Vice President, Marketing
@ErikaBlaney
Reading Don’t Think About the Chips, a recent blog post by Hongyu Chen, reminded me how people frequently confuse gamification with “reward-based” incentives. Like Chen, I’m well aware of the popular misconception that tangible rewards can be terrific motivators. “Get a free cup of coffee after your tenth visit.” “Top salesperson of the month will win this plasma TV!” Etc. Etc.
In the post, Chen reminisces about when, as a kindergartener (!), he participated in a chess tournament and witnessed one of his friends blow a sure victory – despite the fact that the friend’s mother had promised her son a bag of his favorite chips if he won. As Chen now understands, tangible rewards like the chips are lousy motivators. In fact, they can have the opposite effect. He then goes on to underscore his point, stating that “over 40 years of management research corroborates the evidence that material incentives rarely improve, and in many cases harm, individual performance on cognitive tasks.”
That’s precisely why gamification is not about tangible rewards. Instead, gamification is grounded in intrinsic motivation.
On some level, I can understand the disconnect. For decades, those looking to motivate behaviors in the name of “loyalty” have leveraged approaches where points translate into some sort of “currency” that can be spent on tangible rewards. The jaded premise is that motivation occurs only when there’s a promise of some item in return –and even today, many purported “gamification vendors” are actually continuing this fallacy. It’s a bit like the carnival workers who trick you into playing a rigged game for the chance to win a stuffed toy. Sure, games like this can be fun every now and then. But, even if you do win, you realize you overpaid (in time and money) for your prize. And if you don’t win, you know it’s your own fault. You were duped. When you apply these methods in the name of engagement, will it engender trust, drive return visits and encourage repeat behavior among your customers, partners and employees? Not likely.
At Bunchball, we take a different approach.
We know that for gamification to be an effective business tool, it needs to take scientifically-based methods and apply them to non-game contexts. So the end result is not a game, and it’s not a traditional reward-based contest, either. With Bunchball, our customers get an enterprise engagement platform –a data-driven motivation strategy that harnesses the innate ambitions of your employees, customers and/or partners while engaging them in activities, content and systems that are meaningful to them, and beneficial for your business success.
If the primary driver of a loyalty program is free swag or a winner-takes-all contests, many will feel like they are being bought or manipulated for cheap trinkets, and that response actually erodes intrinsic motivation. Decades of behavior science prove that a one-dimensional approach does little to inspire better performance – and, in fact, it can actually have the opposite effect. At worst, it could demoralize your audience.
But don’t get me wrong. Incentives aren’t always wrong. Many of Bunchball’s customers do tie point economies to incentives –and they frequently see an increased “good will halo” as a result. However, that response only comes when incentives are the extension of a fully developed and already-effective gamification program. Smart companies, like Nationwide, have adopted a staged strategy: they started by addressing employee motivations and frustrations, drove a 100 percent improvement in engagement, and only now are looking at incentives.
At Bunchball, we approach each customer with a holistic strategy engagement combined with a robust enterprise platform. With hundreds of programs under our belts, we have the greatest industry breadth and experience. And I can assure you: Our solution is about more than badges and leaderboards. When a gamification platform taps intrinsic motivators –when people understand why they're doing what you're doing and how they can improve; when they can see their progress toward meaningful goals and how their efforts relate to others –users become eager and willing to contribute and grow. As a result, business performance improves, measurably and fast.
True engagement is absolutely worth it. Gamification has helped crack the code to a decades’ old disengagement problem, and solid programs routinely deliver incredible business results. But don’t be fooled when a vendor comes knocking with a bag full of badges and a whole slew of give-aways. Don’t be swayed by that stuffed toy. True engagement pays off each and every time… but it takes more than a bag of chips.