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How to Use Game Mechanics to Reward Your Customers

How to Use Game Mechanics to Reward Your Customers
There's a green card. Then there's silver, gold, and platinum. And then there's the Centurion—the black American Express card. Which do you want in your wallet? A handful of luxury brands have for decades used promises of status to encourage customers to spend more through loyalty to their brands. Consider Foursquare, a company built entirely on a game-design model. The new rewards ecosystem is a marketer's dream. "Historically, customer engagement was something big brands did a lot better due to full scale loyalty programs," says Gabe Zichermann, a blogger who authored Game-Based Marketing and who hosts of the Gamification Summit. That's changing. Rewarding Customers Through Gamification: Why Game Mechanics? People are hard-wired to enjoy positive reinforcement. Consider golf: Social interaction aside, why would anyone go to a course and attempt to hit a tiny ball into a far-away hole? "Foursquare was a really great early example of this happening," McGonigal says.

Paper Towel Problem Solved I had a problem. In my classroom bathroom (my room used to be a preschool classroom), I would find tons of paper towel trash all over the floor whenever students washed their hands after a messy project. I tried just remind them to get their paper towel in the trash can and telling them we shouldn't make our awesome custodians' jobs harder and none of it worked. I printed a really simple sign (shown above) that says: Paper Towel in the Trash Can 100 POINTS!!! Paper Towel on the floor... Added some smiley faces and sad faces and some burst shapes behind the points, laminated it, and taped it to the paper towel dispenser.

The ten rules of gamification Gamification may have been the buzzword of 2010, but its influence shows no sign of abating in 2011. It is a term derided by game designers, misunderstood by brands and unknown to consumers. So as you set out to “gamify” your business, what are the cardinal rules of gamification? 1. You’re not making a game Gamification is not the same as game-making. Gamification is about using game-like mechanics to improve a business process, or customer experience, or profits. Game-making is about fun and wonder and challenge and art. “Want more hovertanks? So stop thinking about how you can build a real-time strategy game with resources allocated according to your customers’ weekly shopping bill – “Want more hovertanks? 2. See #1 above. What is the point of your game? Go away. 3. Gamification can be very powerful. Can you achieve it without gamifiying? In short, realise that gamification is no quick fix or panacea. 4. Seriously. “Oh, but that’s different, they sell big games in boxes.” 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Sixty-two Reasons Why "Gamification" Is Played Out | Co.Design "Game mechanics" are the new digital hotness these days. Fueled by business books like Total Engagement, successful apps like Foursquare, and presentations-gone-viral like Jesse Schell's "gamepocalypse" talk, it seems like every damn thing on the Internet is getting some gamelike interaction grafted onto it like a cyborg appendage. And Sebastian Deterding, a designer and researcher at Hamburg University, has had enough. He distilled his thoughts on "gamification and its discontents" into an embeddable 62-slide presentation that's pithy and pretty in equal measure. Deterling attacks the gamification trend from a variety of angles, but his argument boils down to this: points, badges, and leaderboards do not a true game make. Here's his visual indictment of how points -- a key feature of gamified products, services, and marketing schemes -- miss the point: The whole presentation is worth viewing.

Three Thoughts on #Games & #Gamification Harrisburg Presentation Resources Here are some resources from my presentation in Harrisburg. Defining and Exploring Gamification from Karl Kapp Here is some additional information. Articles and Blog Entries of Interest 8 Types of Stories to Effect Change Storytelling and Instructional Design Eight Game Elements to Make Learning More Intriguing Games, Gamification and the Quest for Learner Engagement Gamification, […] Continue Reading → 2014 DOE Symposium Conference Resources Here are my resources for the 2014 DOE Symposium Conference. Continue Reading → Great fun at ITEAA Conference & Introduction of Exciting Game-Based Learning Modules Last week I had a chance to attend the ITEAA Conference which is the conference of the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association. Continue Reading → Instructional Games and Narrative Instructional games work best when there is a narrative that provides the learner with the proper context for the learning that needs to take place.

