7 The Most Effective Examples of Gamification in Business
- Date: 02 May, 2017
- Posted by: Leah Thurber
- Category: Writing
The technological gaming benefit in the business world is nothing less than successful. Gamification has embedded itself in businesses throughout the world and has become the norm when companies need an app service to motivate their customers or employees. It can be said that many businesses rely on the genius of gamification to help modify behaviors, introduce newly integrated skills, or as a problem solving tool. The following examples are how businesses are utilizing this fast growing trend.
Discounts/Freebies
When businesses encourage customers to “use our services” and the use of that service comes with incentives like discounts or freebies, this builds their customer base. When they use gamification, it makes it fun and engaging.
Skill Development
Today’s businesses are utilizing gamification to educate their employees, and offering employees that use the gaming type apps to move up in the company, well deserved raises upon completion of different levels like in an electronic manual.
Pearson Educational Services offers content that engages students through a series of games in order to learn math, accounting, computer information technology and more.
Personal Growth
For personal development, gamification is making its presence known. There was a time when magazines offered quizzes that asked various questions to see if you were suited for this or that. Testing your IQ was a big, and seeing who would make a good mate for you always made the guys uncomfortable. Today it is easier to pull up these types of quizzes and surveys on your phone or laptop and zoom through them with ease. Some even offer points to exchange for coupons and discounts at participating vendors, such as 1-800-flowers, or our service.
Creativity/ Virtual Home offices
Second Life, a virtual world, has built its gaming platform with the incentive that when someone plays, and creates something in their virtual world, that can be sold, the individual makes real money. Businesses are utilizing the Second Life gaming world as a way of meeting up without coming into the office. This gives employees a place to not only work, but to play, as they interact in a virtual world that has everything they need to function.
Online Schools
Educators are finding gamification a plus when utilizing it for their students. While some will use our service for their writing needs, something like math would be best suited for Khan Academy to handle. Khan has been teaching for free since 2006, and has its reach all over the world. Its gamification is in the form of badges and points, and little green leaves that pop up to show you that you have the answers correct. This site is very popular with students because of its gaming type style.
City and State offices
Government offices and testing centers have jumped on the gamification glory train also. There are not many brick and mortar buildings in cities, that don’t have screens to input your information, or websites that you can input your information and get feedback and even fully filled out documents. Many are advertising discounts at various local businesses to citizens that utilize the apps. City job testing in many states is now in game form, utilizing less paper and time than ever.
The Personal Touch Still Matters
Although gamification is a big part of how we engage each other today, it is not the end all. Businesses have to remember that they are dealing with real people. A few badges, loyalty points or coupons, are not going to make individuals bend to a companies’ every whim. The focus of these integrated games must be goal oriented or they will lose their intended effect which leads to money wasted, and no company wants that.
When considering gamification for your business make sure that you use a company to build your software that has the ability to build with your particular bottom line in mind, and keep in mind that the draw to these types of apps is the human need to be competitive. The list of good available apps is long and changes fast. Technology is now a mainstay in our lives, and the more gamified it is the more people seem to enjoy it. It has become our service provider in a lot of ways, however impersonal that may sound. Even Facebook makes sure that games are readily available on their pages, along with ads.
- Tagged in: business work success entrepreneurship