Benefits of Gamification in Business
Gamification is the application of games and/ or game elements in non-game environments.
Today’s business world is sick and tired of cliche scenarios of interaction between companies, brands, employers & employees.
The conventional engagement models are losing their efficiency, perceived as boring, outdated, and annoying. They aren’t working anymore.
The question is which solution to focus on in 2020? Which techniques will prove its efficiency in front of the new generation?
Gamification could be an answer.
Gamification is a process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems.
Gabe Zichermann, gamification expert, public speaker, & businessman
Contents:
Gamification in the workplace
Workplace gamification is not a new concept. However, the accessibility of the technologies helps us take a fresh look at the opportunities it offers for both employers and employees. The efficiency of nearly every process could be increased using the common gamification elements (badges, levels, points, bonuses, rewards, quests, etc.).
Onboarding
New employees are 69% more likely to stay longer than three years if they experience well-structured onboarding
For the new generation, money isn’t the single factor to consider when choosing a job; they want involvement, they require to be driven by the shared vision. And if a company is able to guide a new employee through a fascinating journey instead of a boring and often embarrassing onboarding process, it is likely to retain a worker.
Together with the common gamification elements, up-to-date onboarding systems involve the following functionality:
- No paperwork–everything is done online.
- A detailed personal profile to fill in the info about a new hire and upload necessary for the onboarding files–leveling up, an essential part of gaming, could become an incentive for the worker to tell a bit more about him/ herself together with properly designed questions.
- General knowledge base available per request–a gamified system of rewards encourages employees to absorb the information on his/ her own and establish a culture of learning.
Result: a smooth onboarding process, cultivation of a learning culture among employees, building an employee’s loyalty towards a company
Corporate Training
Workplace gamification includes using games or game elements while corporate training. The continuous growth of technology accessibility for all types of businesses makes games an integral part of the training. People learn better through personal experience, and gamification is a way to gain not only theoretical but practical skills as well.
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Audi virtual training program. The training program is aimed at polishing the sales & negotiation skills of dealership employees. The application offers the opportunity to manage challenging situations with virtual customers with a mood barometer like in Sims. Employees see an instant reaction of a virtual customer to adjust their actions in the future. Moreover, this virtual training program provides greater scalability compared to onsite courses, with fairly similar engagement.
Virtual car dealership 
Simulation of multiple real-life cases
Source: Audi.com
Result: increasing training efficiency.
Motivation
Even the best job in the world may sometimes be boring and tiresome. So we should search for fresh ways to motivate employees to both complete routine tasks and contribute to the company’s success.
A gamified knowledge-sharing system could be a good option to engage your employees. Such a system helps build internal and external knowledge sharing based connections and earn points: replying to the post, sharing on social media, posting an article on external resources, publishing an article on a corporate website. It may look like a personal dashboard that tracks employees’ actions to give them a reward for their accomplishments.
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Chore wars. A game to claim the points for the completion of routine tasks. To begin, you should create a new party and invite your co-workers or join the existing one. You can either create a new adventure from scratch (with a set of customized tasks) or choose them from the list. Completing the tasks, your personage that you choose from several options gains levels and classes. Many additional functions such as an easy monitoring system, tasks’ comments, weekly score tables, prizes, etc. make completion of routine tasks less painful.
Team dashboard to track the Adventure progress 
Create a custom Adventure for your band
Result: motivation to complete routine tasks, encouragement to promote a brand.
Gamification for customer retention
Using gamified elements, businesses are able to get attention and achieve loyalty while creating an identity for their brand or product. Gamification is used for multiple purposes:
Increase brand awareness
Nearly 60 percent of the world’s population is already online, and more than half of the world’s total population use social media
So killing marketing strategy for nearly every company or brand includes getting viral on social media. Users are more likely to be involved and share the game content on social media. The funny games or game elements could become the first step for your company or brand to reach a wider audience.
You can use one or a few gamified functions or a separate web or mobile application to promote the brand, company, or organization.
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US Army. The US Army launched the shooter game on Steam which users can play free. This military game focuses on tactical maneuvers and allows players to prove themselves on a variety of US Army maps. Besides, a user should enter personal data (name, email, etc.) to sign up, in such a way getting onto an Army marketing campaign.
With the right targeting, promoting the organization through a game is a winning move. The example of the US Army shows that a smart gamified solution can be found for every industry and provide a good result if implemented properly.
Result: building brand awareness, getting marketing qualified leads, the natural distribution of your content via social networks.
Promote brand loyalty
65% of American adults play video games
People love games, it’s obvious. Why not connect the favorite people’s pastime with your brand? All the more, you have hundreds of options to do it in a creative way, differentiating your brand/ company from dozens of others.
Many companies use a system of discounts to accumulate bonuses. Maybe, we could think of moving these systems online, adding the exclusive bonuses, or cool rewards for the regular customers.
Moreover, the loyalty system isn’t a single way to promote and reinforce a positive feeling towards a company, brand, or organization. Let’s check Nike’s example.
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Nike run club. Nike launched a mobile app to support the brand and help you “get the most of your run” enjoying the following features:
- GPS tracking;
- run records;
- Customized workouts;
- music;
- coaching;
- weekly & monthly challenges;
- instant feedback.
Challenge yourself 
Listen to professional coaches while running 
Monitor your progress 
Keep everything on your wrist
Result: improving loyalty towards a brand, giving a tangible value, increasing customers’ retention.
Maximize engagement
Customer acquisition is only part of the marketing strategy. We should also find an efficient way to engage customers and build a strong connection between them and your brand/ company. Gamification helps you to stand out from thousands of similar products/ services on the web. Creating a loyal and actively engaged online community is easier using gamification for this purpose.
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Starbucks rewards. After every purchase, a customer gains stars to exchange for food & drinks. Old but gold. Starbucks gets more and more loyal customers; they, in turn, get free coffee and snacks. And everyone’s happy!
Result: constantly growing customer attention to your company/ brand, interactivity, increase in sales.
Gamified solutions for business
The companies are slowly recovering after the COVID-19 lockdown, which has demonstrated their weaknesses. Now, businesses in all industries have one thing in common: they are trying to prevent the bottlenecks found and deal with the system vulnerabilities revealed during the crisis. Part of these problems could be solved using the gamification techniques that can be added in different processes to show a better way of working.
CEO of Jellyfish.tech, Kseniia Goldovska is an experienced Agile product owner with the passion to build a superb product based on deep market & competitor’s research, customer development interviews. She will help create a custom gamified solution for your business.
Together, we’ll
- identify the way your business may benefit from gamification complying with one or several above-mentioned functions;
- choose tools and techniques that will work out for your organization
- decide on the best way to implement them leading you through a digital transformation;
- measure the progress and help your employees adapt to changes.
