In the articles you will learn, among others:

1. What is gamification.
2. How its mechanisms work and what is its effectiveness.
3. What role does it play in modern loyalty programs.
4. What to consider when choosing solutions for your own company.
5. How to connect the world of games with real business on the example of the Cup Sell gamification platform.

What makes gamification make us want to act? Why is it becoming so popular and why do experts predict its growing importance? Market observations show that classic incentive systems are no longer working – users expect something more. That “something” is gamification.

Building customer loyalty is becoming increasingly important

A loyal consumer is welcome, but not always properly appreciated. Most companies assume that the customer, when choosing a specific product or brand, will stay with it forever. If he changes his mind, it is always easy for the company to acquire a new one.

The reality has changed dramatically, in particular the behavior and expectations of consumers. This was largely due to the dissemination of technologies, devices and the mobile Internet. Suddenly, it turned out that the user can conveniently compare offers, learn about users’ opinions and choose products from the global market. Consumer loyalty has weakened considerably and has become a “commodity for sale”.

At the same time, the same technologies allowed brands to communicate and promote more widely, but it caused communication noise. Reaching the user has become more difficult and costly than it used to be. Companies all over the world have realized that keeping a loyal customer is a better and more economical solution. This is confirmed by numerous data and case studies. The Adobe Digital Index report shows that in the US alone, 40% of business revenues come from returning customers. Importantly, they account for only 8% of buyers!

Contemporary consumer and gamification

You already know that building loyalty is key, and yet the classic mechanisms no longer bring benefits. Why is this happening? As incentive schemes incentive program became common, they offered similar rules – collecting points and exchanging them for rewards. Over time, they became quite monotonous and not very engaging. They lacked a “refreshing” stimulus. Challenges.

The second decisive factor is consumer entertainment. Play relaxes, “sports” competition motivates, and in children learning through play gives better results. The trend is not new, but it is of particular importance to today’s younger generations. Computer games and competition with other players in global arenas make people get used to certain behaviors. These people entering the consumer market will be guided by just such incentives.

Such a world of experiences created the basis for gamification. They are fresh, interactive and motivating, meeting the expectations of the modern consumer. They offer more than just material prizes. They imitate the world of games and digital reality, which is a natural environment for many users. Competition, reaching new levels of experience, satisfaction, discovering the unknown is something that turns everyone on, regardless of age. According to statistics, there are currently over 2 billion active players in the world, which is statistically every third person on Earth.

Experts looking at social changes forecast the effects of young generations entering the consumer market. They see the great importance of gamification-based marketing activities. It can become the key to the effective building of loyalty and long-term commitment of the client to building mutual relations.

Gamification rules

What is gamification? Simply put, it is the use of mechanisms used in computer games (competition, interaction, advancement to the next levels, performing tasks, etc.) to change people’s behavior in situations not related to games, e.g. increasing employee motivation or strengthening customer loyalty. Appropriate scenarios and mechanisms stimulate the user, while their entertaining nature blurs the marketing nature of the system.

The key element is choosing the right level of difficulty of the challenges – they cannot be either too easy (they bore the recipient) or too difficult (they discourage them). The implementation of the task should require relatively little effort, but at the same time give satisfaction from achieving the goal. An additional motivator is an attractive catalog of prizes tailored to the current level of the user. The latter, by completing subsequent tasks, accumulates points, which, after reaching the appropriate level, will advance him to a more attractive range of prizes.

Solutions available on the market?

Gamification in loyalty programs in Poland is at an early stage of development. This makes the number of available solutions very limited. As the trend spreads, the opportunities will increase.

Overall, there are currently 3 options:

1. Integration of external applications – theoretically the simplest solution consisting in integrating the system with applications such as Endomondo or Facebook (or using them independently). A considerable disadvantage of this solution is the small variety of gamification activities, negligible flexibility and difficulties in managing the program.
2. Modification of the loyalty program – some of the gamification mechanisms can be implemented in the owned systems. Of course, depending on how they were designed, it will be more or less troublesome – their construction will determine their flexibility and adaptability. The use of such a solution seems reasonable during the transition period – it allows you to experiment, check the reactions of users and plan the shape of the new system.
3. The use of a loyalty program dedicated to gamification – there are not many innovative and comprehensive solutions at the moment. However, they allow you to fully use the potential of gamification, turning the loyalty program into an interactive game. They enable full configuration and targeting of tasks and scenarios for individual users, increasing the attractiveness and personalizing the program.

In the near future, gamification will become one of the basic promotion tools and building customer loyalty. Along with the demand, the number of available solutions will grow, as well as competition.

Grywalizacyjna Cup Sell – a way to connect the world of games with real business

The Motivation Direct Cup Sell Gamification Platform is the only one on the market with a comprehensive and proven system for handling gamification in business.

The platform enables integration with API with any internal system in the company, including CRM, call center, sales or e-learning systems. The unique capabilities of the platform allow companies to reward a wide range of behaviors, strengthen commitment, increase the effectiveness of internal training, improve communication in the company, increase sales, and improve the quality and safety of work.

The Cup Sell Platform offers everything in one place: business plans, tasks, missions, rankings, training and rewards for everyone.

The Motivation Direct offer includes:

• developing a gamification strategy and the plot of the game
• selection of gamification techniques
• implementation of software and IT system
• selection of awards and reward tools
• project management and campaign reporting
• reporting the results of the action

Cup Sell available functionalities:

1. Basic points – points awarded for the implementation of current tasks and missions, exchanged for prizes, e-vouchers, top-ups
2. Badge – attributes awarded for the achievement of missions, tasks, etc. presented in the form of orders, stars, cups, energy.
c. Missions – short and simple tasks (operational, business, qualitative, quantitative) to be performed by a single Participant or a team.
3. Ranking, levels and leaderboard – rankings and leaderboards are a key element of any competition.
e. Games and contests – for the needs of our clients, we have created ready-made games and contests for which we can create any topic or business context
4. E-learning – a module with available training and knowledge verification, ie tests, quizzes or surveys.
5. Communication and notifications – a communication module that ensures sending system messages (SMS, e-mail) (after specific events) or personalized messages to a selected group of recipients.
6. Reports – a reporting module that allows constant access to the results of individual Participants, activities in individual tasks, missions or games, the number of points or badges accumulated, place in the ranking, sales results.
7. Prize catalog – it is an essential element of effective reward. Our Prizes Catalog is the largest e-shop with prizes available on the market, offering not only prizes in kind, but also a wide range of e-vouchers and prepaid card top-ups.

We all love games and we all like to win. Gamification is currently one of the most effective tools to strengthen the commitment and motivation of Employees, Customers and Business Partners. Being a pioneer in this area will definitely pay off.

Don’t wait and ask for details.

A:  Motivation Direct, ul. Czeczota 31, 02-607 Warszawa
T:  +48 22 201 24 56
E:  Information
W: Motivation Direct