Delivering improvement across the customer experience through gamification

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Marketing trends are evolving rapidly in today’s society. The customer, and the requirements for the customer experience and what constitutes good customer service, are different to what they were 50 years ago, 20 years, or even 10 years ago – the technology available and the connectedness of everything has truly changed what’s possible and necessary when it comes to delivering impactful customer journeys.

As a result, gamification, particularly in phygital applications, has become a true asset for all brands or companies wishing to stand out from their competitors and better engage with their target users.

In this article, we’ll examine how gamification, and an effective gamification strategy, empowers businesses to improve the customer journey to positively affect satisfaction rates.

Defining gamification and “phygital”

Gamification is applying game mechanics to non-gaming contexts to improve user engagement. Think about how in games, people get competitive, and strive to perform better. By taking the mechanics that elicit this response in people, you can get the most out of people in training, education, and marketing contexts. You’re making something more interesting, and using rewards and storytelling as motivations. Because gamification is digital, it often finds itself being utilised in “phygital” strategies.

Adopting a phygital strategy is a marketing concept seeking to improve the customer experience, using technology to bridge the gap between the digital service and physical service a business might offer. It is often used in retail or event planning to create a unique customer experience. It ultimately boils down to giving customers the advantages of using a business’s physical location, as well as the advantages of a business’s digital presence. For example, marrying the personal and expert touch of a sales professional, but with access to an entire company’s stock, rather than being limited to what’s available at your nearest location. Think about buying something online, it not being quite right, and being able to exchange it at your nearest branch – seamlessly – no faff, no hassle, just an easy experience.

The concept capitalises on the most effective physical and digital marketing strategies to offer a vibrant and fun experience to customers or participants. We use digital aspects for their speed, efficiency and versatility for purchasing, and the physical experience for actually discovering the product and human contact, as well as direct advice services. A phygital experience is an experience that meets the omnichannel demands of ultra-connected consumers like millennials and generation Z, and is an essential piece of the customer relationship marketing puzzle.

What are customers still looking for from stores?

According to a study conducted by Snapchat on the future of shopping, customers were eager to return to in-store shopping during the lockdowns of the pandemic. Half of consumers said they missed shopping in person during this time.

On the other hand, 50% of millenials and generation Z customers never shop without their phones (it’s almost hard to believe that this figure isn’t higher). Even more interestingly, 35% of customers world-wide said that they would be willing to make the extra effort to go into a store offering digital experiences.

Online and in-store retail are complementary to each other. Together they allow you to create a better brand experience and increase customer loyalty. The use of technology is a bonus for all brands hoping to really stand out to millenials and generation Z, who in the medium to long term will have the highest disposable incomes.

How do you create a phygital experience for retail with gamification?

Gamification helps you captivate an audience whilst achieving a commercial or educational goal. It’s a digital tool that’s proved its worth in the marketing world for engaging customers, in the corporate world for engaging employees, and it’s a tool very well suited to the creation of phygital concepts. Whether it is in the form of a treasure hunt to help users discover a new brand, a Product Recommendation Quiz to support a customer in making the right purchase, or an in-store Photo Contest to highlight a particular campaign, the only limit is imagination.

The cosmetics industry has utilised gamification in delivering phygital experiences for a few years now. Because it’s such an obviously specialist area, and there’s so much conflicting information around, as well as scientific elements, and so much variety in terms of what’s available, it’s an area that lends itself well to gamification. There’s a lot of content to populate games, and a lot of relevant information brands would like to educate target audiences on (and in many cases, relevant information customers would like to know more about themselves), so games make a great vehicle for connecting target customers to relevant products.

We’ll run through a couple of examples of phygital gamification in the cosmetics sector, but these could serve as jumping off points for other specialty retailers trading within a niche, or even more general retailers like supermarkets which contain many niches within their offerings. Cooking, baking, fine wines and spirits – all these are areas where gamification can serve to connect audiences with products by educating them on how best to use them.

Examples of phygital in cosmetics

Sephora

The brand Sephora is one of the phygital pioneers. In 2017, it introduced its first digital experiences in some of its stores in the United States and France. They installed Beauty Hubs with tablets or giant touchscreens to allow customers to find out more about their products, get a skin analysis, and receive make-up tutorials.

More recently, the brand updated its mobile app to use geofencing to send geographically relevant information to its customers. It also sends promotions, as well as notifications of live tutorials available in the stores closest to users.

Coty

Beauty brand Coty put in place various gamified phygital operations with Drimify in the World Duty-Free stores in Heathrow Airport, Seoul Airport, and other large international hubs. This in-store digital marketing game aimed to get travellers to interact with different Coty brands to get a discount code to incentivise purchasing.

Through a QR code available on advertising banners that were displayed on the welcome page of the airport’s wifi, as well as interactive screens and tablets managed by the staff in-store, customers were able to take part in a Quiz on their phone. They had to answer 3 questions by finding the answers on the shop’s shelves.

This phygital campaign saw an increase of 92% in the average basket for Coty brands during the operation, meaning this marketing game campaign delivered exceptional return on investment (ROI). To find out more about the campaign, check out the case study on the Drimlike agency website.

Gamification and phygital: the future

Gamification is already making processes and business functions easier in workplaces and marketing contexts, and has even been utilised in the banking sector, but ultimately everything can be gamified for greater results with intelligent and thoughtful planning.

The cosmetics sector may be one of the quickest and loudest attendees when it comes to gamifying a digital strategy, but it’s still a very under-utilised digital too, and through accessible games creation platforms like Drimify, it’s really at the fingertips of businesses of all sizes looking to improve the customer experience, and support users through their purchasing journeys.

Drimify can help you to create your gamified phygital experience

Do you need some inspiration to set up a fun phygital campaign adapted to the content of your brand?

The DrimTeam is at your service to help with the planning, creation, and implementation of your phygital project. Contact us to talk about your project and let us share our expertise with you.