Through gamification, good triggers are used to solve the problem.
The gamified system must:
- Give users the motivation to act.
- The ability to complete the act.
- Trigger to complete the action.
Basically, it uses these three principles to create a successful for gamification process.
The game dynamics uses points, badges or any positive feedbacks to build the user’ motivation.
Next, it uses challenges for each level to increase the ability of the users.
Lastly, they place triggers to prompt the user to create an action.
This system must occur simultaneously because if not, the user will lose interest.
How to Use Gamification?
Below is a detailed and step-by-step process of using gamification.
- Have an objective
Don’t just jump into the boat and start applying it.
You have to know why you’re doing it!
This could be done through a meeting with your Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) and teams. Discuss for whom this would be and what practices can be used to drive results.
- Engineer the path
Once you are able to understand your objectives, create a way to drive results.
You have to look at the experience as a marketing funnel.
Identify the outcomes you would wish to occur and identify game mechanics you will use to drive results.
You may also get in touch with companies offering these ‘immersive technology’ services.
They can be able to offer you a consultancy service, and technical support to discuss all of your goals and requirements.
- Rewards
Identify the rewards to be given for the game. You can also customize these. But make sure that the incentives mean something.
- Holistic view
Make sure the game does not change or undermine the product, service or business objective.
- Make it fun
Users have to enjoy the system. It must appeal to their needs and desires.
To apply Gamification to your business, you can use Loyalty Programs, Leaderboards, Progress Bars, and Applications.
- Loyalty Programs
One of the popular aspects of Gamification is loyalty programs.
Examples of which are flyer cards, club cards, and coupons.
Loyalty Programs are used to strengthen the connection between the client and the business by being offered points for every action.
They are given special treatments and the more they interact with the business, the more they will gain loyalty.
- Leaderboards
Through leaderboards, your users can have a friendly competition with friends or fellow users.
Rising up a leaderboard is a great motivation for them.
Just make sure this doesn’t discourage the users. You can do this by refreshing the leaderboards every week to allow users the chance to rise up.
- Progress Bars
Progress Bars are helpful for users to know they are close to competing a task.
This helps them determine their goals and the actions they must take
SAMPLES OF GAMIFICATION ON BUSINESSES
Nike
Nike helps users reach their running goals. They make use of an application where the more you run, the greater are your rewards. It also allows you to challenge your friends while reaching your goal.
Starbucks
With Starbucks, the more coffee you buy, the more stars you get. You can see how many stars you earned and how many you need to receive the reward. It is most common during the Christmas Season where you collect stars to win a Starbucks journal.
How to Use Gamification at Work?
Using gamification at work can help in three main areas:
- Awareness and change management
- Training
- Operation
Through the awareness and change management it focuses on integrating and changing the process. It also includes risk prevention and corporate policies.
For training it focuses on developing new skills, business processes, and new products and services.
For operations, it helps make it more efficient such as improving sales and customer service.
Samples of using Gamification at Workplace
Target
They started a gamified system at the checkout counters where it scores the speed and accuracy of a cashier. It would measure the cashier’s success in checking out the items.
A beep and green light would appear for a good job that shall send a positive feeling for the cashier.
Through this system, it helps increase cashier’s efficient, boosts employee morale and increases productivity.
OpenText
In OpenText, every employee can earn points by closing deals, sharing information, finishing tasks, etc for their OpenText Pulse product. The results were amazing because it increased by 60%.
Steward Agency
In stewart Agency, they made use of incentives for their sales people to get the email addresses of their leads. They held contests wherein the employee who gets the most email address shall win. The results were astonishing because in less than 2 months, the number of emails collected doubled.
Common Gamification Mistakes to Avoid
- Focusing on Competition
Avoid having competition as the main purpose of your gamification. You have to ensure that your users will engage the in the act and they can have a chance to rise up from the leaderboard.
- No Clear Goals
Without a clear goal, you will not be able to engage your audience to act on your products or services. So, before you start, designate a time to plan on what you would want to achieve.
- Multiple Rewards
It’s okay to give them many rewards but don’t overdo it because it’ll come easy for them. The challenge that comes with the reward will be removed and it’ll divert the users’ attention.
- Focusing on rewards alone
Gamification is not all about rewards. Yes, you use points to boost the engagement and heighten the excitement of users but its not the heart of it. Points and rewards are only used to recognize an achievement.
Conclusion
Gamification is indeed a proven and powerful tool to use for businesses, education, and work. By having the right knowledge and information, you can use it to achieve your goals and gain user loyalty. So do try it because through gamification, people can learn to play and learn.