Increasing your customer satisfaction rate through gamification

The customer satisfaction rate has always been a key metric for companies across sectors, and forward thinking businesses are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to stand out and make their brand competitive in this regard. Very few businesses miss the opportunity to make a big selling point of their record in customer satisfaction and customer care, particularly if they provide services directly to customers (D2C), whether they’re online or at a physical location.

Rapid advances in mobile and internet technology have been creating new opportunities for businesses to better deliver on this metric, both through the service they offer, and the way they can offer it. There is a constant arms race to harness and master the most effective new digital tools to improve their customer satisfaction rate. This is where gamification stands head and shoulders above all other techniques. Effectively used and developed, gamified content helps make the customer experience more productive, achieves greater levels of audience engagement, and secures brand loyalty.

Why is gamification so popular in marketing?

Gamification is the application of game mechanics and game design elements, particularly those of video games, to typically less playful contexts to help get better results. Virtual environments created digitally within online marketing games can engage users and increase their commitment to an action, activity, or task. By delivering a fun (or at least compelling) interactive experience, demonstrating user progress and rewarding achievements, and telling a branded story, you have an effective way to guide participants towards desired actions or behaviours, such as to make a purchase.

By exploiting the same behavioural patterns and elements seen in video games, gamification can help a brand create lasting user engagement and loyalty. Delivering fun, repeatable experiences as a part of doing business with a brand encourages people to come back and buy again. It is also not surprising that the popularity of gamification has exploded alongside the rise of mobile gaming and the popularity of esports. Companies have quickly realised that customers are interested in games and are more willing to spend time and effort to participate in activities they find fun and rewarding.

In the marketing sphere, the use of gamification allows a business to make more interactive branded content and advertising than traditional promotional media. It’s participatory rather than passive, by inviting the user to have an experience, it’s more insistent upon itself. By tailoring the different game mechanics, and playing with how the narrative unfolds through a gamified experience, you can make marketing games to help communicate the benefits of particular products and services, facilitate the buying journey and customer experience of doing business with your company, gather contacts, or even incentivise purchasing.

How can you use gamification in your loyalty programme?

Although gamification can be used to improve a wide range of business and marketing processes, a great place to start is to look at the way you’re approaching customer relationship marketing, as it has a very direct impact on sales and your bottom line. Here are some gamification ideas to help you gamify your customer loyalty programme:

Create point-based levels

Levels are a classic and effective game mechanic to make people want to continue an experience and reach the next level. They are used to signal progress and help customers track their journey through a programme. Start by dividing your programme into levels and by giving a certain number of points after an action is completed, the customer can then unlock access to different rewards and special features.

Create progress bars

The progress bar is a great way to track and visualise the customer’s progress towards completing a particular action (such as purchasing certain products, signing up for a newsletter, etc.). In addition, it can also be used to show how close a customer is to reaching the next level of your loyalty programme and potentially earning further rewards.

Attractive rewards

To make your loyalty programme enticing, also consider regular rewards to encourage customers to take advantage of your offers and participate in your programme. Reward your new customers when they first buy, but also your loyal customers when they come back for repeat purchases. A shopping experience that offers regular rewards and actionably places value on loyalty will be effective when it comes to customer retention.

Use gaming to increase your customer satisfaction rate

The customer satisfaction rate is probably the most important metric by which to measure a business’s success. Obviously, there are other practices and considerations which, if ignored, will result in business failure, but if you have satisfied customers, that’s your foundation for success laid.

Designing a good gamification programme that helps to deliver on targeted customer satisfaction rates requires understanding the needs and expectations of your audience, and applying this understanding to every aspect of the game’s design. Through games created on the Drimify platform, you have tried-and-tested game engines to customise, case studies to consult for inspiration, and should you need it, agency services options to draw upon. As all games created on the platform offer real-time data collection, you’ll be able to assess your game’s performance, and learn from each project to improve your approach.

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