With our Power UP gaming event nearly upon us, we take a look at how gaming is being used by big businesses to improve the customer experience.

WHAT IS GAMIFICATION?

Whether you’re aware of it or not, gamification is a concept most of us have been engaged with for a while now. From nicking your mate’s KOM on Strava to Starbucks Rewards, many of us game on a daily basis without even realising it. Put simply, gamification is applying the principles of game design elements in non-game contexts.

The companies using gamification are taking the essence of what makes games so alluring (a shared sense of purpose, challenge and reward), decoding the mechanics that make them work (personalisation, rankings and leaderboards) and then applying these principles to enhance customer loyalty, encourage spending and provide mechanisms for retaining and encouraging talent.

The potential power of games-based applications has been magnified by the convergence of two major trends: the coming of age of Generation Y, and the overcrowding of the digital space, which makes it harder for companies to stand out.

Generation Y, the demographic born between 1980 and 2000, has not only grown up in a digital world, but they are also enthusiastic online gamers[..].

Source: Banking, gamification – and you | Museum of Science and Industry