By Molly Kittle, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Bunchball
@MolKittle
Odds are, you're familiar with the term "gamification." You may even be able to point to a specific use case where it proved to be a powerful tool for improving business performance. But here's something you might not know: Gamification can be used throughout the entire enterprise, for all business units. In other words, gamification can unlock your company's potential across all employees, all job titles and all departments.
That's possible because, done right, a gamification platform leverages basic human intrinsic motivators (which we all have), data (which we all now generate when we work) and strategic business goals (which we all should be working towards).
Who can be motivated by this strategy? Let me give you a few gamification examples in buisnesses:
- Call center agents. Call centers collect huge amounts of data about their agents. But, instead of using this data to intimidate and/or spy (as though "Big Brother" is watching), call center managers are putting this data to use with gamification, to influence employee actions in positive ways. As I mentioned above, gamification is about motivating people through data – and it has been proven to work well in call centers. In a case we highlighted last year, Allied Global used gamification to reduce turnover, improve workflow and create a winning feeling among its call center agents.
- Sales reps. A gamification platform can systematically engage sales reps wherever they are, while continually adding data to established systems. Consequently, managers can learn about the business in real-time and drive meaningful change. A Fortune 500, multi-national IT company, created a gamified environment within Salesforce.com to onboard a new inside sales team, encourage best practices and proficiency. Not only did they see a 65 percent increase in weekly users of Salesforce.com, but average days-to-close dropped 54 percent while the rate at which opportunities converted to closed or won increased by 14 percent – all within one month.
- IT support staff. Gamification can help establish, and then nurture, a collaborative, self-service IT Service Management (ITSM) environment. That's precisely what's needed to keep help desk teams fresh, so they can drive improvements. In fact, we've seen IT support managers use gamification to improve a variety of key performance metrics, such as tickets closed, call time reduction, CSAT score improvement and knowledge articles created.
- Hourly employees. Hourly employees are typically difficult to engage, motivate and retain. But RMH Franchise Corporation, which operates more than 130 Applebee's restaurants throughout the United States, is finding that gamification can have a positive impact on each of those fronts. RMH created a gamified website called Bee Block to tap into the motivations of its hourly workforce, and the early results show impressive improvements in employee engagement, along with a 20 percent reduction in turnover (considering the average turnover for hourly-employed restaurant workers is a whopping 125 percent, a 20 percent reduction is nothing short of remarkable). Ultimately, one of RMH's goals is to transform its wait staff and bartenders from "order-takers" to sellers – a change that could have a big impact on revenue overall.
- Millennials. Employers often find it challenging to engage millennials, particularly when it comes to the kind of long-term planning required for participation in workplace programs, like retirement plans. That's why Sun Life Financial, a financial services company, used a gamified online education platform called money UP to inspire financial literacy and increase participation the workplace retirement programs offered by its customers. In the first six months after launch, Sun Life customers who implemented money UP saw that 33 percent of their employees who finished Level 1 increased their retirement contributions and/or added a new product. That result showed that money UP had a positive impact across all age groups, but digging deeper, Sun Life found that millennials have been among the highest proportion of participants in the platform. What's more, millennials have also been the most active, comprising 33 percent of all players and 44 percent of employees who increased contributions or added product. But don't make the mistake of thinking gamification is just for Gen Y. Our customers are using the Bunchball gamification platform to inspire employees of all ages and levels, including even...
- Senior executive leaders. Gamification can motivate constructive conversation in social communities, and that, in turn, can inspire sharing, collaboration and innovation across all levels of employees. We've seen Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) use gamified social networks powered by Jive to improve collaboration between customers, partners and employees – including senior executive leaders. As a result, gamification has helped HDS generate valuable intellectual capital.
As you can see in the above gamification examples, companies are using gamification platforms to engage their employees, motivate better performance and drive ROI across all levels and all departments. Remember, at its core, gamification is a data-driven motivation strategy. Who can gamification motivate at your company?