Gamification Platform | Gamify What Is the Future of Gamification? [Survey] Since Seth Priebatsch's keynote at this year's SXSW, excitement about adding a "game layer" to the world - liberating games from their traditional place on a computer screen and imposing game-like, social and situational constraints onto the real world (largely through mobile apps) - has positively erupted. There's been considerable interest from businesses across industries, educators, social innovators and techies alike. Latitude Research (which partnered with ReadWriteWeb last year on a study about kids and future Web technology) has launched a new study on The Future of Gaming - they want to hear fresh perspectives from both game enthusiasts and non-gamers. What do you think the role of games will (or should) be in the future? Can they motivate and inspire people to reach personal or societal goals? Can they bring together online and offline experiences in meaningful ways? Participate in Latitude's 10-minute survey on the future of gaming.

Gamification Categorization[edit] Gamification in a narrow sense is used in a non-game context, is built into the service system, and is aiming at an infinite experience. It does not aim at creating a game but offering a gameful experience. In a broader sense gamification also includes game context such as in serious games and finite and infinite games.[20] Another categorization compares gamification with other gameful approaches by looking at characteristics such as spontaneity, rules, or goals:[20] Techniques[edit] Gamification techniques strive to leverage people's natural desires for socializing, learning, mastery, competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism, or closure. Another approach to gamification is to make existing tasks feel more like games.[27] Some techniques used in this approach include adding meaningful choice, onboarding with a tutorial, increasing challenge,[28] and adding narrative.[27] Applications[edit] Gamification has been widely applied in marketing.

7 Winning Examples of Game Mechanics in Action Gabe Zichermann is the author of Gamification by Design and chair of the upcoming Gamification Summit NYC, where top leaders in the field - such as those profiled here - get together to share insight, key metrics and best practices. Mashable readers are invited to register with special savings at GSummit.com using code MASH10. Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems. In other words, it means taking the best lessons from games like FarmVille, World of Warcraft and Angry Birds, and using them in business. Whether targeted at customers or employees, across industries as diverse as technology, health care, education, consumer products, entertainment and travel, gamification’s impact can already be felt. While some have criticized the concept of gamification as shallow or demeaning, the initial findings from gamification specialists are nothing short of astonishing. 1. 2. But Kim wasn’t satisfied. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

5 examples of great gamification | Gamification Here, we discover why gamification is an important aspect of web design and take a look at the best examples from around the web. What is gamification anyway? Gamification is the concept of bringing game mechanics or design to something that isn't usually considered game-like, whether it's a website, web app or native app. The goal is to make that traditional platform more engaging by adding a gaming edge to it. There are many different aspects of gaming that can be brought to a website or app. Some examples are: achievements, hidden bonuses, countdowns, progression, questing and status type information such as leader-boards. Actions and rewards are the basic building blocks of gamifying anything on the web. Deciding on what your users get for which tasks and taking into consideration the numerous different combinations and results will determine the success of your design. Fun and games Gamification by itself isn't the silver bullet to making your website or application awesome. 01. 02.

Review | The Engagement Economy | How gamification is reshaping businesses By Doug Palmer, Steve Lunceford and Aaron J. Patton > Photography by Matt Lennert Wayne Lin points at the onscreen scoreboard for his new application that allows friends to compare and discuss their household electricity use. “Energy consumption is not something people usually talk about,” he says.1 But on this app people are talking—a lot. Lin is the director of Product Management at Opower (pronounced Oh-Power), a company that has built a customer engagement platform to help deliver energy efficiency programs to the electric utility industry. “Our goal is to foster an environment where people talk about their energy use in ways their friends can relate to. Both school and work can be viewed as a sequence of challenges, quests and levels, with a badge awarded in the end in the form of a diploma, a job promotion to the next title, the status of valedictorian, or a year-end financial bonus. Opower’s new product is more than an online report. Beyond scouts and badges

How to Use Gamification to Motivate Your Agents By Erica Strother | Published: June 28, 2013 | Comments (1) We recently polled community members to ask if they’re currently using gamification as a part of the training process, and an overwhelming majority (more than 70%) of those who answered weren’t sure what gamification is. The truth is, even if you aren’t familiar with the term, you’ve probably used gamification techniques in some form or fashion. If you’re a Foursquare user you gamify on a regular basis. So, what exactly does this term mean? Currently, 88% of organizations say they run competitions in the workplace. Last week I spoke with Scott Buchanan of NICE Systems to find out what’s new in gamification technology and how call centers best leverage it for training and development. NICE Systems and Bunchball have partnered up to help organizations improve performance among customer-facing and back office employees by using gamification techniques such as virtual challenges, contests, and quests. Leave a comment

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