.JPG)
Tool promotes customer and employee engagement
Increasing engagement among a company's employees is a challenge for organizations from the most diverse sectors and sizes. A concept that started in the IT sector, and that has been gaining more and more followers within companies that seek tools and strategies for this purpose, is “gamification” or “gamification”, a practice that establishes scores, goals and awards. The topic was addressed in a lecture promoted by Vertical Games of the Santa Catarina Association of Technology Companies (ACATE), in Florianópolis, given by Alexandre Sena, a doctoral student at UFSC, researcher in the field and partner of the game developer company PalmSoft Tecnologia.
At the event, Sena spoke about the psychology behind gamification and the motivation of players according to game developers, as well as presenting world cases on the use of gamification in the IT sector and industry. In an interview with ABES Portal, the specialist detailed the concept.
What is it and when did gamification start to be applied?
Gamification is not something new, human beings have always been looking for ways to motivate their companions. But the current approach has been heavily influenced by the need to attract users to social media actions (games, apps, etc).
How does it promote the engagement of customers and employees?
Gamification uses psychological concepts, such as positive reinforcement, social recognition, acquired needs, among others, to create an environment that the client or employee enjoys being part of, promoting and even defending.
What are the advantages of this practice?
At first, the use of extrinsic motivation techniques – actions that guarantee a reward based on a desired behavior – guarantees quick adherence. However, this approach demonstrates low retention in the long term, which leads to the need for a strategy that involves the use of complementary techniques that encourage intrinsic motivation - the one associated with the desire to do something because it generates pleasure or a feeling of achievement. The sum of these two sides of motivation helps in the quick adhesion and increase in the target audience's engagement.
Can you give examples of gamification used in human resources?
A great example of gamification in human resources is an application used in conjunction with CRM Salesforce. Data from the company's own blog (blogs.salesforce.com) demonstrate that an initiative for customer relationship management, and hence sales force management, has a success rate of 50%. In a survey of 100 companies that used a gamified solution, the success rate increased to 90.4%, with a performance increase between 11% and 50%.
What about marketing strategies?
Samsung, through Samsung Nation, wanted to increase interactivity with its customers. Together with an American gamification consultancy, the company launched a loyalty program, whereby users were awarded badges (virtual insignias that represent user achievements) for making reviews or watching videos. This action increased the number of product reviews by 500%.
What are the precautions when developing this type of initiative? What is the average development time?
It is important to emphasize that gamification is not about games, it is about the use of mechanics used in the games industry in other sectors. In other words, developing a game to put on your website is not gamifying your portal, putting your company's brand inside a game, it is not a gamification action in marketing. With this in mind, a gamification strategy will normally follow the following steps: identification of the target audience's profiles and their motivators; planning an engagement strategy; choosing the best engagement techniques, based on the identified profiles; implementation of a gamification platform; continuous monitoring by the company. It would be very difficult to do something meaningful in just one month. So, I think the minimum time would be two months, it could take a year, depending on the research needed to define the profile.
What are the prospects for this type of business for companies and industry professionals in Brazil?
Gamification has the potential to be to this generation what the Total Quality movement was to the previous one. Game developers enter this race with an advantage of already mastering the techniques for use in their games. The biggest risk that is observed is its inappropriate use. Gamification is an excellent tool to complement marketing, valuing and retaining talent and training. However, it is recommended that the implementation of a gamification initiative always start with an analysis phase, as it is no use trying to gamify something that does not instill in the user a sense of accomplishment or in an organization that is not committed to giving due recognition.
At the event, Sena spoke about the psychology behind gamification and the motivation of players according to game developers, as well as presenting world cases on the use of gamification in the IT sector and industry. In an interview with ABES Portal, the specialist detailed the concept.
What is it and when did gamification start to be applied?
Gamification is not something new, human beings have always been looking for ways to motivate their companions. But the current approach has been heavily influenced by the need to attract users to social media actions (games, apps, etc).
How does it promote the engagement of customers and employees?
Gamification uses psychological concepts, such as positive reinforcement, social recognition, acquired needs, among others, to create an environment that the client or employee enjoys being part of, promoting and even defending.
What are the advantages of this practice?
At first, the use of extrinsic motivation techniques – actions that guarantee a reward based on a desired behavior – guarantees quick adherence. However, this approach demonstrates low retention in the long term, which leads to the need for a strategy that involves the use of complementary techniques that encourage intrinsic motivation - the one associated with the desire to do something because it generates pleasure or a feeling of achievement. The sum of these two sides of motivation helps in the quick adhesion and increase in the target audience's engagement.
Can you give examples of gamification used in human resources?
A great example of gamification in human resources is an application used in conjunction with CRM Salesforce. Data from the company's own blog (blogs.salesforce.com) demonstrate that an initiative for customer relationship management, and hence sales force management, has a success rate of 50%. In a survey of 100 companies that used a gamified solution, the success rate increased to 90.4%, with a performance increase between 11% and 50%.
What about marketing strategies?
Samsung, through Samsung Nation, wanted to increase interactivity with its customers. Together with an American gamification consultancy, the company launched a loyalty program, whereby users were awarded badges (virtual insignias that represent user achievements) for making reviews or watching videos. This action increased the number of product reviews by 500%.
What are the precautions when developing this type of initiative? What is the average development time?
It is important to emphasize that gamification is not about games, it is about the use of mechanics used in the games industry in other sectors. In other words, developing a game to put on your website is not gamifying your portal, putting your company's brand inside a game, it is not a gamification action in marketing. With this in mind, a gamification strategy will normally follow the following steps: identification of the target audience's profiles and their motivators; planning an engagement strategy; choosing the best engagement techniques, based on the identified profiles; implementation of a gamification platform; continuous monitoring by the company. It would be very difficult to do something meaningful in just one month. So, I think the minimum time would be two months, it could take a year, depending on the research needed to define the profile.
What are the prospects for this type of business for companies and industry professionals in Brazil?
Gamification has the potential to be to this generation what the Total Quality movement was to the previous one. Game developers enter this race with an advantage of already mastering the techniques for use in their games. The biggest risk that is observed is its inappropriate use. Gamification is an excellent tool to complement marketing, valuing and retaining talent and training. However, it is recommended that the implementation of a gamification initiative always start with an analysis phase, as it is no use trying to gamify something that does not instill in the user a sense of accomplishment or in an organization that is not committed to giving due recognition.
EN 
PT 
