Gamification uses game mechanics and principles to incentivize customer behavior and drive loyalty. Current loyalty programs have failed to meaningfully engage customers or influence their actions. Social media has disrupted traditional marketing by influencing customer purchases and preferences. Gamification aims to convert casual customers into brand advocates by tapping into human motivations like status and achievement. It fosters greater customer involvement, interaction, and influence on others by setting tasks and rewards to engage customers and encourage sharing within social networks. Implementing gamification properly requires understanding what motivates customers and designing an engaging journey that provides feedback on progress.

1. Breaking RealityUsing The Gaming Layer in Business

2. Naval VithalaniCurrent Business ChallengesAs the retail business has grown, the personal touch has gone away. Today, the interaction between a retailer and the customer is very transactional. Traditional loyalty programs had promised deep insights to customer behavior and customer engagement. Every retailer claims that the customer is theirs but is the customer really tied down to one retailer? With customers having multiple loyalty cards, our ‘Loyal Customer’ have become ‘Bargain Customers’. Other than one or two major implementation across the world the rest of the loyalty programs are nothing but a liability sitting on the balance sheets. Loyalty has failed to deliver what it promised. In the social media influenced era, businesses have to re-access their customer engagement strategies- How are they engaging in a dialogue with customers How can they influencing customer behavior towards the business

3. How are they attracting new customers

4. Are they ‘Retaining’ existing customersCurrent customer programs have failed to deliver the promised land

5. The Great Disruption – Social MediaSocial Media has become the Great Disruption of our generation. Prior to the advent of Social Media networks like Face Book and Twitter the marketing strategies of an organization were based on traditional market research data. With the likes of Face Book increasingly influencing what customer see, what they buy and how their network of friends influences what how they spend their weekends, money and holidays. The entire game has changed forever. What does this Disruption mean for the business?It means that social networks particularly Face Book's importance in the marketing mix will grow significantly. Businesses need to leverage the social media networks.Businesses have noticed how the customer behavior has changed from ‘Before Face Book’ to ‘After Face Book’. Now businesses need to convert the casual shopper into a ‘Brand Advocate’, an ‘Influencer’. The challenge is how to get the ‘Influencers’ and ‘Advocates’ to speak on behalf of the companies.The future is not just providing a great product assortment, but also getting customers to be advocates. Gamification strategies are targeted towards converting customers into ‘Influencers’ and ‘Advocates’ to drive engagement towards the corporate goals.Increasingly Social Media is influencing how customers shop

6. Gamification – An IntroductionGamification is the use of Game Thinking and Game Mechanics to incentivize customer behavior, drive adoption and create loyalty in business.Gaming Layer is about modifying people’s real world behavior by tapping into the psychological trigger points that prompt them to behave in a particular way and to take action by keeping them interested and engaged. Gaming Layer is the use of Virtual World Rules and applying them to the Real World. Gamification is a process that delivers ‘Stickiness’ in customer engagement.In order to understand why gaming layer is the way forward, we need to ask one simple question – while playing any game whether board games or gaming consol or online. Why do we cheat? The answer is simple – To Win. Gaming Layer taps into the basic human emotions of ‘Status’, ‘Pride’, ‘Achievement’ and ‘Tribes’. It is about understanding what motivates us and then changing the rules of the business accordingly. Fun and Games can drive engagement, motivate behavior, and increase user participation.Gamification makes all the routine tasks into an Engaging, Social, Fun and increase Brand Loyalty

7. The i’ of GamificationInvolvement - Gamification fosters increased participation by increasing the number of times the customer comes back to the store, to the website or uses the mobile application. The involvement is higher if the customer is incentivized with rewards for referrals and sharing data on social networks.Interaction - It is not just the views but also how long people spend time on the website, how often they end up shopping in the store increases engagement. By setting up a ‘Task-Reward’ dynamic customers can be influenced to act in a particular manner.Intimacy - Gamification provides a channel to convert customers into ‘Influencers’ and ‘Advocates’. By incentivizing people with badges and virtual goods for various activities we can convert a shopper into an ‘Advocate’. For example if someone who has shared a positive feedback on a shopping experience or a product, if the company recognizes that individual changes the entire game as the person for their own status will become an advocate for the company.Influence - By incentivizing customer behavior Gamification helps the business create influencers in the marketplace. For example by incentivizing a simple thing as ‘Refer to a friend’ or ‘Share on Social Networks’ customers go out of their way to broadcast their purchase. People need a self assurance and Gamification delivers it.5

8. Key PointsKnow your Gamer and their motivationsDesign a Journey Make it FunMake it easy to play and yet difficult to masterGive Feedback and show progressReward every actionWith Dynamics you can get anyone to act the way you want them toRenewed customer engagementKnowledge building and costLeverage existing systemsTap into the multi billion dollar virtual goods industry

9. CONTACT AND LEGAL INFORMATIONThis document is the Property of Naval Vithalani and any use, reference, representation or citation without the written consent of the author is prohibited. The document is the ownership of Mr. Vithalani.For implementation of Gaming Strategy in your company please get in touch with the author.